New Retail Garden Center Opens in CWE

Please do not buy plants at Home Depot. Preferably, don’t buy anything at Home Depot or the new Lowe’s when it opens in Loughborough Commons. I would be thrilled to see both of these big box chains close their St. Louis area stores due to everyone shopping at locally owned stores instead. But, I’m getting sidetracked on a big box rant. This is a positive post!

A very cool looking new garden center has just opened in the West End at 4605 Olive:

Bowood Farms has been growing quality plants since 1989, specializing in perennials, roses, ferns, groundcovers, grasses, shrubs and vines. We have an extensive line of missouri native plants as well. Now we are bringing these quality plants directly to you so please come check out our new St. Louis retail garden center when it opens this spring. Please call for hours and directions. We can also special grow native plants for you landscape projects, please call to inquire.

4605 Olive St.
St. Louis, MO 63108
Telephone: (314)454-6868

This company is making a huge investment in the area. They’ve done a great job with the buildings so far and they are planning more, including a cafe. From hellmuth+bicknese architects:

The project is being designed as a destination point featuring a central street side cafe with a terrace overlooking the plant displays. A high loggia surrounds the open-air displays with an upper gallery beneath a green roof. The cafe itself contains a bar and seating area with 14′ ceilings and views to the plant displays through a green screen archway. The inside seating area is around 860 SF with an outdoor terraced seating area of 1,200 SF.

The cafe are is still under construction but the retail garden center is open for business.

St. Louis City and County are dotted with other locally owned retail garden centers such as Bayer’s on Hampton. I’ve also bought plants at the place on the NE corner of Watson & Fyler (I always forget the name). I think the South Side Garden Center is still open on Cherokee at Compton. Even if you are not in the city you most likely have a locally owned nursery near you home. Some are small but others can be quite big and offer a larger selection than the big box places.

So back to Bowood.

The building is located on Olive just East of Euclid. But, if you are going there by car don’t take Euclid because you can’t get through. The streets in this area have been blockaded for years.

At one time these concrete barriers may have made sense but today they stand in the way of investment marching through areas where it is needed. A few places, like Bowood, have leapt over the barriers but the area still has the ‘wrong side of the tracks’ feel. Take them away, or at least move them a block or two every few years.

– Steve

St. Louis Not Prepared for Oil Crisis

SustainLane has created a ranking of “50 Largest cities Ranked by Readiness for an Oil Crisis” (see list at right). St. Louis didn’t even make the list! My hometown of Oklahoma City, known for its massive sprawl, was ranked ahead of St. Louis at #50.

From SustainLane:

SustainLane analyzed commute trend data within major cities–how many people rode, drove, carpooled, walked, or biked to work. Then we looked at how much people rode public transit in the general metro area, and metro area road congestion. Sprawl, local food, and wireless connectivity made up our final areas of data analysis (see chart below for weighting of these criteria). The index did not take into consideration energy impacts associated with heating or electricity, which would be largely dependent on non-oil energy sources, such as coal, natural gas, and nuclear energy. Only one U.S. city in our study, Boston, uses a significant amount of heating oil. For this reason Boston, ranked #2, gets an asterisk: if heating oil usage were used as a criteria its rank would be somewhat lower.

As fuel prices continue to rise the St. Louis region will lag behind these other regions. The time to act is now.

What Can The Most Vulnerable Cities Do?
It’s not impossible for cities that are now the most vulnerable to an oil crisis to become more prepared.

One city that is taking comprehensive actions to lessen its economic and physical dependence on the automobile is Denver. Ranked #15 on our oil crisis preparedness index, Denver has bet its future on new multi-modal public transportation as part of an economic strategy known as Transit Oriented Development.

The city passed the largest regional transportation funding measure in America’s history in 2003. The measure, which was led by Mayor John Hickenlooper and regional mayors, garnered 73 percent voter approval for a $4.7 billion initiative that combines funding for multiple new light rail, commuter rail, and bus rapid transit lines. There will even be a ski train to zip adventurers into the nearby constellation of Rockies resorts.

While other regions are funding and building state of the art transportation systems we are looking at spending massive sums on rebuilding an existing highway and building a new bridge. Our priorities need to be changed. We also need a leader to help guide the region to a more sustainable model.

Full Story here. Thanks to reader Jim Zavist for the link.

UPDATE 4/11/06 @ 6:45pm
The rankings have been called into question for this study. From the methodology on their related US City Rankings we know they considered all cities with a population greater than 100,000. With the City of St. Louis in the mid-300s we would have part of the study group but simply failed to make a showing on the top 50 list. As evidence, the City of Arlington TX has a population less than the City of St. Louis but appears as #43 on the list. I’ve sent SustainLane an email asking to clarify the ranking of St. Louis.

UPDATE 4/12/06 @ 7:45am
Well, turns out I was wrong and Publiceye was correct. Warren from SustainLane added a comment below to clarify the methodology for their sustainable cities project was different than that used to rank cities for oil crisis preparedness. In short they took the top 50 cities by population figures. Arlington TX was behind St. Louis in the 2000 Census but by the 2004 update that was used they had pulled ahead. So we don’t really know where we’d rank because we are too small to be counted.

– Steve

St. Louis Region Needs to Address Parking for Scooters & Motorcycles

Last week I did a post where I bemoaned about getting a tow warning from Saint Louis University after I parked my tiny & cute 49cc moped/scooter on the city’s public sidewalk. In doing so I fully expected the debate that followed. Some agreed that SLU should have no control over the sidewalk and that as a society we need to provide parking for motorcycles & scooters. Others agreed SLU had no control over the sidewalk but that the city should have been the one to give me a warning because I shouldn’t have parked on the sidewalk.

I think the debate was healthy and got people more energized for this post on scooter & motorcycle parking. Scooters and motorcycles are a valid means of transportation. Ditto for bicycles. I believe it is important for our region to make at least the urban core friendly to these environmentally friendly methods of transportation by providing appropriate parking. The City of St. Louis along with urban schools like Saint Louis University, Washington University, Webster University (due to Old Post Office Location), and Harris-Stowe University should be having a conversation and taking a pro-active position on parking needs for more efficient modes of transportation.

Here is just a small sample of efforts I found throughout the country:

University of Wisconsin-Madison:

Scooter drivers at UW-Madison will find new, designated parking areas in the heart of campus when the academic year begins, and parking outside of those areas could result in $40 fines, officials say.

The new parking system was created in response to the proliferation of the motorized two-wheelers and the need for scooters to coexist safely with pedestrians on a bustling campus.

“When we had 10 or 100 mopeds on campus, it was fine to have no real rules,” says Rob Kennedy, senior transportation planner. “But now we have 1,000 scooter drivers on campus and, at any one time, 600 are parked on campus.”

In an effort to reduce the number of pedestrian-scooter conflicts on campus sidewalks and to improve safety, officials are creating 665 marked moped parking spaces scattered in about 25 areas. Previously, there were about 100 marked scooter parking spaces on campus.
… Continue Reading

Removing Highways to Restructure the St. Louis Region

Rather than spend hundreds of millions on rebuilding highway 40 (I-64 to the rest of the map reading world) we should just tear it out completely. Don’t look so confused, I’m totally serious. This is not a belated April fools joke.

Our highways in the middle of urban areas are relics to the cheap gas economy that is quickly coming to an end. In addition to removing highway 40, we should remove all the highways within our I-270/I-255 Loop: I-55, I-70, I-44, and I-170

I’ve not gone crazy nor have I been smoking anything.

And before you scroll down to the comments section to explain all the conventional wisdom reasons why this won’t work I ask that you hear me out first. I know we cannot just remove the highways and leave the balance of our political entities, zoning and other systems in place and expect this to make a lick of sense. Therefore, I have some basic assumptions & qualifications that would need to accompany the removal of any or all highways in our main urbanized area of the region. The likelihood of this coming together in our lifetime is slim but as the economy changes we will need to change and adapt to remain competitive with other regions.

Keep in mind that 60 years ago men took maps and drew lines where we’d wipe out entire neighborhoods for highways and housing projects. In hindsight, huge mistakes were made that disrupted lives and cost millions. Today we are still dealing with the aftermath of these poor decisions. So I’m taking a map and looking at ways we can undo damage previously done without inflicting new damage.
… Continue Reading

SLU Claims Ownership of Grand Sidewalk

Today I attended the ULI Competition presentations at Saint Louis University. Being such a nice day (although windy) I decided to take my scooter. Plus, I knew parking would be an issue so why not ease the issue with the compact scooter?

During the lunch break I walked to Nadoz at the Coronado. Finally at nearly 3pm it was time to leave (I’ll tell you the winner in a separate post). What do I find on my scooter? An orange “tow warning” from SLU’s Parking and Card Services which read:

“You have parked on Saint Louis University property and violated the Parking Policies and Procedures Regulation as checked below:”

Within the “other” section they wrote in “parking on sidewalk.”

While inside I had chained my scooter to the sign post at the curb — the only place I could find in the vicinity of Dubourg Hall on Grand. I went inside for hours knowing my scooter was most likely safe from theft as well as not blocking the public sidewalk.

But is it really a “public” sidewalk. I called the phone number on the card, 314-977-2957. The woman on the end said that the sidwalk along Grand is SLU property and they control it. As such, I was not permitted to park my tiny little 49cc scooter on their sidewalk. instead, I am supposed to get a visitor parking permit and parking in a regular parking space in one of their numerous garages or surface lots.

In reviewing SLU’s parking information online a couple of things become clear:

But who exactly has authority over the sidewalk? If I had parked my scooter within the inner campus I’d certainly see where they have control. But the sidewalk along a public street — Grand Blvd?

Is this sidewalk truly public?

– Steve