Nineteen year ago I started this blog as a distraction from my father’s heart attack and slow recovery. It was late 2004 and social media & video streaming apps didn’t exist yet — or at least not widely available to the general public. Blogs were the newest means of …
The new NGA West campus , Jefferson & Cass, has been under construction for a few years now. Next NGA West is a large-scale construction project that will build a new facility for the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency in St. Louis, Missouri.This $1.7B project is managed by the U.S. Army …
Book publisher Island Press always impresses me with thoughtful new books written by people working to solve current problems — the subjects are important ones for urbanists and policy makers to be familiar and actively discussing. These four books are presented in the order I received them. ‘Justice and …
This post is about two indirectly related topics: the new Siteman Cancer Center building under construction on the Washington University School of Medicine/BJC campus and an update on my stage 4 kidney cancer. Let’s deal with the latter first. You may have noticed I’ve not posted in three months, …
Please vote in the poll, located in the right sidebar
2014 will be a busy year in the region with a number of positive things:
Stan Musial Veterans Memorial Bridge opens to traffic
St. Louis celebrates 250th anniversary
Phase One of Ballpark Village opens
March Madness basketball tournaments
Fields Foods opens
Some things that are controversial in some circles:
Same-sex marriages begin in Illinois (mine’s June 8th!)
Medical marijuana in Illinois
Loop Trolley construction starts
The poll this week asks you to pick one thing you think is the best thing for the region. Because there may be other things happening I didn’t list you can add your own item in the poll (right sidebar).
The other day I was out taking photos and passed by the Railway Exchange Building that used to have a Macy’s and before that Famous-Barr. It was cold out and I pictured myself inside Papa FaBarre’s having a warm bowl of the French Onion Soup (recipe).
The entrance to Papa Fabarre’s was on the 2nd floor, September 2009. It closed in 2011 when Macy’s downsized the store, click image for more info.
Peeking into Papa Fabarre’s in September 2009
I only are in Papa FaBarre’s a few times, but I had many meals in the St. Louis Room on the 6th floor. The soup was also available there as was a salad bar.
I don’t miss a downtown department store because I’ve never been a fan of the traditional department store retail model. Macy’s closed the downtown store this summer.
For vegetarians that want to make the soup without beef stock here’s a recipe I’ll be making this weekend. No post tomorrow, I’ll be cooking.
In November I suggested that Stifel missed an opportunity for good urbanism by putting a sculpture at Broadway & Washington corner of their building, One Financial, rather than corner a corner retail space. Here’s how the corner looks now:
Bear vs. Bull sculpture by Harry Weber at Broadway & Washington
I finished that post with “They can still create an active corner on the west side, at 6th — facing MetroLink.” I still wish something more active was on the front corner, but the 6th Street side is made for retail.
The NW corner of One Financial at 6th & Washington, adjacent to the Convention Center MetroLink station
At a back door we can tell the interior floor is even with the sidewalk making access easy.
The 6th Street facade was designed new to have retail space
Entrance to the retail space has existed since 1983, before St. Louis Centre opened across the street
This retail space is very visible from the new 600 Washington lobby across 6th St
Same point looking toward Washington Ave we see the MX with Pi Pizzeria on the ground floor, mote MetroLink entrances, The Laurel Apts, Embassy Suites, and the future Blues Hall of Fame.
One Financial’s 6th St facade as seen from across the street at the top of the MetroLink stairs
Next door the base of the parking garage was also designed for retail uses
I’m very aware there’s already lots of vacant retail space available, but this large space in One Financial has great visibility at a corner busy with locals and visitors: location, location, location! Retailers looking for the right space are going to hire a commercial broker to search listings to find the right location, it it’s not listed they’re not going to consider it.
I’d much rather see a “retail space for lease” sign than closed office blinds. Stifel needs to relocate anyone in this space to another floor in the building and get this space on the market.
More than three quarters of readers that responded to the poll last week have a tree this year:
Q: Does/Will your household have a Christmas Tree? If so, what type?
Yes, artificial, green 27 [26.21%]
No, no tree 24 23.3% [23.3%]
Yes, cut from lot 22 [21.36%]
Yes, artificial pre-lit, green 15 [14.56%]
Yes, artificial pre-lit, white/color 6 [5.83%]
Yes, artificial, white/color 3 [2.91%]
Yes, cut it ourselves 3 [2.91%]
Yes, living – will plant it after the 25th 2 [1.94%]
Yes, other type not listed 1 [0.97%]
Yes, aluminum w/light wheel 0 [0%]
Unsure 0 [0%]
For those of you with cut trees you can recycle them, if you live in the city here’s the information accessed on Monday December 23, 20213:
OverviewCity residents can take the bare tree to one of three city parks to be recycled.Christmas tree recycling is available at the following three city parks:
O’Fallon
Carondelet
Forest Park
PreparationRemove ornaments, tinsel, lights and tree stand.Do not put the tree in a plastic bag or cover it.Wreaths and pine roping are not accepted at the sites.InstructionsTrees can be dropped off at the following three park locations:
Forest Park, Lower Muny Opera parking lot
O’Fallon Park, West Florissant and Holly, picnic grounds #4
Carondelet Park, Grand and Holly Hills, area between gate & recycling containers
Drop-off datesTrees are accepted at these park sites after Christmas through the third week of January.2012 dates are from Dec. 27, 2012 through Jan. 11, 2013.Trees may be dropped off at these locations at anytime.FeesNo fees applyWhat to ExpectTrees will be recycled into mulch, which will be made available to City residents.
I assume they’ll be doing this again this year, hopefully updating the website information will get updated. No post tomorrow, I’m going to take a day off.
In early November I visited the site of a new grocery store opening on January 4th, Fields Foods. I was disappointed with respect to pedestrian access:
I’m very glad to see the store nearing completion. It’ll provide needed jobs, though jobs may be lost elsewhere as people change where they buy groceries. Sadly, it doesn’t appear any consideration to the many who will arrive daily on foot, some pushing strollers, and even the occasional wheelchair user. <snip>
Hopefully, somehow, I’ll be proven wrong when the grocery store opens January 4th.
I visited again last Thursday, and with the site work done I can say it isn’t what I expected: it’s both better and worse!
A new walkway connects to the public sidewalk along Lafayete, something I didn’t see on my prior site visit. Could I have been wrong, is this a proper ADA-compliant access route?
Unfortunately this walkway is only for the able-bodied because at the end there isn’t a curb ramp, nor one across the driveway
The non-ADA walkway seen from the driveway looking back toward 14th & Lafayette
The green line represents what would be a logical point for a crosswalk, the red line is the route wheelchair users, like myself, will be forced to use after entering via the main automobile drive, formerly 14th Street. This is a major conflict with cars.
The sidewalk remains from when 14th was a public street. Pedestrians entering via 14th will have to walk in the grass since the sidewalk wasn’t continued. A BSI employee confirmed the concrete work was complete, the rest of this area will be grass or plantings.
Anyone thinking about pedestrian access would’ve connected to the 14th & Lafayette intersection.
The able-bodied not pushing a stroller or walking with a small child, and approaching from the west, will likely cut through the parking lot (right) rather than use the walkway where the red sign is located.
As I previously noted, no provisions are provided for pedestrians to the east. St. Louis has or will be vacating Soulard St between 13th and the former 14th
The ADA also requires a pedestrian route between buildings within the same development, which wasn’t considered here at all. Another building(s) is planned for the land bounded by Lafayete, 13th, Soulard (former), and 14th (former).
Not sure who’s a fault for the failure to comply with the spirit and letter of the ADA: owner, architect, contractor?
Or perhaps the master developer is to blame? My guess is a combination of all of these as well as the City of St. Louis. Pace is the developer behind the proposed Midtown Station and served as IKEA’s commercial broker
Last Thursday I contacted several St. Louis officials to alert them to the issues I discovered. I suggested they withhold the occupancy permit until the walkway is retrofitted to be ADA-compliant with a curb ramp, crosswalk, and curb ramp on the building side. Providing pedestrian access not accessible to all is a very clear ADA violation. I gave my card to the BSI employee I talked to last week, he said he’d give it to the owner. I’ve not heard back from anyone.
It would’ve been fairly easy to design & build this to be highly accessible/walkable from all directions, new construction shouldn’t need to be retrofitted. When the city is vacating public streets pedestrian access from that direction should be provided.
The parties involved in the project are collectively incompetent with respect to pedestrian access. The ADA is more than grab bars in the bathroom. I’ll be there on January 4th to see if the situation is improved.
— Steve Patterson
UPDATE 12/23/2013 @ 9:45am — I just talked with Fields Foods owner Chris Goodson, he said workers are correcting the situation. The sidewalk shown wasn’t part of the original design, it was added after the fact after my November post.
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