Treasurer Candidate Forum Tonight!

Tonight voters will get a chance to hear all the candidates for Treasurer. This includes the four Democrats (Wessels, Wahby, Jones & Boyd), Republican Tim Bachmann and Greens Don DeVivo and Anthony Stevens.

The event starts at 7pm tonight, Thursday July 26, 2012 in the AT&T Auditorium located at 801 Chestnut St.    The 8th & Pine MetroLink station is very close and the #99 Downtown Trolley stops a block south on Market at Citygarden.

Please get informed on the candidates in the primary before voting August 7th. Three of these seven candidates will be on your general election ballot on November 6th.

— Steve Patterson

Readers: Pruitt-Igoe Site Not Redeveloped Because It’s North of Delmar

The line “build it and they will come” from the 1989 film the Field of Dreams isn’t necessarily true. However, I can guarantee you if you do absolutely nothing not only will they not come those around will leave. For the last two decades I’ve watched the neighborhood north of Cass Ave deteriorate.

“Location, location, location” is the phrase often repeated about disinvested areas. Sorry, but locations are what we make them to be. In the 1950s the St. Louis Housing Authority, with federal funds, totally changed the area from what it was before. It’ll take planning and money to change it again.

Here is the poll question and answers from last week:

Q: Why Do You Think The Pruitt-Igoe Site Has Remained Vacant For 40 Years?

1. It’s north of Delmar 57 [33.14%]
2. Lack of demand, plenty of easier areas to develop 55 [31.98%]
3. Lack of forward thinking by St. Louis leadership 26 [15.12%]
4. Other: 14 [8.14%]
5. Stigma attached to the site 13 [7.56%]
6. Environmental contamination of the site 5 [2.91%]
7. Unsure/no opinion 2 [1.16%]

I find it depressing that “It’s north of Delmar” was the top answer. How long are we as a city going to let ourselves be divided this way? I’ve lived north of Delmar before and currently I’m only two blocks south of Delmar.

Here are the “other” answers:

1. #1, #3, and #6 all play a part.
2. All of the above.
3. All of the above
4. spatial deconcentration
5. Combination of the above culminating in the “lack of demand…” choice
6. haunted and/or subgrade obstructions
7. In an effort to do something big, we miss the small opportunities.
8. combo of stigma, location, and possible contamination?
9. As usual, the city is waiting, fruitlessly, for a “silver bullet” project
10. foundations from the 33 buildings are still in place
11. There’s no one reason, but the sheer size of the site has been detrimental
12. All of the above; except for unsure/no opinion
13. It’s not exacly surrounded by nice neighborhoods meaning who’s willing 2 invest?
14. high cost of development, lack of subsidy

Please note that answers in the polls are presented in random order to each viewer. Foundations as a problem are just a myth, they weren’t an issue when part of the site was developed into a school.

Some aren’t content just letting the site sit idle, tonight an exhibit opens with ideas:

The Old North St. Louis Restoration Group hosts the first exhibition presenting the winner and 31 finalists in Pruitt Igoe Now, an ideas competition that examined the future of the 33-acre forested vacant site of the former housing project. Entrants in Pruitt Igoe Now came from a wide variety of disciplines and explored futures that included design intervention, urban redevelopment, agriculture, cultural memorialization and forest management.

The event starts at 6pm tonight, 2700 N. 14th Street. More info here.

— Steve Patterson

New Grand Viaduct Huge Improvement, Development Opportunities Remain

Several years ago I suggested an urban bridge over the train tracks at Grand, storefronts lining each side of the bridge. These would be built on the ground below and designed to have a floor level even with the bridge. With the old bridge out of the way we can see this was entirely possible — only 3-4 train tracks have to be crossed and combined with Scott Ave the bridge span would’ve been 250 feet for so.

But the new bridge wasn’t designed with that in mind. However, the spans aren’t as long as the prior structure because previously open areas were built filled-in.

As you can see from the above image it’s just ground next to the viaduct, it’s not spanning the Mississippi River! Hold that thought though while we take a look at what was replaced and what was built.

Crossing the old bridge/viaduct as a pedestrian was a miserable experience. It was narrow and at the center it got crowded with transit riders for the #70 (Grand) MetroBus and MetroLink.

Now it’s a much better pedestrian experience!

Ok, I like the new viaduct but it’s still a long distance from end to end — I’d still like to see structures built up next to the bridge over time. Next to the open section shown above might be problematic, but the earlier area near Scott Ave shouldn’t be difficult.  However, a building foundation next to the foundation for the fill wall might be challenging, I’m not an engineer.

The old sidewalk was narrow and the new sidewalk isn’t much wider, it also lacks street trees.  I’d like to see new buildings north and south of Papin St but I don’t think they should abut the sidewalk. Keep them back 10-15 feet, not 75+ feet the way Saint Louis University tends to do. Since the above is at grade and it won’t have on-street parking to separate pedestrians from traffic it really needs to have street trees and more width.

Remember that SLU wants more students walking from the main campus north of the viaduct to the medical campus to the south. The plants on the viaduct will help but we need street trees between cars and pedestrians where possible and buildings to give a sense of enclosure. This will be easier to accomplish on the west side so let’s cross Grand and have a look.

Unfortunately with SLU involved and their plan to raze the Pevely building in the background I’m not optimistic about the future of this area. It’ll likely be much like walking next to SLU. Perfect manicured green grass and buildings set back 100 feet or more from the sidewalk, totally anti-urban rather than appropriate transit adjacent development.

Hopefully I’m wrong and good urbanism will get built on either side of Grand.

— Steve Patterson

Code Compliance Isn’t The Same As Best Practices

Last week on Tuesday July 17th the 197-unit apartment building at 3949 Lindell was destroyed by fire.

The Lindell Apartments at 3949 Lindell caught fire around 7 p.m. and quickly went to five-alarms.

Around 100 people were inside the building at the time. Everyone was evacuated safely. The 197 unit building housed around 250 people who are now homeless. (KSDK)

Less than an hour after firefighters arrived on the scene of a blaze at a Central West End apartment building Tuesday night, they were forced to evacuate as the top floor of the four-story structure began to collapse.

The flames spread so fast through the attic that firefighters thought something must be wrong with the building. (stltoday.com — see photo gallery)

The building was previously destroyed by arson in June 2007 during construction, but this time it was occupied.

Had a fire started in a kitchen, for example, the sprinkler system would have likely put it out.  But the fire is said to have started in an attic space though, above the units and the sprinkler system.  Apparently the building code allows the use of a drywall wall to be used as a firestop within the attic to slow the spread of the fire. But a wood framed wall with drywall can’t hold a fire for long. Between apartments it’s good enough to contain a fire until the sprinklers come on. But in an open attic space with so much wood a big fire can get going and pretty much blast through a drywall firestop.

So while the building may well have been code-compliant, it wasn’t built with best practices. Such a large building, especially one of wood frame construction, should have had masonry walls to completely section off the building into parts.  A fire may have destroyed or heavily damaged a section of the building but the rest would have been unharmed. Such a wall exists between the parking garage and the building, likely required to keep a car fire from spreading from the garage to the building.

I’ve been photographing this building for years, but I never once visited inside. Here are images from 2007 & 2008:

It’s important to note the property owner was not the original developer, from January 6, 2012:

Education Realty Trust, a Memphis-based developer, owner and manager of college housing, has purchased an apartment complex near Saint Louis University for nearly $28.5 million.

The four-story complex at 3949 Lindell Blvd. was bought with cash on hand, the company said. Education Realty Trust recently began doing business as EdR as part of a rebranding effort.

City of St. Louis records show the apartment building’s former owner as GB St. Louis 1 Temp LLC, a Dallas-based affiliate of Frank Howard’s Gulfstream Capital Partners. (St. Louis Business Journal)

The following images are from Thursday July 19, 2012:

The existing frame construction will be razed with only the parking garage remaining. When apartments are built here again it needs to have several masonry firestops from the ground to above the roof. Ideally AAA and CVS will get together with EdR to include the west half of the AAA site into the new construction as well as a CVS pharmacy and renovation of the AAA for a restaurant space.

No doubt that wired smoke alarms helped in alerting all the residents so no human life was loft. But understand that building codes are the very minimum that must be met to obtain an occupancy permit.

— Steve Patterson

Poll: Which Term Best Describes The St Louis Region Attitude Toward Urban Planning

The St. Louis region as multiple counties and hundreds of cities in two states. I want to know how you’d describe the region’s attitude toward urban planning. Progressive? Staid?

I don’t want to narrow the question or give specifics, I want to know how you feel. I’ll share my thoughts on Wednesday August 1, 2012 when I post the poll results. I used the graphic from the City’s 2005 Strategic Land Use Plan but think regionally.

Please vote in the poll in the right sidebar and share your thoughts below.

— Steve Patterson