PR: 14th Street Bridge Closed for Repairs Starting Monday, August 30

I receive many press releases each day. I will now start posting some of these as received, in addition to my regular daily posts.
– Steve Patterson

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14th Street Bridge Closed for Repairs Starting Monday, August 30
Repairs part of On-System Bridge Preventative Maintenance Program

14th Street Bridge over Mill Creek (between Papin and Spruce) will be closed for repairs on Monday August 30, 2010. It will be closed for approximately 30 days. The closure is part of a larger maintenance program that will be performed on several bridges from April until November.

Concrete Strategies, LLC, the contractor for the project, will be repairing columns underneath the bridge, the expansion joints at the ends of the bridge, prepping and painting beam ends and applying corrosion protection. It is the work underneath the bridge that requires the closure. Even though workers may not be visible to motorists, there will be work going on.

The signed detour route will be on Chouteau Avenue to 18th Street to Clark Street, and vice-versa. The Gateway Multimodal Facility serving Amtrak and Greyhound will still be accessible from 18th & Clark, and signs are posted there. The eastbound off-ramp from I-64 (US 40) will generally remain open. However, it will only be possible to turn left while the bridge is closed. Note that one full ramp closure will be required to repair the expansion joint at the north end of the bridge. Informational signs will be posted.

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Readers Would Like To See Restaurants Donate Unsold Food

A total of 183 people voted in the poll last week.  The original post is here.

Q: Ald Kacie Starr Triplett thinks Little Caesars should donate, rather than discard, old pizzas. What do you think?

1. Ald. Triplett is right, more restaurants need to donate unused food rather than waste it. 109 [59.56%]
2. Ald. Triplett needs to stay out of how private businesses operate. 63 [34.43%]
3. Other answer… 7 [3.83%]
4. Unsure/no opinion 4 [2.19%]

Other responses were:

1. “To Whom It May Concern”? She can’t be troubled to figure that ou
2. Ald. Triplett: “Look at me, please look at me!”
3. used to work there, sounds like Seinfeld’s “Muffin Top” episode –
4. Little Ceasars should donate, but this is just grandstanding
5. What about legal implications? No good ded goe unpunshed.
6. publicity stunt yet again…
7. better to donate than to waste, but how about healthy foods?

I looked up the Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Act of 1996 (Wikipedia, full text). This law was passed specifically to indemnify those who would donate — except if willfully negligent. So Little Caesars could donate the pizzas that have been held in their warming oven for more than 30 minutes.

Operation Food Search can distribute prepared food:

“Restaurants, Caterers, and Mass-Feeders: Overproduced product, cancelled events, minor production imperfections.”

Other organizations, such as Food Outreach, seek frozen or canned goods for their pantry.

– Steve Patterson

Shallow Liner Building Needed To Mask Parking Garage

The University Heights Loft Apartments faces Laclede Ave.  The associated parking garage, located behind, faces Forest Park Ave.

I’m not sure if this was part of the plan, but there is room to build a shallow liner building between the garage structure and the public sidewalk.

Most liner buildings are around 12 meters (40 feet) in depth. Liner buildings are typically simple and work well with “loft” or “industrial” architectural expression. Liner buildings may be up to five stories tall, but should be as tall as is required to serve their purpose of screening. Liner buildings must be constructed at grade if the ground floor is designed for commercial use. They should be slightly elevated above grade if the ground floor is designed for residential uses.(Source: PlanningWiki)

I’d like to see storefront spaces on the main level with residential above. With many students in the immediate area there would be a demand for nearby businesses.

Realistically only one large or two small businesses could fit into the space. The number of residential units would obviously depend upon the size of the units and the number of floors.

The improvement to Forest Park Ave would be immediate, reinforcing the other establishments at Spring Ave.  Hopefully this was the plan when the garage was set back from the property line.  Even a single story structure with storefronts would do great things for this area.  align the front with the loft building and have a wider sidewalk with cafe seating.  New trees in the tree-lawn between the sidewalk & curb would shade patrons.

With so many students, faculty & staff in the area the available on-street parking is more than adequate.

– Steve Patterson

The Two Dog Runs Within Lucas Park

In 2008 the Downtown Children’s Center moved to a new location, leaving behind their fenced/gated playground area within Lucas Park.  Later that year downtown residents began to clean up the fenced space to use it as a place to let their dogs run off-leash.

The problem was the playground didn’t meet the city’s standards for a dog run — the fence was too short, there was no double gate entry and no access to water. The dog run would need to be rebuilt.  When Lucas Park was designed it was symmetrical in both directions. With the east end fenced it was no longer symmetrical on the main library across Locust to the south. That, and the fact residents would be without any dog run during reconstruction, let me to suggest at a charrette in November 2008 that a new dog run be built in a different location, removing the old fencing once the new run was open.

In April of this year the new dog run opened.  Nearly six months later, the old playground improvised as a temporary dog run is still in use.  City officials said they had no plans to remove the old fencing.

Viewing the park as four areas around a fifth center section there is even less open park space than before!  The old playground fencing needs to be removed with the east section of the park.  This would, unfortunately, force residents to pay the fees to use the new dog run.

– Steve Patterson

Poll: Do You Agree The Highway Lanes Cutting Through Downtown Should Be Replaced With A Boulevard?

The City+Arch+River competition has me thinking more and more about the future of St. Louis without the poorly placed highway slicing through downtown.  I’m so thankful the planned downtown highway loop at 22nd Street never got built, but we still have to address the one that did get built.

If you are at the Old Courthouse and you want to get to the Arch the crossing of Memorial Drive and the highway lanes in a ditch are not that bad.  But that is only one spot along a 1.4 mile stretch of highway City to River wants to replace with a boulevard.

Four out of five competition finalists mention highway removal in their narratives, noting a boulevard was not included into their designs because of the October 2015 deadline. The 50th anniversary of the Gateway Arch is Wednesday October 28, 2015.   So the question of timing is important.

There are several possible times to rip up the old depressed & elevated highway lanes.

1. The day after the opening of the new I-70 bridge, you could call the press back for a ground breaking on the removal of the existing highway.
2. The same event/week as the 50th anniversary of the Gateway Arch would also work well
3. Years after the 50th anniversary

Spring 2014:

Tearing out the highway in the Spring of 2014 makes a lot of sense. When the new I-70 bridge is built the interchange could be designed to transition from interstate to boulevard. Work on the connection to Tucker will be done along with the new bridge. The removal of the old I-70 lanes could be phased — part before the anniversary celebration and part after.  For example, the elevated section and section at grade up to Cass could be done by the 10/2015 deadline and used with the existing depressed section.  Or the reverse.  Either way the opening of the new I-70 bridge is the perfect timing to go right into removing the old I-70.

Fall 2015:

This option waits until after the 50th anniversary celebration on October 28, 2015. Like the year before, everyone will be gathered together — this would be a great time to break ground on a new boulevard.

Either way, the traffic study needs to get started immediately. Various people and organizations have already agreed to fund the necessary traffic study but they were waiting to see what happened with the competition.  I’d have started it months ago, but they were concerned the teams might be against highway removal.  Well we know now they are not against removal.  Why wait for the final selection, get the consultants busy figuring out how to best manage the flow of cars once the new I-70 bridge opens.

The poll is in the upper right hand corner.  Please vote and add any additional thoughts you may have in the comments below.

– Steve Patterson