Improving the Urban Wall Around Citygarden, Part 1

The new Citygarden, a 2-block sculpture garden in downtown St. Louis, is a wonderful space.  The surrounding buildings are not so wonderful.  For the long-term viability of the area we need to improve the urban edge around Citygarden.

Across Market Street to the South is the first place I’d start, the Bank of America tower.  A horrible Urban Renewal era building with no relationship to the sidewalk.  The building is mostly in the 800 block of Market St but the base of the tower extends over 9th St with part of the building in the 900 block.

Above is looking West from Market St at 8th.  The raised terrace is the main disconnect between the sidewalk and building.  In a walkable environment you want minimal separation between the pedestrian on the sidewalk and entrances to interior spaces.  Each city block needs 4-6 distinct entries to make the journey interesting for the pedestrian.  Razing the building and starting over would work but it would be wasteful and is not necessary.

Plants can do wonders.  If they replaced the boring ivy with something that would drape over the wall that would do wonders.  Lose the button down collar look in the planter.  Replace serious with fun.  The first block of the Citygarden is to the right, across Market St.

Above: we are approaching 9th Street.  The sign up on the terrace is for a restaurant space for lease.  Yeah, good luck with that.  To make it work you’d need a sign & menu board down at the sidewalk level.  Some potted plants on the steps (away from the rails) would soften these stairs and make it more inviting.  The brass handrails are like shoulder pads on the show Dynasty: classy at the time but oh so dated now.

Above: At 9th looking back East at the opposite view of the steps.  A step down planter on this end attempts to mask the huge change in height above the sidewalk but the plantings are too wimpy for the massive space.  Like the retaining wall earlier the plantings should hang over the wall and vary in height.  Some color would be nice too.

Above: 9th Street looking South.  Just horrible. I can see guests of the hotel 2 blocks South using this route to get to Citygarden.   Removing the section over the street is ideal but not likely.  So I look for alternatives to improve this street.

Four lanes?  Four!  Insanity.  Thankfully Citygarden cuts this down to two after crossing Market Street. Ideally I’d put on-street parking on the two outer lanes.  But I’m guessing they don’t want vehicles parking under the building here.  Fine, but we still only need two travel lanes.  The sidewalks should be widened so that only two lanes remain.  The section of the building between 9th & 10th at grade is the drive thru.  A blank wall faces Market St & 10th concealing the drive-thru.  That is both good & bad.  Good because we don’t want to see a drive-thru in a city but bad because blank walls are no better.

Above: Continuing along Market St we see the blank wall along the side of KSDK channel 5.  To the left we see open space.  Yes, the trees are nice and the grass is green but this space, across Market St from the 2nd block of Citygarden is screaming out for a building(s).

Are our Elected Officials Competent?

First, in the realm of full disclosure, I spent 5 years as an elected member of a quasi-governmental transit agency, first being appointed to fill a vacancy, then running and being elected to a four-year term.

When our country was founded, the framers of the constitution did not envision professional politicians. Elected officials were expected to serve limited terms for little or no compensation, taking a leave from their farms or mercantile operations to do so. Over the last 230 years, things have changed, sometimes substantially, and there no longer is only one way of having a legislative body. Most traditional bodies continue to deal with a broad range of issues, everything from finances and taxes to land use and urban design to criminalizing texting while driving and having saggy pants. We’ve also seen the rise of many specialized districts and boards, covering everything from fire protection and water and sewers to schools, transit and “improvement” districts.

In pretty much every case, there are few, if any requirements for running or being appointed to a position, other than a minimum age, residency requirements and/or being a citizen. There rarely, if ever, is any sort of requirement that you be educated in, or even actually understand, what you’ll be voting on and rejecting or approving. A farmer can approve a multi-million dollar highway bond package and a teacher can approve a union contract or the purchase of 3,000 tires for a transit agency.

Our tradition is to elect generalists to office, and our pay structure is all over the map. In many positions, compensation can best be defined as “token” – you either have to be retired or comfortable in your “real” job (and able to take time off) to be able to serve. Working stiffs need not apply, especially if your boss (or spouse) won’t give you the time off to serve. A few bodies do pay “living wages” to the people elected to serve on them. St. Louis’ Board of Alderman is in kind of a gray area – it pays well enough for a part-time job, but not enough for it to be a full-time one for many folks.

In a roundabout way, this gets us back to the original question, especially when it comes to our Board of Aldermen. It’s very much a traditional body, and its makeup of 27 members should guarantee enough diversity in expertise (the Law of Large Numbers) to be able to cover almost any topic. Unfortunately, this is counteracted by both the tradition of Aldermanic courtesy, where each ward acts very autonomously, and the tradition that the Democratic party selects candidates more for their loyalty and hard than for their expertise.

Bottom line, there is no consistent answer. We have good people serving for very little money and we have mediocre, or worse, people showing up just to collect a paycheck and enjoy having the power. We have bodies that work well together, building on their individual members’ strengths and hiring and listening to good professional staff. We have bodies that are essentially dysfunctional and either ineffective or counterproductive. And we have bodies that can fit either description, depending on who won in the last election! It’s something nobody can legislate, but it is something we can all impact, by supporting the best candidates AND by staying involved and vocal after the election is over . . .

– Jim Zavist

Citygarden Dedication Today

At 10am this morning (Tuesday 6/30/09) Mayor Slay will dedicate Citygarden, the new 2-block long sculpture garden downtown.  Before I get into the garden I want to talk about what existed on these two blocks previously.

The two blocks (bounded by Market St on the South, 10th on the West, Chestnut on the North and 8th on the East) were the last two blocks to have their historic long-standing structures razed for a grand vision of a Gateway Mall — a vision of a long green spine that dates back to the early 20th Century (map).  The city was vastly different then — it was populated, dirty (coal was still burned for heat) and anything but uniform.  Early planners sought to clear away a section of the city to offer some relief and to bring some order to a bustling chaotic city.

The problem is city leaders over the decade became addicted to demolition as a solution.  That new order would invigorate the city, they thought.  But it was the unplanned chaos that gave the city life.

In 1993 two city blocks remained to complete this ordered new vision.

Stunning huh?  But in a city with more open green space than people to occupy what we had it was decided we should create more.

What we got was two more passive (boring) city blocks.  I argued with the city’s head architect at the time but it did no good:

Unlike some older mall blocks, particularly ones west of Tucker Boulevard, Royse said, the new ones “will be inviting and attractive . . . and
people should use the mall more.” (Post-Dispatch of July 16, 1993)

Royse, now retired in Seattle, was in town recently.  I saw him last Thursday at the Loop Trolley forum.  He had not yet seen how his two blocks of the mall, the last two, had been altered.

But the two blocks were not inviting, unless you wanted to be alone with nothing to do.  The buildings surrounding these two blocks have been uninviting since new. Blank walls, raised entrances, parking garage entries.  The stuff that sucks life out of a city.

And now, these two blocks are once again recreated.  They are the opposite of the 1993-2008 blocks — a good thing as Martha Stewart would say.

From what I’ve seen from Citygarden so far it is interesting, complex (requiring exploration),  colorful, and a delight to the senses. With a permanent cafe on the Eastern block you can stay and enjoy the space.  There is seating throughout.  We shouldn’t have razed the old buildings but once they were gone we should have created dynamic space.  Instead we got 16 years of dead passive space added to the many acres of additional dead passive space we’ve had for decades longer.

While I like the Citygarden I don’t like the process that led to today.  I wrote the following just over 2 years ago (see post):

In a classic St. Louis move, the city’s “leadership” is already moving forward with a plan the public has yet to see. Mayor Slay, Aldermanic President, Alderman Phyllis Young, and Downtown Parnership’s Jim Cloar last week talked of the newest concept as a done deal even though we the public have not seen anything yet. Typical.

The public open house is scheduled for this evening, Monday June 11, 2007 at 6:30pm in the rotunda at City Hall. This is one of those meetings designed to give the appearance of public participation without any actual participation. The usual round of types — officials, business executives, etc… — have already approved of the plan on our behalf. How big of them to do so. I assume tonight will also be a chance for all these folks to congratulate each other on a job well done. I’ll be there simply because I need to see what sort of disastrous plan the city has drafted this time. Any comment forms will likely be a waste of paper.

Hopefully these two blocks will serve as an example of the level of excitement necessary as we look at the remaining blocks of the Gateway Mall.  I’ve got a good relationship with Patricia Roland-Hamilton, the person in charge of The Gateway Mall Project.  We’ve had ongoing conversations about the qualities needed along the mall.

Once inside I’ll do a full review of Citygarden.  Again, I like it already.  But I have noticed a few details I would like to have seen done differently.  These can now serve as lessons for when the remaining blocks are addressed.

– Steve Patterson

The Future of the Department Store

A century ago in cities all over the country the downtown department store was the place to go shopping.  Wikipedia defines a department store as:

a retail establishment which specializes in satisfying a wide range of the consumer’s personal and residential durable goods product needs; and at the same time offering the consumer a choice multiple merchandise lines, at variable price points, in all product categories. Department stores usually sell products including apparel, furniture, home appliances, electronics, and additionally select other lines of products such as paint, hardware, toiletries, cosmetics, photographic equipment, jewelery, toys, and sporting goods. Certain department stores are further classified as discount department stores. Discount department stores commonly have central customer checkout areas, generally in the front area of the store. Department stores are usually part of a retail chain of many stores situated around a country or several countries.

The next to last sentence above is an important distinction – central checkout for discount department stores (Target, Wal-Mart, K-Mart, etc) versus a check out at in each department.  As the population transitioned from streetcars to cars purchases per trip could get larger.  But they’d need parking lots to hold the cars.  Traditional downtown stores opened free-standing stores outside the central business district and eventually they anchored open-air & enclosed malls.

I grew up in Oklahoma City.  In the early 1970s I’d go shopping with my mom at suburban locations of TG&Y, Otasco, and Sears.   Crossroads Mall opened 8 days before my 7th  birthday on 2/17/1974.  At only 1.7 miles from my house I would often bike there in later years.  We never went to downtown.  I assume a department store(s) existed downtown, I just never saw one.

Retailing has changed dramatically over the  last 100 years and even since 1974.  The 3-4 anchors at Crossroads Mall have all closed. Target is huge.  Wal-Mart is bigger.  People buy ketchup by the gallon at stores like Sam’s Club & Costco.  Amazon.com is a retail force.

In the last year and a half I’ve been to the Macy’s store in downtown St. Louis numerous times.  At just 10 blocks to the East it is the closest big store to me.  But most often I go to visit the two restaurants contained within, not to shop.  Clothing is the item I’ve most often purchased from traditional department stores.  When I think of buying housewares, furniture, or electronics I don’t think of the traditional department store. But I don’t even buy clothing at these stores.  Doesn’t matter to me if they are downtown or anchoring a suburban mall, the department store just isn’t the place where I like to shop.  Build me a downtown Target, however, and I will be there.  .

I can’t be the only one that thinks this way.  Does the traditional department store, downtown or not, have much of a future?

– Steve Patterson

Three National Health Organizations to Oppose Proposed St. Louis Clean-Air Act

Next week three national organizations; American Heart Association, American Lung Association, and  American Cancer Society, will announce their opposition a proposed smoke-free ordinance for the City of St. Louis.  Yes, you read correctly.  These organizations will be opposing local efforts to clear the public air of cigarette smoke.  Why you ask?  The bill is not pure.

Alderman Lyda Krewson’s bill (#46) includes a triggering mechanism  — it would not go into effect until a similar measure does in St. Louis County:

SECTION FIFTEEN. Effective Date
This Ordinance shall be effective on such date that the Saint Louis County Council enacts Smoke Free Air legislation which prohibits smoking in the enclosed public places as defined in Section Four of this Ordinance.

These organizations don’t like such measures being dependant upon other jurisdictions.  So they plan to oppose the measure.  They and the pro-smoking lobby will be on the same side.  Just seems wrong.

The St. Louis region is second only to Baltimore for the number of units of government on a per capita basis.  St. Louis County has 91 municipalities plus area that is unincorporated.  Ideally we’ve have a Missouri smoke-free law like the one covering the Illinois side of the region.  But that may be a while.

Krewson had several choices:

1. Do nothing and continue to wait for a state law.
2. Wait for St. Louis County to pass a law and then react.
3. Introduce a bill with no trigger and watch it never get out of committee.

The fact is that the chances of getting a smoke-free bill for the city only is slim to none.  Remember we have 28 wards.  Securing enough votes on a controversial measure takes considerable work.   Going it along, which I wouldn’t object to, would never pass.

Before Krewson introduced the bill I was among the persons advocating the trigger mechanism.  It would let the city take a leadership role iuin the region and give some assurances to the St. Louis County Council that when they passed a law that it would trigger the city law.  Maybe these national groups don’t realize that St. Louis is not in St. Louis County?

Getting this law on the books in the city would be an important first step to getting St. Louis County on board.  Passing this bill with the county trigger shifts the debate to the county.  They may pass a measure triggered by a similar measure in St. Charles County.  I agree, it is not ideal.  Politics is never pretty and when practiced in a highly fragmented environment it is downright ugly.  So I have a problem with these organizations standing in the way of the only way we are going to get smoke-free air on the Missouri side of the region.

Krewson returned my request for comment ysterday morning.  She was aware these groups are planning to oppose her bill.

She has been at the Board of Aldermen for nearly 12 years now.  Her day job is as a CFO.  She can count.  She knows how to get legislation passed.  These organizations don’t get it — the St. Louis region is not typical.  We need to change out city charter.  We need to consolidate the 91 separate municipalities in St. Louis County.  But I don’t want to wait for those events to get smoke-free air.

The one size fits all strategy these national organizations seek just doesn’t cut it.  It irks me they may ruin our chances.  Hopefully we can overcome their objections.  Hearings on the bill begin Tuesday at noon in room 208 at  city hall.

– Steve Patterson