New Target Store Includes Bike Racks, Access Blocked by Shopping Carts

Big box retailer Target just opened a new store in the suburban St. Louis municipality of Dardenne Prairie in a center called, oddly enough, ‘Dardenne Town Center.’  Like most suburban centers this one has some good and bad elements.

View of Target approaching from sidewalk off Henke Road — Yes, a continuous sidewalk from a public street to a big box front door.  Landscaping, seen in the left of the above image, helps soften an otherwise harsh facade.  This type of greening can easily be included in strip/big box centers without blocking that all important visibility from major roads.  Note the extra shopping carts in the image.

Above we see a lone cart in the way of one side of bike rack intended for two bikes (one each side, parallel with the carts).  Someone arriving from the adjacent neighborhoods via bike could easily move this single car and secure their bike.  But what if more carts were here?

You see, Target made the effort to include a total of four such bike racks for a total of eight bike parking spaces.  Unfortunatetly, store staff uses these racks to help align their extra carts outside the store entrance.  The availability of bike parking depends upon the location/use of extra shopping carts.  This is a common, but avoidable, problem if only the planners, architects and engineeres on these projects gave more thought to shopping cart storage and bike parking.  With lots of extra room along the front of the store, bike parking could have easily been located elsewhere and have avoided conflicts with the carts.  Again, this is a brand new store — only open for a few months now.

The Dardenne Town Center was developed by Opus Northwest, the same developers at the Park East tower in St. Louis’ Central West End neighborhood. Thankfully, Dardenne Prairie is working with urban planners from the firm DPZ on a real town center.  Designers from DPZ already have suggestions on how to improve this newly built retail “power center” which includes a JC Penny, Shop-N-Save and numerous smaller stores and a few restaurants.

City’s Press Release Contains Misleading Statement on Population

On Wednesday the Mayor’s office issued a press release announcing a press conference.  I attended on Thursday AM and wrote a post about facts & figures.  Here is the press release:

Mayor’s Office     Wed, Apr 18, 2007
St. Louis City Population Grows for Fourth Consecutive Year Official Census Bureau Estimate at 353,837
Mayor Francis G. Slay will join Rollin Stanley, City Planner & Urban Designer on Thursday, April 19, 2007, at 10:30 a.m. to announce the results of the latest U.S. Census Bureau estimate of population.

After five decades of non-stop decline, the population in the City has increased by nearly 18,000 in the last four years.

The announcement will be in the Mayor’s office, Room 200.

WHO:    Mayor Francis G. Slay Rollin Stanley, City Planner & Urban Designer

WHAT:    City Population Grows for Fourth Consecutive Year

WHERE:    St. Louis City Hall Room 200

WHEN:    Thursday, April 19, 2007 10:30 a.m.

# # #

But one sentence above gives a totally false impression of the true picture:

After five decades of non-stop decline, the population in the City has increased by nearly 18,000 in the last four years.

Wrong!  The population has not increased by 18,000. The misleading information above is from the city’s official press release but the mayor’s campaign site, mayorslay.com, got it right:

The U.S. Census Bureau, which annually estimates cities’ populations, has agreed that our population for July, 2006, was 353,837, an increase from the previous July. This marks the fourth straight year our population has gone up.

It has not been a dramatic jump, about 6,000 people since the last Census, but it has been a steady one.

Yes, the actual rise in population since the 2000 Census has been 5,648, less than a third of what the press release from the mayor’s office is reporting.

In the Mayor’s announcement on Thursday he actually repeated the 18,000 figure.  Mayor Slay said:

“Compared to the 2002 estimate the city’s population has grown by almost 18,000 people.”

Again, this is misleading at best.  So where’d they get this “almost 18,000” figure?  Well, they are comparing the Census’ original 2002 estimate (336,253) and saying compared to the newly accepted figure the difference is almost 18,000 higher (17,584).   This is playing with numbers and twisting the truth around.

For this to be true, we must accept that between the 2000 Census figure of 348,189 and 2002 that we lost 11,936 and then gained back 11,783 in a single year (2002 to 2003) to reach the revised census figure for 2003 of 348,039.  I think we can all reason that we did not gain nearly 12,000 residents in the 12 months between July 1, 2002 and July 1, 2003.

So the Mayor’s staff is comparing original low estimates with higher revised estimates to create the illusion of “almost 18,000” in new residents.  Luckily, I didn’t find that any of the news agencies went with this misleading figure.  I expect better of our city’s higest leader and his staff.

St. Louis Population: Census History, Estimates, Challenges and Projections

St. Louis, like most “rust belt” cities, experienced significant popuation loss during the later half of the 20th Century. Yes, old news but here is a recap:

In the 1950s St. Louis lost 106,770 people (12.5%), in the 60s that figure was up to 130,757 (17.4%), and in the 70s it continued to clime to 166,465 (26.9%). By the 80s we saw the losses slow to 56,119 for the decade (12.4%). In the 1990s the rate of decline dropped again, this time to 48,496 — the lowest decline in a decade, but still a major decline (12.2%). Added up we lost almost 60 percent of our population.

Nearly everyone we will agree the city is no longer hemorrhaging population as we had during the previous five decades. Today Mayor Slay and Planning Director Rollin Stanley announced the U.S. Census Bureau had once again partially accepted the city’s challenge to official 2006 population estimates. The Census had estimated a population of 347,181 while the city argued for 354,943. The final number per the Census for July 1, 2006 is 353,837.

Compared to the 2000 Census population of 348,189 we show a total net population gain of 5,648 in a six-year period. While an average annual gain of 941 people is not substantial it is certainly cause to celebrate compared to losing anywhere from 4,850 to 16,647 people per year (avg.) as in prior decades. Still, this represents a gain of only 1.6% since 2000 so I wouldn’t really call that gaining — more like treading water. When we have double digit gains in a decade then I think we can proclaim we are indeed increasing our population.

Census figures show a 1,175 drop in population from 350,214 in 2002 to 349,039 in 2003. The city’s figures, shown at today’s press conference, show our population lower than the census figures for 2001 & 2002 (347,954 & 347,252, respectively).  UPDATE @ 3:15pm – Director of Planning Rollin Stanley just returned my call from earlier with a clarification on why the census figures for 2001 & 2002 don’t match that of the city.  As the city had challenged 2003-06 figures the newly revised are etched in stone but the Census continues to make slight adjustments in those numbers which were unchallenged by the city (2001-02).  Regardless of the differences, the city & census seem to agree we continued to loose population very slowly between 2000 and 2003 for a net loss of 150 people.  Thus, our gains are only very recently. For 2006 we show an increase of 1,265 but in 2005 the increase was 1,867 and a large 2,666 in 2004. Each increase is a fraction of one percent of our population.

So while the census and the Mayor annually hug and come to agreement something is still not right with population figures: projections on future population from the East-West Gateway Council of Governments. Their most recent figures, from the Legacy 2030 Transporation Plan (adopted March 2005), shows St. Louis continuing to decline through 2010 before making a slow climb by 2030 to a figure lower than today:

This is not exactly a rosey picture. The 2000 figures shown above are from the 2000 Census, the balance are projections. We will know in a few years after the 2010 Census how accurate the projections, published in 2005, really were. I confirmed with East-West Gateway these are the most recent public projections they have released. A spokesperson indicated they are in the process of revising their projections and was uncertain what decisions, if any, were based on these figures from their Legacy 2030 Transportation Plan.

I put together the above chart to see the differences between the 2005 estimated projection by E-W Gateway and the Census estimates for the same year. Most were close but three stand out: St. Louis City, St. Louis County and St. Charles County. E-W Gateway under-estimated the populations of both St. Charles County (4.6%) and St. Louis City (7.4%) while over-estimating St. Louis County (a minor 1.6%). Clearly, the population is moving around differently than E-W Gateway had anticipated in just the first five years of their transporation plan, much less the remaining 25 years.

Lower Manhattan Before the World Trade Center

Yes, this is still a St. Louis-focused blog. Just go with me to New York for a bit, we will return to St. Louis I promise.

I’m researching a paper I have to write for one of my classes at Saint Louis University, “Planning the Metropolis.” The subject? The former World Trade Center in New York. The main focus of the paper is on rebuilding the site after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. As part of the research I’ve been reading City in the Sky: The Rise and Fall of the World Trade Center by New York Times reporters James Glanz and Eric Lipton.

What a colorful story of powerful and unaccountable agencies, backroom politics, the small businessman, eminent domain and how deals get done. What started off as a much smaller project on lower Manhattan’s east side (yes, east side) as a way to boost downtown interest as businesses fled to mid-town ballooned into a massive and mostly unnecessary building project.

I’m not even going to attempt to give you the full story and sadly I’ve not found a good online source. I’ll give you a quick run down and suggest you get this book — it is available from the library (except I have the Buder branch copy at this time). As you read this very long history remember the grand opening dedication took place in 1973:

• 1939: The New York World’s Fair includes an exhibit “dedicated ‘world peace through trade’ and called World Trade Center.” WWII put any immediate plans aside but a committee organizer was Winthrop W. Aldrich, head of the Chase Bank and whose sister was married to John D. Rockefeller, Jr.
• July 28 1945: A B-25 Army bomber plane accidently crashes into the north side of the Empire State Building on the 79th & 80th floors, killing a number of people. Flames erupted from the fuel.
• 1946: NY Governor Thomas Dewey names Aldrich to be a member of a “new state agency named the World Trade Corporation.” The mission was to build a World Trade Center downtown. The plan was a 10-block area with 21 buildings “loosley modeled on the seven-hundred-year-old Leipzig Fair in Genmany.” Well, except for having underground parking. Estimated cost: $150 million. Critics said it would not work and “The planners themselves determined that an astonishing 80 percent of the country’s six thousand largest companies would have to become tenants to give the trade center a chance at financial survival.” The concept was dead just four months after naming the board.
• 1946: 32 year-old David Rockefeller joins the family bank, Chase.
• 1951-54: David Rockefeller takes up the family tradition of shaping New York, by helping raze a large section of an upper west side neighborhood called Morningside Heights, to be rebuilt as a housing project consisting of six high-rise buildings called Morningside Gardens. This would replace 71 apartment buildings, 4 rooming houses and 68 retail stores. The new high-rises would be reserved for the middle-class only. Rockefeller, of course, teamed with the legendary Robert Moses.
• 1955: David Rockefeller seeks real estate for new HQ building for family’s Chase Bank, still headed by his uncle Aldrich. Upon securing real estate is convinced by others more investment is needed in downtown area to keep others in financial district from heading to midtown (as many had done). Rockefeller formed the Downtown Lower-Manhattan Association in late 1955.
• October 1958: Rockefeller’s Downtown association releases report suggesting razing entire blocks of lower Manhattan and supports Moses’ Lower Manhattan Expressway. Combined estimated “investment:” One billion dollars.
• May 25, 1959: First noted record by Rockefeller’s Downtown association of what they then called the “World Trade and Finance Center.” At this point they were focusing on the “downtown” of Lower-Manhattan which is on the east side of the tip of the island.
• June 1959: Hired consulting firm McKinsey & Co determined the World Trade Center may not be so wise, from the book authors, the firm indicated the WTC “could be a serious financial bust. Almost nothing about the concept —its mission or its target client base — was assured.” The authors also noted the report suggested that if it were going to be done, it should be in midtown where everyone was moving to anyway. A key note in the report that if the WTC project were to succeed it would need to be very unique to attract tenants.
• August 11, 1959: The hired consultants, contacted by Rockefeller’s staff prior to the meeting, indicated to the Downtown association executive committee they would back out of the $30,000 consulting contract. It was that or give a glowing report they knew to be false.
• 1959: Architectural firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (aka SOM), designers of Rockefeller’s new Chase Bank building, sketched out an idea for the WTC.
• 1959: Rockefeller holds private talks with the Port of New York Authority (as it was known at the time). This agency was created by the states of New York and New Jersey, and had huge revenues from tolls on bridges & tunnels. Rockefeller viewed the Port Authority as the only group with the governmental power and financial resources to pull off the project.
• 1959: David Rockefeller’s older brother, Nelson, becomes Governor of New York. … Continue Reading

Reed’s Chief of Staff Owns Firm Located in Clayton

During the recent campaign for the President of the Board of Alderman opponents of incumbent Jim Shrewsbury made a big deal about his law practice being located in St. Louis County rather than the city.  Shrewsbury’s successor, Lewis Reed, has just named accountant and former campaign treasurer Thomas Shepard to be his Chief of Staff.  Interestingly, Shepard is the owner of an accounting firm located in Clayton:

Thomas Shepard & Associates, Inc. is a full-service certified public accounting firm, serving business and individuals for over fifteen years. We specialize in small business and employment tax issues. Located in Clayton, Missouri, we serve the entire St. Louis metropolitan area, as well as St. Charles and part of Illinois. 

Frankly, I like the idea of a Chief of Staff being an experienced business person and a CPA to boot.  As such, Shepard should be able to offer good guidance to Reed on various issues including complicated financial matters decided upon as one of the three members of the Board of Estimate & Apportionment (aka E&A).  But I have to wonder how Shepard’s time will be divided between running a long-standing accounting firm in Clayton and serving as a full-time Chief of Staff.