50th Anniversary of Buses on Broadway

Buses on Broadway is not a long running transit themed musical but the #40 Route in St. Louis. Yesterday, the 19th of August, marked fifty years since the line switched from streetcars to bus service.

While I cannot, as this time, prove a correlation between the change from streetcars to buses and the dramatic reduction in residents in the city during the same time period I am convinced this was at least a contributing factor. Transit was and will remain important to central cities and we cannot underestimate the importance of this relationship to perception, population trends general health of the community.

Citizens for Modern Transit Executive Director Thomas Shrout, Metro’s Walking tour guide Melanie Harvey, follow urbanist blogger Joe Frank and myself discussed organizing an event to commemorate (mourn?) the switch from streetcars to bus service bus our busy schedules simply didn’t allow us to get anything organized. Besides, we had doubt that anyone would ride the #40 simply for the purpose of noting the anniversary.

– Steve

Men’s Health: St. Louis 10th Most Angry U.S. City

Men’s Healthy Magazine recently ranked U.S. according to how angry they are relative to blood pressure, traffic congestion, assaults, etc… St. Louis placed in the number ten spot, just behind Jacksonville Fl. It is not clear from the article if this was a look at the city or region.

I’d suggest taking this list with a grain of salt but sodium is bad for blood pressure and we’d hate to move up on this list. I thought I’d post it so Mayor Slay’s PR guru Richard “PublicEye” Callow wouldn’t get bored on the job.

– Steve

First Look at Hanley Station

As the new MetroLink light rail line to Shrewsbury (aka Cross County extension) is set to open in less than a week I stopped by the new station near Hanley & Eager (map). Oh boy, what a mess that area is. Traffic is horrible and the adjacent developments are sorely lacking good pedestrian connections. But, this post is not about the immediate station but a new project just a hop, skip and 4/10ths of a mile walk to the South. From the project’s website:

Hanley Station is a mixed-use, urban community development located in the heart of Brentwood, Missouri. Hanley Station will feature 150 contemporary condominiums, a 123 room extended stay hotel, 3 free-standing restaurant venues and 11,000 square feet for lifestyle/boutique shopping. The development is anchored by two 5 story parking garages which provide direct, multi-level, covered access to all residents. Hanley Station subtlety offers its residents and patrons a true taste of “new urbanism”, yet maintains the thick tradition of one of St. Louis’ most sought after neighborhoods.

“Urban community?” Parking garages serve as anchors? A “true taste” of New Urbanism? Hmmm, I wish they had elaborated on the “thick tradition” of the neighborhood! Sadly I don’t think the marketing person that wrote this piece has any clue what defines an urban area, what it takes to comprise a community and what new urbanism is really about.

That all being said, the project is not bad for what it really is — some high-end condos (based on cost per square foot) with some adjacent restaurant and retail space. Unlike other projects in the area, the developers are willing to mix some uses and pack quite a bit into the relatively smallish site. They’ve also warmed my heart by extending a public street from the Hanley Industrial Park through their site out to Hanley.

The Site:

Looking at the image to the right, North is to the top. The diagonal white line represents the new MetroLink rail line that is set to open this coming weekend. The actual station is just beyond the top of the image. And that distance, a mere 4/10ths of a mile per the sales staff, is the problem with this development. Actually, the development isn’t really at fault — the site is where it is relative to the new station through no fault of the developer. The problem is that people here will be adjacent to a wonderful mass transit system that can quickly get them to Clayton, the Loop, the Airport (Lambert or Midway in Illinois), downtown and beyond yet the ability to walk there is severely limited.

The developer is doing the right thing by making the site more dense and thus quasi-urban. They could very well have said the area as hopelessly devoted to the car and built another strip center. I’m thankful they did not as this is truly the first sign of hope in the Hanley/Eager area.

Over the next 10-20 years look for this entire area around this station to be completely transformed to the point you’d have a hard time knowing the area if you had been away. In 20 years this Hanley Station project, a pioneer in the area today, will look a bit lacking in how it relates to the street and public sidewalk compared to the newer projects that will get built.

In the meantime walking to Dierbergs, Trader Joes, Target, Best Buy or the MetroLink station are all a chore. The distance is very little but the environment does its best to say, “get in your car and drive.” Later this week I’m going to do a station by station review.

The Project:

Again, I think they’ve done a great job getting quite a bit onto the site. The two parking garages, each with room for 500 cars, are reasonably well hidden from the public streets. The 150 condos each have a balcony which will add interest to the area as people decorate these with furnishings and plants. People on their balconies will further animate the area.

Problems evident in this drawing are numerous. First, it is all very beige. However, one of the three restaurant spaces will be a colorful Houlihan’s which is relocating to this site from the nearby Galleria mall. The development has sidewalks but they appear like most suburban sidewalks do, as obligatory afterthoughts. They are indicating some relationship between the restaurant entrances and the main sidewalk along Hanley but we’ll see how that plays out in reality vs. colored pencil. The sidewalks themselves are an extension of the curb — pushed up against the street. Lack of on-street parking, both on Hanley and apparently the new Strassner, and a lack of street trees make the sidewalks the least hospitable they could possibly be. This is just one step above not having sidewalks at all.

Currently the two parking garages and the new street Strassner are under construction. While I could make some comment about the garages being built first this actually makes sense from a construction phasing perspective — on such a tight site with the garages in back they really must be built first. These will provide parking for all the trades on the remaining project.

The developer, MLP Investments, was also responsible for the mixed-use Kirkwood Station project that replaced the old Target in downtown Kirkwood. I reviewed Kirkwood Station as one of my very first blog posts back on October 31, 2004. Click here to view that post.

With construction just getting started I hope they will pay more attention to the layout of the sidewalks and consider the placement of street trees, guest bike racks, pedestrian crossings and such. MLP wants to do things right and relative to say THF Realty that did the grotesque Wal-Mart/Sam’s/Lowe’s across Hanley I’d say they are on the right track. I’m happy when I see developers heading toward a more urban model even when not required by code to do so. When they are done I’ll take another look and see how it went.

For information on the project see www.hanleystation.com.

– Steve

Kevin McGowan Calls Me From the Dog House

This morning I received a phone call from developer Kevin McGowan of McGowan|Walsh. He was calling, as you might guess, in response to the flack over a pet ban in the loft building in which he and other members of his family live (see prior post). For the last week he has been in a PR doghouse.

I’ve known Kevin for some time now and we worked together last year on a team looking at the Gateway Mall. It was nice to have the opportunity to talk with him again. He appreciated my prior post on this take as I presented a “rational” perspective as did some of the comments from others.

Kevin wanted to set the record straight:

M|W projects have condo rules similar to most condos downtown or otherwise that allow for pets but place limits no pounds and number of pets. Once the owners take control of the association they are free to change the rules as prescribed in the binding agreement.

His building contains 13 residential units with only four of those being owned by a member of the McGowan family.

The vote to change the rules in the building was “nearly a year ago” and existing pets were grandfathered in. Kevin says he was not present for the vote.

Kevin said he is not an officer in the association now nor was he at the time of the vote.

The issue of late has been that a couple of owners wish to sell and claim the no-pet policy is hurting their ability to sell their lofts. Kevin said the requests to change the policy have been too numerous.

Finally, he says, he was so “exacerbated” by the repeated requests he recently sent off the email trying to put an end to the issue. Again, he is not an officer in the association but just one of the 13 owners.

He and his wife Erin, before having children, had a dog for a good five years. I didn’t ask what they are going to do when their kids want a pet dog.

But I couldn’t have him on the phone and not challenge him. I said it seems like much of the debate is over dogs in common areas as well as dogs barking which can be heard in adjacent units. He agreed. So I asked about having a single cat. I offered that a vote to consider keeping a ban on dogs but allow a single cat might appease the owners trying to sell units. He didn’t seem to have considered that option but was not optimistic they’d consider such a compromise. The other thing, we didn’t discuss, is why not have another vote on the issue of pets in the building? If the majority still feel it is a sound policy it will remain. Obviously an association shouldn’t consider and vote on the same subject every month but at some point if an owner asks to reconsider a policy it should be voted on.

The other thing we discussed was a dog park. It is common knowledge that Kevin was working on trying to get a dog park in Lucas Park for a while. Turns out the city has a policy that prohibits more than 30% of any designated park being separated and used for a dog park. Also, Larry Rice objected to park space being taken away from the homeless. But, he says, he is still working on a dog park because it is good for business. To that end he is looking to set up a non-profit to lease vacant land from the city to use as a dog park where owners could pay a small fee to help cover maintenance. The idea being that non-park land could be used 100% for a dog park. He is firmly convinced a dog park is good in helping attract new residents.

Kevin mentioned one person that, if we had a dog park, would buy a loft downtown: Mayor Francis Slay. He said, “Francis is a big dog lover.” The issue is many dog owners, the Mayor included apparently, want a place where they can take the dog off the lease and let the dog be a….well, a dog. Kevin says Mayor Slay and his wife would move downtown if we had a dog park. You heard it here first, not in Deb Peterson’s column.

A couple of other topics came up in our 45-minute conversation. As I had previously posted, McGowan|Walsh is offering free scooters with the purchase of a loft in the Motor Lofts and Packard Lofts. Kevin says they are now extending this to all McGowan|Walsh projects so it includes the GEW building on Washington at Jefferson and the Ballpark Lofts in Cupples Station adjacent to Busch Stadium. Their first order of nearly 200 scooters are expected to arrive in December and they just placed a second order of almost 300 more scooters. Wow, that is a lot of scooters! Kevin says he really enjoys his scooter. Blue Boat Designs on Washington Avenue was given a scooter from M|W and one of the staff, Jon Carlson, told me the other day he is having a blast riding it to work from home near Tower Grove Park. Kevin was excited about the idea of seeing all these scooters running around downtown.

I just couldn’t let him go without once again bringing up the issue of excessive valet parking downtown. Kevin is an owner in the building where one of the biggest offenders, Lucas Park Grille, is located. His brothers, but not him, are partners in that restaurant. Kevin generally agreed that the valets may be taking too much space and as more and more storefronts become occupied by retailers needing convenient parking for their customers this issue is not going away on its own. He suggested I talk with Ald Lewis Reed on this subject. Good idea as Reed is up for re-election in March so perhaps the matter of valet parking along Washington Avenue can become a campaign issue for him or a challenger.

– Steve

Placing Your Eggs In One Heavily Leveraged Basket

St. Louis Mills mall in St. Louis County had big promises for the City of Hazelwood a few years ago (full story):

In the past, retail establishments have not been a major part of Hazelwood’s economy. But that’s about to change in a big way. Mall developer Mills Corp. recently broke ground for a $250 million shopping center dubbed St. Louis Mills. The 1.2 million-square-foot mall will include 12 anchor stores. Hazelwood city leaders approved $18.7 million in tax increment financing for the project.

The mall, being constructed on part of a Missouri River floodplain, will be anchored by high-end outlet stores, led by the St. Louis area’s first OFF 5th—the outlet version of Saks Fifth Avenue.

Rebecca Zoll, executive director of North County Inc., sees the Mills development as an epic event for the region, perhaps permanently changing its economic make-up and the perceptions of outsiders.

“This will bring in people from around the Midwest, and their dollars will go back into our community,” Zoll says. “There’s been some concern about how the mall will affect local business, but I think it will only help.”

First, I do believe that a mall can change “perceptions of outsiders” but certainly not in the positive. If a mall is an “epic event” the region is worse off than I previously thought. Maybe if you live in Wentzville the idea of getting in the minivan and driving in bumper to bumper traffic on the interstate to shop in generic stores around a food court this is a cool thing.

Aside from the many issues I have with indoor malls and building on a flood plain, a big concern is the financial health of the companies on which municipalities are so dependent. These great saviors of local economies are often teetering on the edge of bankruptcy.

The St. Louis Business Journal is reporting Mills Co, owner of St. Louis Mills, has fired its President. They appear to have a few issues to work out besides getting a new executive:

Mills said Aug. 11 that it would sell its stakes in three shopping centers based outside the U.S. to a Canadian real estate firm for $981 million to help pay off debt.

The company said that Ernst & Young audit reports for 2005 are likely to contain a paragraph saying “there is substantial doubt” about Mill’s ability to continue as a going concern because of deadlines for repaying $2 billion in debt.

Mills is restating its financial reports for the years 2000 through 2005 because of accounting errors, and those errors are expected to reduce net income by $210 million for 2003, 2004 and the first nine months of last year, according to a recent regulatory filing.

St. Louis Mills is among 42 properties owned by Mills Corp.

Hazelwood gave a $18.7 million TIF to a company that is now $2 billion in debt and possibly about to default. Wow, two billion. So creditors will likely take over St. Louis Mills and they will try to sell it. Just a guess but I’m betting it will sell for less than its original $250 million price tag. As long as the registers keep ringing Hazelwood should OK. If stores get a sense things will not be fine with new owners you might see some abandon ship.

Hazelwood is not alone, from a recent Post-Dispatch article:

Now Rock Hill is struggling to survive financially while banking its future on an expansive Novus development at the corner of Manchester and McKnight roads.

Local developer Novus, you may recall, was supposed to do a massive project in Sunset Hills but ran into financing issues for the project last year. From the St. Louis Business Journal:

It’s been about a year since Novus Cos.’ planned $184 million Sunset Hills lifestyle center deal fell apart. City officials and property owners within the development area are working to move on, but Novus’ Jonathan Browne apparently is not.

Browne, president of Novus, made a plea to Sunset Hills’ new mayor, John Hunzeker, June 26 to resurrect the project that has become a poster child for eminent domain reform across the country. In attendance at the one-hour meeting in the mayor’s office were Browne, Hunzeker and City Clerk Laura Rider.

All this to fight over a relatively fixed amount of sales tax revenue. The Sunset Hills project would have relocated a Famous-Barr store from Crestwood Mall (in Crestwood) to Sunset Hills. Good for one municipality but bad for the adjacent community. Some will argue the construction creates jobs but where does that money come from? The overall sales taxes collected in the region are the same yet $184 million would have been spent to get there. Well, this money comes in the form of reduced property values from other commercial properties that used to collect this sales tax, debt carried by the developer and tax incentives. At some point we must realize we cannot keep spending billions of dollars to build newer shopping developments in a region with relatively flat growth. It just doesn’t work.

– Steve