Penrose Park House Saved….Maybe?

Last night the Preservation Board told the city’s Board of Public Service they could not raze a house on the corner of the Penrose Park. That is not exactly true, they cannot deny a permit but can only recommend. The Board of Public Service may well go ahead and raze the structure.

From the Cultural Resources report:

The building is an Arts and Crafts red brick structure constructed by a private owner in 1902. It was acquired by City ordinance in 1905 when the City created Penrose Park and was used as a Park Keeper’s House until the late 1980’s when it was abandoned as a residential use and boarded by the City.

Yes, eminent domain was alive and well in 1905 when the city took a man’s 3-year old home away from him. Park Keeper’s houses really don’t work today given how park maintenance is handled. However, these structures are making a comeback as local community offices, arts centers and other uses convenient to a park.

Granted, the city does not have the funds to renovate the structure. I suggested last night they use the demolition funds to mothball the building until a use can be found. This beautifully proportioned house could be a major asset to Penrose Park in the future.

The city is in the process of realigning Kingshighway on the edge of the park and moving a smaller park road to the east of this house. Neither road is blocked if the house remains. The only issue is a natural amphitheater that is planned for the site. The Board of Public Service presented no details on the exact size of the proposed earthen amphitheater nor why it could not be located adjacent to the house.

A Friends of Penrose Park needs to be formed to help secure the structure and find a new use. This may well bring new life, energy and pride to this park. I can also see the cyclists that use the recently repaved velodrome in the park helping with the effort, perhaps as a meeting place for their functions? This building is worth saving for our future generations.

For more info see the Preservation Board agenda. Also, read Michael Allen’s excellent essay on this building.

– Steve

Forest Park Forever Seeks to Alter Government Hill…Forever

You may not know the name Government Hill but you know the view, look up toward the World’s Fair Pavilion. Classical cascading terraces and a couple of fountains. It has been a favorite St. Louis backdrop picture for decades. Forest Park Forever, wants to “obliterate” the existing landscape design and do something “fresh.” Last night they sought approval from the Preservation Board.

The Preservation Board’s role in the parks is strictly that as an advisor, they do not have any veto power over projects. The board seemed to like the new design but not in place of the old design. Kate Shea, director of Cultural Resources, read from the Forest Park Master Plan about intentions around repair and restoration and grand park facilities. Indeed, much of the park has been restored and maybe embellished. Areas like the grand basin were not recreated into something entirely different from the original. The Preservation Board deferred a decision and asked Forest Park Forever to reconsider.

In testimony it was discovered the costs of restoring the classical features would be roughly the same as the new proposal. Part of the issue is making the hill accessible (aka ADA ramps). Forest Park Forever has a plan for adding ADA accessible ramps on the outer edges of the existing classical layout but they seem too smitten by their new zig-zag scheme.

For pictures of the existing and proposed look through the Preservation Board agenda on this item.

I testified briefly to raise functional concerns. I’ve attended events at the World’s Fair Pavilion where the first terrace down the hill was used in conjunction with events in the Pavilion. The new scheme places terraces much further down the hill. I also said that whatever plan was built, the materials need to last 90 years, the length of the proposed new BJC lease of part of Forest Park in exchange for a maintenance trust fund.

The next step in the process is a Forest Park Advisory Committee meeting on July 20, 2006.

– Steve

Eminent Domain: Where Do We Go From Here?

The phrase ‘Eminent Domain’ has become as evil a phrase in the city as ‘Urban Renewal’, maybe more. I’ve yet to take a strong position on this debate so it is time I correct that. Click here to read a prior post on eminent domain from October 2005.

I’m going to start by putting on my best political top hat, ride the fence, and state the obvious:

Eminent Domain is a very useful tool that does have its place.

Eminent Domain has been increasingly abused, to a point beyond excessive.

Both sides of the debate on Eminent Domain need to step back and look for common ground.

Nobody wins as long as this debate continues.

The above are pretty much “safe” positions for one to take. In other words, no real substance. But I’m a substance kinda guy so here it goes.

No eminent domain for a Wal-Mart!!! Nor for any other “big box” store, chain or local. Don’t even think about taking someone’s personal home.

On the other side of the coin if we, as a city, through a quality urban planning process decide we need a new park, school or library then yes, I can see the use of eminent domain — even possibly taking someone’s personal residence. But I’d want to see hard evidence of two things, 1) the need does exist and 2) all other possible sites do not work.

Everything else is a very subjective quality issue for me. Take, for example, the recent issue in Richmond Heights of the area known as Hadley Township. I’ll be the first to admit that I probably wouldn’t be as upset about the use of eminent domain had the city selected the truly urban proposal from Conrad Properties. Some may claim I’m inconsistent or a hypocrite but let me elaborate.

Many things can be accomplished through good zoning. Dense & walkable neighborhoods can be created where suburban sprawl once existed. Increased density around a transit stop is, in my view, in the public good and therefore at least worthy of consideration for the use of eminent domain. Zoning in smart cities offers developers incentives as trade off for things in the public interest. Other times the incentives become mandates. So, if a developer is seeking eminent domain for an area I think they’ve got to earn it. This means to me minimum densities, little to no surface parking, 2-story minimum building heights (more depending upon circumstances), relationship with the sidewalk, bike parking, mixed uses and so on.

None of the requirements should be punitive to the developer but instead offer rewards for creating good urban design. This might mean the developer gets to build a floor or two higher than normally allowed or gets reduced parking requirements. By designing the zoning in such a way as to require good urban in-fill as a condition for the use of eminent domain then I can possibly be convinced a private development is in the best interests of the public.

A typical sprawl center, like Loughborough Commons now under construction, is not nor will it ever be in the public good to the point it justified the use (or threat of use) to take those people’s homes. It was wrong. More than enough land existed to create the horrible shopping center.

I think to some developers the project just is not complete unless they take away someone else’s property. If they’ve got 1 acre they want 2, if they have 6 they want 8. You don’t have to have an entire city block to build new construction! If you have a lot with 100 feet of frontage by 125 foot deep design a building to fit that parcel, don’t complain the guy next door won’t sell his vacant 50 foot wide lot. I think much of our areas are stagnant because developers waste precious time trying to find ways to assemble increasingly larger and larger parcels for overly complicated projects. In the meantime years go by and nothing is built. If you’ve got more than 25 feet of width you can construct a new building. Deal with it. Build on it or sell it to someone that will.

However, maybe I can be in a position at some point to take the as-yet-built McDonald’s on Grand and raze it for something urban? That might be the trick, if you build low-density suburban crap in the city you leave yourself wide open for eminent domain for a project achieving certain set criteria.

Eminent domain for road building should be a thing of the past, at least in established areas. We’ve got all the roads we need. Well, with a slight exception — I want back many of the streets and alleys that have been vacated over the years. Eminent domain to reclaim previously public streets and alleys should stick around. I should also separate out roads from highways. Building a new road to connect the street grid together is probably a good thing. Taking property for more highways, no so good.

And yes, on my site I am judge and jury. I’m making highly subjective value judgments. I know that, not necessary to point it out. Our zoning codes are entirely subjective value judgments — ours just happen to be based on what bureaucrats & officials thought in the late 1940s. Newly revised zoning codes would not say, “call Steve Patterson to find out the answer.” No, new zoning codes can incorporate judgments related to supporting our old urbanism as well as thinking from new urbanism. Let’s at least get to the point where we are debating the finer points of a new zoning code. Then, and probably only then, can we make any rational decisions around the use of eminent domain.

– Steve

Correcting the Post-Dispatch on Interstates

Thursday marks the 50th Anniversary of the US highway system. Newspapers and television reports are all a flutter with how great highways have been. True, being able to get to California in a few days rather than weeks is a good thing. But, our highway system encouraged sprawl and ravaged our cities. We are sill paying for these mistakes today.

The main focus of a Post-Dispatch article from this weekend was which state could lay claim to being the first to have a new interstate highway following the passage of the authorization act in 1956. Basically Missouri let the first contract, Kansas opened the first section and Pennsylvania had a divided highway that became the model for our interstates. Thomas Gubbels, a MoDOT historian in Jefferson City, was quoted in the article as saying,

“Arguing over which state is first isn’t as important as the fact that interstates benefited everyone: all Missourians, all Kansans, everyone throughout the country.”

Everyone? Well, not exactly. Still, it doesn’t surprise me the MoDOT historian would turn a blind eye to the victims of the highway projects. First, we have all the people that lost their property through eminent domain. Their families were uprooted, their businesses relocated, their neighborhoods ripped apart. Massive quantities of the population in all our cities were disrupted for highway construction and slum clearance. Cities are great at managing natural change and evolution but this scale was simply too much.

I did learn something new in the article about Eisenhower’s plan for the highway, a distinction between a failed 1955 plan and the adopted plan of 1956:

The Clay Committee report, “A 10-Year National Highway Program,” suggested the project be paid for with bonds. Congress nixed the approach, and the president’s plan died in July 1955.

Eisenhower, though, was as driven as a Honda on the New Jersey turnpike. He campaigned for interstates the following year. Only this time, it included the addition of urban interstates and a new tax-based financing plan with the federal government picking up most of the construction costs. Congress went for it.

For a good 20 years prior to the passing of the highway act, officials debated by-passing cities or going through the dense core. Many references were made at the time how Germany’s Autobahn by-passed their major urban centers. Sadly, it was felt our cities needed to have interstate highways to help them get workers to the employment centers (keeping people working was a key issue during the depression era). In reality highways were a major contributing factor to the dismantling of cities. If the interstates had by-passed our cities development still would have left the center for the new outer areas but at least we would not have sliced through our effective street grid and destroyed so many homes, businesses, churches and schools in the process. Highways through cities were seen as an important adjunct to the slum clearance programs gaining traction as early as the 1930’s.

Earlier federal road programs helped create jobs during the depression. Still, these roads paled in comparison to the scale envisioned by the 1956 Act. Had congress approved original financing in 1955 without urban interstates our cities might have turned out quite different.

The Post-Dispatch included a short myth & fact section. The myth is shown in italics:

President Eisenhower supported the Interstate System because he wanted a way of evacuating cities if the United States was attacked by an atomic bomb.

Eisenhower’s support was based largely on economic development and safety. Still, the system can evacuate people fast and efficiently.

Fast & efficient? I’m guessing the reporter missed the footage of people trying to evacuate Houston last fall. Interstates have led to more cars which led to more congestion which calls for more highways and so on. It is a never ending cycle. We know this yet we continue to feed the highway beast. Our highways cannot handle rush hour much less evacuating our urban areas.

And yes, defense was a big part of the original plan, the system is called the Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways. Defense highways! I guess you had to be there to fully understand the fear during the cold war.

When I take the interstate back to Oklahoma to visit family or up to Chicago for a fun weekend I am thankful for their existence. As I see them snake their way through once dense and thriving neighborhoods I get a feeling of sickness and anger. The interstate system could have avoided going through the middle of our old and established cities. The planners of the day hated cities and deliberately wanted to alter them in a big way. the interconnected street grid, so beloved by old & new urbanists, was viewed as archaic. They envisioned remaking cities around the automobile.

They succeeded alright, nearly every major city in North America followed the status quo and sought to remake themselves so they would easily accommodate the car. This plus the many urban renewal projects were intended to bring new life to cities by making them, well, no longer cities as the world had known them to be up to that point.

Our city’s Zoning, from the 1947 Comprehensive City Plan, is a relic of the time when society hated true urban cities yet it is still our model nearly 60 years later. Only time will tell if we have the wisdom and will power to undo the mistakes of the past. So much work remains to be done.

– Steve

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Further Reading: Highway History from the U.S. Department of Transportation.

A Few Downtown Observations

The Unitarian Universalist Church is having a big convention downtown. I’ve talked to a number of conventioneers over the last week with questions like, “Where are you from?” and “Are you enjoying your visit to St. Louis?”

I chatted with a couple of women the other day in City Grocers. They were asking one of the store staff if the place was open on Sunday because, “everything is closed on Sunday.” They had arrived a week ago and couldn’t find anything open. After the clerk said City Grocers was open daily I mentioned the crepes at Washington Ave. Post.

I’m not sure the hotel concierges really know what to recommend. Brian McGowan’s Washington Avenue Greensheet does a better job directing many people to places than the high dollar glossy advertising in hotel lobbies. Wayfinding — signs to direct visitors — is the next crucial step downtown. We are getting visitors from our region and beyond but we need to make sure they know where to go. It might be obvious to those of us that spend time downtown but to an outsider they don’t always know where to find the grocery store or some gelato for desert.

City Grocers was packed earlier today with conventioneers. I’ve always been a bit skeptical about the benefits of the millions spent on convention buildings & hotels but I’m sure City Grocers welcomed the traffic. Still, such conventions are not the norm. Too many cities have convention facilities and their are too few conventions to keep them all hopping year round.

A couple of weeks ago I was having a late lunch (3pm) at 10th Street Italian and I began talking to a couple sitting next to me. They were asking about a drug store. I gave them directions to the 4th floor Walgreen’s as well as City Grocers. We ended up talking for nearly an hour. They were from Atlanta and had only been to St. Louis once before, 15 years ago. In their late 50s they had lots of stories to tell about life in Atlanta. They are an interracial couple that have been married since before the days of Tom & Helen Willis but they say it has never been much of an issue even in the deep south. They are involved in city life there so we talked urbanity and such. Their impressions of St. Louis were positive (I’ll have to email them for final impressions following their trip).

A big music fest was held on Washington Avenue yesterday. I didn’t know about it until today. Not that I would have gone, I tend to avoid big events. On the 17th another big block party was held. Lots of pretty glossy literature was handed out prior but it failed to mention one thing — the event date. Yes, big event with expensive marketing and no date! It also rained that day. I think we need to reconsider such events.

I’m not saying we should not have a big even now and then but it seems like it is feast or famine. I’d love for the folks running the show (Downtown Partnership and/or the businesses) to hire some local street performers, just not all at once. Each weekend have something going on. A mime, a juggler, a violinist, a dummer (steel drums are awesome), a guy doing balloon figures, etc… Make it so whenever someone is downtown in the evening something interesting is going on. It doesn’t require a billboard, glossy literature, blocking the street, bringing in portable johns or other such issues. Maybe a saxophonist one night with a bluegrass trio another. Mix it up and spread it out. I think they all blow their entire marketing budget on a few events. By having different folks on different days and at different times it will look more spontaneous.

The drumming circles that form in the Delmar Loop are excellent. This is something that can’t really be planned. It just happens. But, you can create the atmosphere where such performances are seen as welcomed. Having outdoor places where people can play games such as Chess, Go or Pente would be nice as well.

Of course, as a friend said to me this morning as we were enjoying our crepes al fresco on Washington Ave., you’d need these performers to play near the valet stands. Customers for places like Copia and Lucas Park Grille don’t seem too willing to participate in city life by say, parking their own car and walking a block or two. I also love good performers that entertain. I once watched a couple of guys in Vancouver keep a huge audience laughing as they did magic tricks which included audience participation. Last year in NYC I saw some young men dancing and telling jokes in Washington Square, the crowd loved it.

This city has some talented folks and most probably don’t need a large stage and sound system to do their thing. For $20,000 a year or so the Partnership could get people to perform 2-3 nights a week for a few hours for the entire year. I heard the budget on the no-date event was $40,000.

The Valet companies are still being abusive, holding public parking spaces for their paying customers. I think this will change quickly when other businesses open up in remaining storefronts. I doubt Joe Edwards will tolerate Copia consuming the entire southern half of Washington between 11th and Tucker.

The city needs to step in with some leadership and create some rules to govern just how much space is needed for a single business to operate valet — the dropping off and picking up of cars. At no point should valet companies, collecting a fee or being paid by a business, be allowed to park customer’s cars in public parking spaces.

Downtown has come a long way in the last five years but it will be the next five that will likely amaze everyone. We’ve yet to see the true impact of all the new residents and local business. Downtown is only at the early stage in the recovery process. It can still go wrong but even with some mistakes just the numbers of people will make it better and better each passing year.

Last December we saw a draft CBD traffic study but things have been silent since. The plan for 2006 was to change out controllers so the city could computerize the timing and manipulation of signals from a single location. This could help in facilitating special events as well as making it easier to facilitate rush hour traffic. But, six months later I’ve not seen any real changes to the setup or even heard a word about it. Hey Barb, what is going on?

I just had to share the above so I could move on with my Sunday. What are your thoughts on the above topics or do you have your own downtown observations?

– Steve