Ald. Florida Introduces BB39 to Amend Redevelopment Plan

Ald. Florida today introduced Board Bill #39 to amend the Gravois/Meramec/Grand redevelopment plan to allow drive-thru establishments for a single parcel — the one owned currently by Pyramid and proposed for the new McDonald’s.

Funny, Ald. Florida is the same person that said the redevelopment plan only applies if a developer is seeking tax incentives. By her own argument, the no drive-thru clause cannot be enforced on property owners if they are not seeking tax breaks. By her logic then we must believe it is the intention of hers to seek tax breaks such as a TIF or property tax abatement since she is attempting to amend the redevelopment ordinance.

It should also be noted, the LCRA board’s idea of public notice is an agenda in the lobby of 1015 Locust. No agenda online. No use of the City Journal, a publication created solely for the purpose of meeting public notice requirements. The LCRA is the board that voted on April 4th to allow the change.

The bill has had its first reading and has been assigned to the Housing, Urban Design and Zoning committee (HUDZ). The aldermen on the committee will, no doubt, rubber stamp this legislation without batting an eye if the public remains silent. I urge everyone reading this post to contact every single member of the HUDZ committee.

Here is the list:

Fred Wessels, Jr. Chair, 13th Ward
Craig Schmid, Vice-Chair, 20th Ward
Freeman Bosley, Sr., 3rd Ward
Jeffrey Boyd, 22nd Ward
Gregory Carter, 27th Ward
Stephen Conway, 8th Ward
Dionne Flowers, 2nd Ward
April Ford-Griffin, 5th Ward
Kathleen Hanrahan, 23rd Ward
Bernice Jones King, 21st Ward
Lyda Krewson, 28th Ward
Michael McMillan, 19th Ward and candidate for License Collector
Kenneth Ortman, 9th Ward (Ald. Ortman “prefers not to be contacted via email.” Hmm. So call him at 314-622-3287
Lewis Reed, 6th Ward
Matt Villa, 11th Ward
Phillis Young, 7th Ward

The main points:

Look for a committee meeting next week with a hearing around the same time. No date has been set but this committee often meets at 10am on Wednesdays.

– Steve

Letters of Support from Mayor Slay, Sen. Coleman and Rep. Daus

Lost among the litter that is the McDonald’s on Grand controversy is the attempt to pass off three letters as support for the McDonald’s drive-thru. In February and again this month during public hearings on the conditional use variance for a drive-thru three letters were being passed off as supporting the project. They were in support of the senior housing on the current McDonald’s site. In fact, the word “McDonald’s” was not mentioned in any of the three.

The letters, from Mayor Slay, State Sen. Maida Coleman and State Rep. Mike Daus were all written in October 2005 as Pyramid was seeking support from the Missouri Housing Development Commission, aka MHDC.

But, you don’t have to take my work for it. You can read the letters yourself:

Sen. Coleman

Rep. Daus

Mayor Slay

Clearly city’s staff failed to actually read the letters when they stated they had letters of support for the project. The only other option would be that they read the letters but knowingly passed them off as letters of support on the chance that nobody would request copies under Missouri’s Sunshine Law.

Without these letters of “support” the only people on record supporting the drive-thru for McDonald’s, Jennifer Florida and the folks from Pyramid Construction.

Correcting The Creative Class Story

Last June I joined a group of people at the now closed Gallery Urbis Orbis for an interview on St. Louis’ “Creative Class.” It was a fun few hours as we all shared our stories and thoughts on the impact of this group on St. Louis. The article finally made it to the May 2006 issue of St. Louis Magazine.

Unfortunately, among all the people and issues discussed that day, some of the facts are a bit off:

Artist and real estate agent Steve Patterson and his partner, formerly of Seattle, were on their way to New York when they thought, “We saw these beautiful old buildings and thought, ‘This is it: We’re stopping here,'” he recalls. “Now I’ve got other Seattle friends looking to buy here, too.”

While I am a real estate agent I have never been, nor will I ever be, an artist. Art is not my thing although you can’t spend five years in architecture school without being creative. Besides selling real estate I also do free-lance design consultation for everything from simple projects to large residential projects.

And I am not from Seattle. Regular readers know I’m a native of Oklahoma City. I have been to Seattle numerous times. The real story is I was ready to leave Oklahoma as soon as classes were done. My friend Mary Ann had spent the summer in D.C. interning at a way too conservative think tank. We decided to be roommates in D.C. The year was 1990 and unemployment was high as was the cost of living. Mary Ann’s mom lives on Lemp so after we loaded up stuff in Mary Ann’s car we drove up I-44 to St. Louis to stay a couple nights before heading to D.C.

As a kid my family traveled quite a bit but that was mostly to Southern cities in Texas and Florida where my brother, nearly 18 years older than me, was stationed in the U.S. Navy. I had been to large cities in college such as Dallas and Los Angeles but they didn’t call out to me. I even had a trip to Kansas City while I was in college but it didn’t beckon me.

We arrived on a hot Saturday afternoon in August 1990. I was behind the wheel of Mary Ann’s Honda Civic. Just past Kingshighway I began to fall in love. With what? The rows of houses along both sides of I-44, most of which have now been razed for the Botanical Heights vinyl box subdivision. We exited at Arsenal and turned onto Lemp. Benton Park was just getting going at that time so it was still a bit rough but I didn’t mind at all. It didn’t take long for us to walk over to Venice Cafe for a drink. I was sold on St. Louis literally within hours of arriving.

The next day Mary Ann, her mom and a gay couple she knew gave me the tour of the town. We stopped at Ted Drewes on Watson (my only time to that location), walked up and down Euclid, and passed by the buildings on Grand that were being razed for what is now Kinko’s & Bread Co. I knew, after seeing only part of the city, that I was home.

After a short visit to D.C. and a train & bus ride back to Oklahoma I got my trusty Dodge Colt and everything that would fit into it (not much) and returned to St. Louis. Hardly the most methodical way to decide where to live. What if her mom lived in Little Rock or Biloxi? Would I have falling in love with those cities the way I did St. Louis? Probably not.

I just bought the May 2006 issue of St. Louis Mag and haven’t read the Creative Class story yet. I’ve been too busy flipping through the pages of ads for new Bentleys and Rolex watches.

[UPDATE 4/28/06 @ 4pm – St. Louis Magazine called me to let me know they’ve cleaned up the story in the online version which can be read here.]

– Steve

The Mayor of Affton?

J. Patrick O’Brien recently declared victory in the April 4th general elections as Mayor of Affton. What is funny about this is despite the huge number of municipalities within St. Louis County, Affton is not one of them. Like Lemay, Affton is a portion of unincorporated St. Louis County. These areas, although not separate towns or cities, have a strong history and local identity.

I’ve enjoyed reading the blog of “mayor” J. Patrick O’Brien as he declared his candidacy, created yard signs and such. Sometimes he just injects a bit of humor and other times he is commenting on real issues in his bit of the region.

O’Brien, as Affton’s (un)official Mayor, is far kinder than I would be about development. For example, a recent post talks about how QuikTrip has moved a bit further west on Gravois:

It was before my time, but another Afftonian says that they fought very hard to get the “wedge” corner at Gravois & Siebert. My source tells me that the old location ended up being a bad layout and when the new parcel became available they jumped at the chance to get more space. As you can see in the second photo, the new layout is nice and spacious such as you normally see at their other locations.

Nice? Spacious? Let’s see, they probably strong-armed someone into selling their properties on the wedge where they’ve been for the last 10 years or so and now have left it vacant while they build an even bigger (read: sprawling auto-centric) location. You can see his post for pictures. Maybe during the campaign QuikTrip gave O’Brien a free slurpee?

What I love about O’Brien’s attitude and resulting site is that he is taking charge and talking about issues in a specific area of region. Maybe we’ll see him on the actual St. Louis County Council someday…

– Steve

McDonald’s Proposal the Result of Engineers

Today I decided to look into the firm behind the McDonald’s “design” for South Grand. No surprise the firm, Core States Engineering, specializes in fast-food restaurants, big box stores and large-scale gas stations. They are engineers, not architects or planners.

From Core States Engineering’s website:

We are extremely proud of our close working relationships with Fortune 500 corporations on national development programs. Clients such as Amerada Hess, Circle K, Sam’s Club, Kmart, Phillips 66, Kroger, Tosco/Circle K, 7-Eleven Corp., Tesoro Petroleum, and Wal-Mart Realty all turn to Core States for their retail development needs.

Wow, what a client list. We all know how sensitive these businesses are when it comes to building in pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods…

Reading through their site I found nothing about making projects fit into the context or trying to be pedestrian-friendly. I did find their engineering approach enlightening:

Our site engineering design team incorporates the clients’ marketing goals into the existing site geometry and topography while working with the municipal authorities to obtain site plan approval as fast and efficiently as possible. Each site has its own set of challenges to overcome… challenges derived from zoning ordinances, site topography, soils conditions, environmental issues, and availability of utilities. Identifying these challenges and presenting options early in the site development saves time and money for the client.

Our professional engineers and design staff have the technical expertise and professional experience to design cost-effective developments and obtain municipal approvals quickly. We have testified before hundreds of zoning boards and planning boards, and know how to plan for questions and concerns that arise at these public hearings. Our success in obtaining board approvals comes from extensive preparations for these meetings, including preparation of in-depth site investigation reports and meetings with civic groups and municipal authorities to identify issues and concerns prior to public hearing.

Interesting, I don’t recall seeing any of these “in-depth site investigation reports” or any discussion with them prior to the public hearings? I’m guessing Ald. Florida assured everyone involved that she could handle the residents.

This firm is headquartered in Atlanta with seven additional branch offices in North America (list), including one in our suburb of Crestwood. If they are such a big and great engineering company why is it they cannot figure out a way to build a new McDonald’s on the current site? They brag about working with existing site geometry and topography yet I hear claims that it can’t be done. I think we need to ask them why it is impossible to rebuild a McDonald’s at the current location at 3737 S. Grand.

You can contact the St. Louis branch office by phone at (314) 843-4320 or email at pbennett@core-eng.com and the main office toll-free at 866-865-1785 or via email at info@core-eng.com