Hodak’s Seeking to Close Part of Cushing Street
The Benton Park Neighborhood is being asked to support a plan by Hodak’s restaurant (map) to close part of Cushing St. so that the popular eatery can expand its increasing number of parking spaces.
Hodak’s is seeking to close Cushing St. from McNair Ave. to a small street known as Devolsey St. Hodak’s is already surrounded by way too much parking, especially since they (illegally) razed buildings to the east a few years ago for more parking. Yet, that is not good enough. They want more spaces and more control.
As it is Hodak’s parking remains vacant during most hours of the day with a large spike at dinner time. Do we really want to see streets closed and possibly more buildings razed simply for a dinner crowd? Not me.
Granted, Custing St. is not much of a street. Really, it is more of a glorified alley but it does serve a number of adjacent property owners along McNair & Victor as well as some real alleys connecting to the street. It is wide enough to provide access for emergency vehicles for various properties on both sides.
At this time I do not know what position, if any, that Alderwoman Phyllis Young has taken. If you have an opinion please be sure to share it with her and in the comments below.
The Benton Park Neighborhood Association meeting is tonight at The Epiphany United Church of Christ located at 2911 Mc Nair. The first hour, 6:30pm – 7:30pm, is a pot luck dinner and problem property meeting with the main meeting starting at 7:30pm.
[UPDATE 5/3 @ 9:20am – The closure of Cushing would only be “partial”, not going all the way to McNair. It still prevents through traffic.]
– Steve
I guess this one doesn’t bother me that much.
While I agree Hodak’s has too much parking, and they kind of ruined their building’s original corner entryway with glass block, at least they keep their property in good condition and it does attract a lot of customers with money and nice cars to a corner of the city they might not otherwise visit.
On-street parking on Gravois is difficult in this stretch, so it’s reasonable for Hodak’s to provide a parking lot. I was unhappy they demolished that building across McNair, but at least they used attractive fencing on that new lot. I’m not sure how it was “illegal” – did they not apply for a demo permit at first? City records indicate a demo permit was issued in Feb. ’02 for that location.
Since Hodak’s (AKA “Charls LLC”) owns all the property on both sides of Cushing from McNair to Devolsey, this would be pretty difficult to stop.
I believe also the Hodak’s property and adjacent areas along Gravois were deliberately excluded from the new Benton Park Local Historic District.
Anyway, if they really need more parking, I’d like to see Hodak’s buy out that car wash 1/2 a block east, but I guess that’s too far for their patrons to walk.
Gravois is just such a wide, high-speed road in this stretch that it’s difficult to make it friendly for pedestrians. I wish it wasn’t so, but it is. Believe me, I know; I walk along Gravois all the time!
Most costomers have either senior issues or overwieght issues most are dropped off at the front door the car wash would be too far for Hodak clientel to attempt to walk
They could set up their take out station there as they cook in their warehouse garage with no exaust fans on mothers day and christmas eve,. Maybe you should sugest to the owner he can put fryers at the carwash to increase his need for greediness
Diagonal parking, Joe, that’s how.
If you ever want to explore a fascinating period in St. Louis history, go back to the days when Gravois was a rural road, with truck farms on both sides, and the houses set way back from the road. You can see what it was like in the old Compton and Dry book.
During the period from 1850-1900, driving along Gravois west of 12th street was a trip through farm country.
Ulysses Grant used to truck fire wood down the road from his then farm to downtown STL. It was an all-day trip.
It must have been beautiful, with lots of horses, stately homes, orchards, and quiet countryside.
In those days, St. Louis was the bomb.
If memory serves me correctly, the owners began tearing down the building at the corner (where the current lot exists) without a demolition permit, and than after it was too far gone, there was nothing the city could really do except allow them to complete what they started. It is a bad precedent for land owners who do not care to follow simple laws or any sort of urban planning guidelines.
That said, it is also the type of business that you would hate to see leave the city, of which I am sure has been threatened (just like every business around here), but I do not believe in letting people like this do whatever they feel like because of that threat. Let them leave if they don’t want to live by urban standards. I would rather see that building sit vacant for a while than to see more and more of our urban fabric disappear.
We go to Hodak’s a lot–at dinner time and other times–and never have a problem parking. I don’t understand their need for more parking.
However, i also don’t understand why anyone would prevent a locally owned and operated business in a part of town desparate for such businesses from expanding its operation. Hodak’s is a point of light in a rather dim stretch of Gravois, isn’t it?
[REPLY – I’m not sure how more fenced off parking lots will help the perception of Gravois. Had Hodak’s renovated the buildings to the East rather than raze them without a permit that would have been a good start. Also, filling in the gap where their parking is to the West would also help.
Beyond their borders I think we need to undo another past mistake and finally narrow Gravois — remove a traffic lane from each direction. Widen the sidewalks. Or as suggested earlier, allow diagonal parking. This section of Gravois can once again be pedestrian friendly and urban but we have to be willing to make tough decisions and not give into our suburban tendencies of low-rise buildings, excessive parking and drive-thru service. – SLP]
Diagonal parking sounds awesome. It’s ironic really. More on-street parking would make the adjacent real estate more valuable.
Wait a second…if this is such a good idea, why hasn’t someone proposed it already?
I’m a frequent diner at Hodak’s along my friends and family, and I’ve never had a hard time finding a spot to park. Attending the Benton Park meeting is necessary, it seems the parking is necessary for added commercial development on Gravois to the west of Hodak’s. The majority of residents attending voiced support of the project.
The desired parking lot is located between Hodak’s and the new development to its west. My question is why can’t the parking lot be built either side of Cushing instead of having to vacate this “glorified alley”? The alley vacation appears to only provide a handful of spots, indeed a seeming “wash” replacing on-street spots lost on Cushing.
[REPLY – I’m going to do a new post as a follow up after the meeting but since you brought it up…
The revised plan gains from the current, three spaces! I need to do a parking count to see if this includes on-street spaces along Cushing or if that is only those on private land.
Basically Hodak’s owners are in a powerful position to make or break a project next door to them that needs some parking. A sad reality is that because one property owner has managed to gobble up property & razed buildings he has more parking than he needs while another building sits vacant for decades and needs just a handful of parking spaces. – SLP]
Steve- thank you for attending the meeting and sharing your always insightful observations.
This is certainly one of the more complex r/e transactions I have been involved within the neighborhood as well as professionally. Mind you, no resident was supportive of this request (vacation of Devolsey and partial vacation of Cushing) a month ago at the April Benton Park Neighborhood Assoc. meeting.
After the Buildng Review Committee met with the new owners, two 30-something professional musicians who have launched a successful recording studio, their vision of breathing life back into the former Lipic Pen Building (2200 Gravois) and the former Polar Wave Ice building (2300 Gravois, gutted by fire in 1946 and a shell ever since) presented Benton Park a wonderful solution to see the commercial enterprise along Gravois revitalized by creating their recording studio and commercial office space (Lipic Pen) and redeveloping the Polar Wave into 16 apartments, (with below grade garage).
Back to 2002, the neighborhood was opposed to the demolition of the Schmitt building (corner of McNair and Gravois) by Ralph Hegel, owner of Hodaks. Benton Park Housing Corp. got involved and was soliciting developers to partner with Hegel to redevelop the building. A shock to all, the demolition commenced on a Sunday which structurally compromised the SW corner of the building to the point an emergency permit was approved. The fine, maximum $500.00 and in this case “at-a-boys” for building a “good looking parking lot”. Many neighbors are still mad as hell about the deception, demolition and gloating by Hodaks.
While that fine Schmitt building was lost, we value the opportunity to see a first rate redevelopment at 2200 & 2300 Gravois. Parking is the key to allow the building to be viable. Currently Hodak’s lots are not compliant with regard to set-back nor landscaping buffer. That said, the 10 parking spaces picked along Devolsey and 3 along Cushing appear to “replace” those spaces given for landscaping and set-back.
The Hegels seam to think they can manipulate the world with their greed and deciet
Nothing good comes from a devil worshiper