Downtown Partnership Addressing Neglected Street Trees on Washington Ave

Back in July I wrote about the high number of missing street trees on our city’s most expensive streetscape, downtown’s Washington Ave. I had high hopes a few days later when I spotted a city crew grinding out a tree stump, but they only did one (see post). But people did take notice. From my original post:

Too bad we don’t have some taxing entity for improving the downtown community. Oh wait, we do — the downtown Community Improvement District (CID) that is administered by the Downtown St Louis Partnership. From the CID page:

“The Community Improvement District provides new and enhanced improvements and activities, including: maintenance, security, marketing/communications, streetscape improvements, landscaping services, economic and housing development, and special events above and beyond those currently provided by the City.”

Yes maintenance is on the list. Well Jim you’ve got some maintaining to do.

That last line is a reference to Jim Cloar, CEO & President of the Partnership for Downtown St Louis — the entity that manages the community improvement district. On September 19th I spotted workers out pruning the remaining trees on the street:

A few days later, on September 22nd, the Post-Dispatch mentions the tree issue:

Six years ago, city officials and downtown boosters celebrated with great fanfare the $14 million beautification of six blocks of Washington Avenue. Now, judging from the 10 missing street trees in that very stretch, it would be easy to think somebody dropped the ball. The project meant two years of barricades, cost overruns and construction delays. Washington Avenue retailers lost customers, and downtown residents had to put up with incessant jack-hammering. Yet the end result – a pedestrian-friendly, tree-lined and decoratively paved street – seemed to be worth all the headaches.
Most blocks of Washington Avenue still look great. But there are troubling signs of neglect. In July, Steve Patterson wrote about the missing trees on his blog, www.urbanreviewstl.com, which focuses on city planning and accessibility issues. With the autumn tree-planting season right around the corner, I thought On Your Side ought to join in the mini-crusade.

Proper credit, sweet! Writer Matthew Hathaway did what I seldom have time to do — make follow-up inquiries. After contacting both the city and Partnership it looks like the Partnership will be replacing the missing trees “in the next planting season.”

Great, now if I can only get others to join me in getting rid of the “depressed section” of I-70, relocating the taxi stand located on the public sidewalk in front of the convention center, adding 24/7 on-street parking on Washington Ave East of Tucker, and redoing our 1947 auto-centric zoning code. Is that too much to ask?