St. Louis has a long history with professional sports teams, but, except for the Blues and the Cardinals, there’s also been a lot of changes over the years. The Browns, the Hawks and the football Cardinals have all left town. We invested heavily to get the Rams. We were once the epicenter for professional wrestling, and we currently support, among other sports, roller derby (ArchRivalRollerGirls.com).
Supporters of pro sports view them as being critical to a major city’s identity and for attracting new businesses. This is backed up with public investments like those in the Jones Dome, Busch III and Scottrade Center. But there are always groups advocating for more and different. One thing St. Louis lacks, in the traditional sense, is a pro basketball team. The Hawks were here from 1955 to 1968, but they were sold and moved to Atlanta. There are also “newer” pro sports leagues that are growing around the country, in sports that appeal more to the younger generations, sports like soccer and lacrosse.
With some regularity, we’ll see proposals, many times in Illinois, to build a new pro sports facility to support one of these new leagues. The Rams continue to make noises about the need to improve or replace the Jones Dome. We just had a successful weekend of bike racing and the possibility of bringing the Olympics back to St. Louis is always a remote one. There are those of us who would like to see a bigger investment in expanding our trail system, and there are others who value motorsports like NHRA and NASCAR. Heck, there are even people willing to spend money watching monster trucks or lawnmower racing.
This all boils down to priorities. We can’t be everything to everybody, so choices have to be made. The Cardinals and the Blues seem to be relatively satisfied, for the time being, which leaves everyone else. Should we focus our efforts on keeping the Rams or should we try to get an Arena Football team? Would pro soccer be a better investment than pro lacrosse? And should St. Louis work to keep any new facility in or near downtown, ar should we let other cities in the region share in both the glory and the headaches any pro team brings?
Lucas Park, in downtown St. Louis, was used for years only by the homeless in the region. Map to Lucas Park. A year ago local residents began cleaning up and using the park. The homeless are still there, just joined by loft dwellers.
In the last year an improvement plan was developed and funding obtained. Work on the improvements has begun.
One of the main issues I have with the park is the sidewalk along 14th Street on the West edge of the park. It is too narrow and too close to the street. Parents didn’t like the proximity of the playground to the street. A row of bald cypress trees were removed and a retaining wall installed — this will permit the installation of a more generous sidewalk to be placed away from the curb while also creating a barrier to keep kids out of the street.
bThe playground used to be surrounded by rotting railroad ties. Now the retaining wall material defines the playground area.
Over on the North section of the park a new dog run is being built to replace the makeshift one on the East end of the park (former Children’s Center fenced playground).
A large majority of those voting in the poll last week support the idea of removing a section of highway downtown and building a boulevard as a pleasant way to move vehicles through the area. The total number of votes was 162.
The highway is now marked as I-70 but once the new Mississippi River bridge is opened I-70 will cross over into Illinois rather than pass by the Arch. The tunnel proposal solves only a 3-4 block section of getting past the highway lanes. The boulevard would help mend over a mile long zone for half the cost.
It has been suggested just closing Memorial Drive. That still leaves the exposed highway North of Washington Ave as well as creating a huge dead zone — vast pedestrian mall at the foot of the Gateway Arch. Bad idea.
After demolition of the historic Century Building began in the Fall of 2004, the lawsuits by two downtown residents seeking to prevent the demolition became a moot point. On April 19, 2005 the State of Missouri and the City of St. Louis, through entities, joined with the developer of the Ninth Street Parking Garage and filed a Malicious Prosecution claim against Marcia Behrendt & Roger Plackemeier. The plaintiffs are seeking $1,000,000.
After numerous delays the trial was scheduled to finally get underway tomorrow ( 9/14/2009) at 9am. But last Friday, at the request of the Plaintiffs, the case was again delayed. The parties have a new date of 10/26/2009 — that date is just to determine the future trial date. Most likely we are looking at 2010 for the trial.  When your motivation is to discourage public participation it makes sense to drag these things out.
I should disclose that I personally know both Marcia Behrendt & Roger Plackemeier. Marcia was the person that found me after my stroke on 2/1/2008. So I’m not an impartial observer in this issue. To file such a claim and then delay for years is just wrong.
MISSOURI DEVELOPMENT FINANCE BOARD VS BEHRENDT, Case #22052-01373, can be viewed at http://www.courts.mo.gov/casenet. The poll this week asks your view on the city & state suing these two for the last four + years.  Right or wrong?
For over 40 years I-70 has been a major barrier dividing downtown St. Louis from the the Mississippi River. Isolating Laclede’s Landing. Hovering over the Missouri side as you exit the historic Eads Bridge:
At the Gateway Arch the freeway dips into what us known as the “depressed lanes.” Depressing indeed. For years now the political establishment has been talking about the idea of a lid over the sunken highway lanes. Sounds simple enough, just put a lid over the top.
The problem is, “lid” is the wrong word. The correct word is tunnel. A lid implies you might use a crane to set it in place just as the final piece of the adjacent Arch was set. But for our officials to keep saying lid is misleading. They want to put the highway into a new tunnel.
Entrance to Highway 67/Lindbergh Blvd Tunnel
The Highway 67/Lindbergh tunnel under the extended runways at Lambert Airport is probably the closest example to what will be required next to the Arch. Hardly a lid. The ventilation and security requirements of this tunnel contributed to the billion dollar runway price tag. Ouch.
The extensive tunneling required for the latest MetroLink expansion drove up the price tag for that project. Face it, tunnels are expensive. In many cases, too expensive.
I can’t help but think of the biggest of the big in terms of tunnel projects:
The Big Dig was the most expensive highway project in the U.S. Although the project was estimated in 1985 at $2.8 billion (in 1982 dollars, US$6.0 billion adjusted for inflation as of 2006),[3] over $14.6 billion ($8.08 billion in 1982 dollars) had been spent in federal and state tax dollars as of 2006. A July 17, 2008 article in [update][update]The Boston Globe stated, “In all, the project will cost an additional $7 billion in interest, bringing the total to a staggering $22 billion, according to a Globe review of hundreds of pages of state documents. It will not be paid off until 2038.” (Source: Wikipedia)
Estimates of under $3 billion but ending up over $22 billion. Our tunnel will not have the complexity of Boston’s Big Dig but I think that project serves as a lesson for cost overruns and delays to completion. Our own Cross County Metrolink expansion is a local lesson on costs and completion deadlines.
At least in Boston the Big Dig addressed how their Central Artery freeway had divided their city.
Boston, January 2008
Above is one of many points where the former elevated freeway divided Boston. Their expensive tunnel resolved the division issues not for a mere 3 blocks but for more than a mile.
But in St. Louis our tunnel would resolve access to the Arch grounds at the center only. My solution, first advanced in August 2005, is to remove the freeway lanes once I-70 is routed across the new river bridge currently being planned:
So imagine the existing I-70 removed from the PSB to the new bridge (North of Laclede’s Landing & the proposed Bottle District). In its place a wide and grand boulevard lined with trees and shops. The adjacent street grid is reconnected at every block. Pedestrians can easily cross the boulevard not only at the Arch but anywhere along the distance between the bridges. Eads Bridge and the King Bridge both land cars onto the boulevard and into then dispersed into the street grid. The money it would take to cover I-70 for 3 blocks in front of the Arch can go much further not trying to cover an interstate highway. Joining the riverfront and Laclede’s Landing to the rest of downtown will naturally draw people down Washington Avenue to the riverfront.
In one bold decision we can take back our connection to the river that shaped our city. The decision must be made now. The interchange for the new bridge is being designed now — we’ve only got one chance to get it right. Similarly, the lid project in front of the Arch could shift to a removed I-70 and connecting boulevard design before we are too far along the current path.
We are at a crossroads at this point with three major projects involving billions of dollars and affecting St. Louis for at least the next half century. Removing I-70 would, in twenty years, be seen as a pivotal decision. Will our government leaders have the courage to make such a decision?
In the four years since I wrote those words more people agree. Some are banding together to sell the concept to the region, moving the idea forward. Property owners along this section of interstate that will no longer be I-70 favor the idea. The problem is our leadership is still stuck on the costly lid concept. They want to address 3 blocks rather than 30 blocks — for 10 times the cost. Sounds about like St. Louis’ leadership.
The problem is they have….well…tunnel vision. They see only a problem at the center of the Arch whereas most of us see the access problem along the length of the highway as it slices through downtown. Examples of problems that will not be addressed by a tunnel:
We can fix all of the above with a tree-lined boulevard. Remember, this 1.5 mile stretch will no longer be I-70. Those drivers using these lanes as a pass through can still use the boulevard to get North-South. The choice is simple, repair a large portion of the downtown and near North side where it has been divided by a 1.5 mile long stretch of highway or focus on 3 blocks for at least twice the price. The solution is a no-brainer to me.
The first thing we must do is get our officials to stop insulting our intelligence with the overly simplistic “lid” idea. The highway is not a Tupperware container that you can just close up with a simple snap-on lid. Even if the price tag were the same, the boulevard concept reconnects much more of the city — 1.5 miles vs. 3 blocks.
Unfortunately our officials are all talking the same 3 block tunnel. Many have a say from the Mayor to MoDOT to the National Park Service. Getting them to be open to other, more encompassing, solutions will be challenging.
Take this week’s poll in the right sidebar to vote on how to reconnect the city to the river.
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