Gateway Mall: Nothin’ New to See

On December 12th I told you an announcement was coming in January for the Gateway Mall (see post). Well, Monday was the day with a press conference on the 12th Floor of the lovely Civic Courts building — between 11th and Tucker smack dab in the middle of the Gateway Mall. The big announcement? Nothing!
Despite claims of new items by Rollin Stanley, the city’s Director of Planning who is taking a new job in the DC region next month, we already knew about the 2-block sculpture garden. That would be the one announced before the city asked the public for feedback on the master plan for the too long space (see post from June 11, 2007). We also knew that The Lawrence Group was looking at doing a couple of blocks around their project, The Park Pacific.

Did the Lawrence Group get funding worked out to do those two blocks? Nope. Maybe someone else stepped up to do another area? Nope. Perhaps something new to announce around the sculpture garden? Nope. Well, Mayor Slay indicated a couple of pieces have been purchased by the Gateway Foundation but that doesn’t justify a news conference.

But I was there and took photos and video so I put together a 10-minute video which includes various speakers as well as a collection of images taken from the 12th floor promenade at Civil Courts:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSZoUEL_aCM[/youtube]

CD’s were handed out with the Master Plan on them in a single PDF file. Interestingly the cover and the file on the CD both indicate October 2007. Again, nothing new, although I don’t recall them having the full document available before. Still, I think they’ve had it for months and held onto it until now to drag this into 2008 and timed it just before Stanley’s departure. The city has the PDF available at http://stlouis.missouri.org/citygov/planning/gatewaymall/STLouisGatewayMallMasterPlan.pdf.

The conceptual plan still has lots of bells and whistles — lots of little activity centers strung together by a sidewalk that is supposed to draw us along the path for blocks and blocks.  These unfunded spaces will be so compelling that we will get international attention — people will come from all over the world just to see them.  Well, maybe a few blocks will get that sort of attention.  They are also supposed to draw loft residents, like myself, over to the mall.  Unfortunately, that is time where we are not over on Washington, Locust or in other places downtown spending money in shops and restaurants.

Stanley brought out the late 60s argument that we have too many streets — talking about how little space is green relative to street pavement.  Their solution is not to narrow Chestnut, as should be done, but close it entirely.  The plan also calls for the removal of short term on-street parking along the North side of Market.  Taking the place of on-street parking will be a bike lane — a two direction bike lane.  A curb will separate cars on Market from an 8ft wide bike lane.  Still, a bike lane is not something you can do two blocks at a time so I have to wonder what will become of that space along the sculpture park in the meantime?  Will they remove the parking now and do a temporary bike lane without the protection of the curb?  The big issue is creating traffic signals in such a way that permit cyclist movement that is not in conflict with turning vehicles. In such a relatively short distance, I think the 2-way bike lane will prove to be another failed experiment.

The press conference offered me a chance to get my camera to the top of the building to take advantage of some great views.  But next time guys, actually have something new to share.

How Prepared is St. Louis for an Emergency?

For a class project at SLU I was going through the list of city departments/agencies and noticed one that I had never really looked at before, the St. Louis City Emergency Management Agency. After 9/11 and Katrina we’ve all seen how municipal response teams can be overwhelmed. We as tax paying citizens have expectations about services we expect from our local government but all too often we wait until a situation arises before concerns are addressed.

Having now viewed the website for the city’s Emergency Management Agency (http://www.stlouiscityema.com) I can say I’m not feeling as safe as I did beforehand. The agency’s mission is:

To coordinate, cooperate, and communicate with all agencies that have a responsibility in the area of Emergency Management and Homeland Security for the City of St. Louis. This includes but is not limited to the Mitigation, Prevention, Preparedness, Response, and Recovery from any manmade / national disaster that takes place in the City of St. Louis.
To work as a region to protect the citizens of St. Louis and the surrounding communities from all hazards.

From the outward appearances of the agency, they couldn’t do much for themselves let along protect “protect the citizens of St. Louis and the surrounding communities from all hazards.” What is my basis for such a harsh statement?
For starters, the website would have been considered amateurish a decade ago. For example, the page for upcoming events:

Each page is a different color and clearly the designer had a CD (or maybe a 5-1/4″ floppy disk) of clipart. More substantially, the information is half a decade out of date!

Perhaps you want to volunteer to help out?

Well, that page is under construction at this time. Note how the background image covers the navigation buttons at the top of the page.

On another page at least they give us links to other sites where perhaps we can find some good information:

You can’t tell from the above screen shot but the lights on the ambulances blink on the actual page. Not at all comforting.

The site has been updated enough to send folks elsewhere for training this year:

Maybe this is the norm? What about St. Louis County, I thought.

For St. Louis County they have the Office of Emergency Management through the St. Louis County Police. From their site I was able to download a PDF of their 100+ page Basic Emergency Operations Plan, see the list of members on their Local Emergency Planning Committee and so on. I know that:

The unit operates from the Emergency Operations Center (EOC), a uniquely designed self-contained underground structure. In the event of disaster, the facility is able to function independent of all common utilities. The OEM is tasked with preparing members of local government, law enforcement, and the public and private sectors, with how to prevent, prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters.

The city’s Emergency folks operate out of the lower level of the Solders Memorial. Is it, like the county’s, able to function separately from normal utilities? While I’ve not read the full county plan it does appear they have a clear plan for communications — whom to call and when and so on.

The person responsible at City Hall, up the chain, is the recently named new Director of Public Safety, Charles Bryson. Of course, this lack of information predates his time on the job — going back to Sam Simon who was in the position from 2002 to 2007. He recently left the job to take a new position at SLU, the Director of Emergency Preparedness. From SLU’s announcement:

Simon has directed city emergency responses, including Hurricane Katrina relief operations at Lambert-St. Louis International Airport and helped develop emergency preparedness planning for the recent World Series.

Simon came to SLU with extensive credentials in the area of emergency preparedness. He was the metropolitan area’s coordinator for Homeland Security and currently is completing the Homeland Security Executive Leadership Program at the Naval Post Graduate School in Monterey, Calif. He also has served as an adjunct professor in SLU’s School of Public Health.

Of course, FEMA never actually used the relief operations at the airport so we don’t really know how well that was planned. Still, Simon appears to have the right credentials. So maybe the city is better prepared than the website lets on?

Those of us that live/work downtown are probably a little better off than the rest of the city — we have the Downtown St. Louis Emergency Preparedness Operation (or DSTEP). This information is only a couple of years out of date (references to SBC, now AT&T, for example). The “testimonials” section includes a quote from Fire Chief Sherman George — more recently out of date. Many of the website sections such as Evacuations Plans, Emergency Supplies, Credentialing, News & Media and Downtown Residents all simply state “coming soon.” The copyright on the pages is 2005. Interesting, they talk about two initiatives for the operation — the first:

1) The creation of a website that provides pertinent information about emergency preparedness. It offers a wealth of specific information to downtown St. Louis, provides contact information and offers more information about DSTEP as well. Please visit the website at (www.DSTEP.org).

Well, they’ve failed to accomplish their first item! With so many of our “leader” and “good corporate citizens” involved how can they simply drop the ball and not finish what they started?

Emergencies are, by their nature, never planned. They strike when you least expect them to and we have an expectation that our governments are prepared to coordinate efforts when the worst does happen. From what I have seen thus far I have little confidence the City of St. Louis is prepared to handle a large emergency. Let’s all hope it is not tested, but if it is, that I am very wrong.

Bill Would Make Plaza Square Apartments A Housing Conservation District

Plaza Square, the urban renewal era apartment complex listing on the National Register of Historic Places, has been having some issues of late.  Elevators not working properly and so on.  The city seems to have an answer, make the complex a “housing conservation district” as exists in much of the city.  Such a district requires inspections each and every time a tenant changes apartments unless that change happened within the 12 months since the last inspection.  This would be the first such district in downtown St. Louis.
While I support efforts to ensure the overall public safety, this measure, Board Bill 328, seems to target a single property with two owners of record.  The Blu condo project, part of the original Plaza Square complex but under separate ownership for many years, is excluded from the proposed district.  In fact, the proposed district is an island all to itself — not an extension of an adjacent district.

My guess here is that this is a legal move to force the property owner into selling out the property to someone else.   Maybe that is best in the long term but in the short term such targeted use of our laws seems punitive.  BB328 was introduced in October by Ald Young (D-7th) but it hasn’t gotten far.  Next Thursday (1/24) at 1pm the Public Safety Committee of the Board of Alderman will take up this bill.  This meeting is open to the public.

Crosswalk Leads Directly Into Curb & Light Standard, Missing Ramps

Getting around the city is a challenge for those using mobility devices (wheelchairs, mobility scooters), pushing strollers or pulling luggage. Sure, everywhere you look you do see ramps. So what is the problem, you ask?

Well, ramp placement plays a role in their ultimate usability and sadly placement has been given little thought throughout the city. Of course, it is worse out in the suburbs where sidewalks are a luxury.

Above is looking East across 18th Street at the signalized entry to Union Station (behind me) and across to another parking lot — I like how they managed to center the crosswalk lines with the curb on the other side — perfectly centered between two ramps! Pedestrians headed West from the new multi-modal center (Greyhound & Amtrak services) are directed up a new ramp which takes them out to the above intersection. Those heading South along 18th (toward Ameren/Lafayette Sq) must cross this crosswalk as the viaduct only has sidewalks on the West edge. Those coming and going from Union Station also cross this intersection.

Interesting, the ramp for the corner where I am standing aligns perfectly with the center of the painted stripes yet on the opposite side it runs into a curb and signal post. Brilliant!

When I took the above image a couple of weeks ago the signals here and at the new ramp just a few hundred feet to the South had been placed on yellow flash for 18th and red flash if you were leaving on of the parking lots. For pedestrians, this means no pedestrian signal to indicate when it is OK to attempt to cross the street.

And, as you might expect, the ramps on the other side are a mess of wrong slopes and cross angles. Controlling a wheelchair to keep from having the right ramp spill you out in the street would be a challenge. This situation should not be acceptable given that pedestrians from this new facility are headed this direction.

UPDATE 1/9/08 @ 9am – The new multi-modal center is expected to open in late April.

Fire Heavily Damages Downtown Restaurant

Earlier today an act of arson (per the Post-Dispatch) heavily damaged a downtown restaurant as well as adjacent living spaces. Thankfully, everyone was evacuated safely.

Just past 7:30am this morning a few fire trucks were still on the scene that started after 3am, according to news reports. Police had Washington Ave blocked in both directions. Copia was in the main floor of the lovely two story building in the center, above. The Vangard Lofts are to the left, a narrow building is to the right and finally The Meridian to the far right. Residents of all these buildings were evacuated. Unfortunately, The Vangard suffered some smoke & water damage.

From the back, above, we see the rear patio area. The front dining room seemed to have suffered mostly smoke & water damage, as the tables appear ready for dinner. However, the rear of the building was severely damaged.

The back of these buildings front onto St. Charles St., a narrow alley-like street. I’m not sure if parking is allowed on this section of the street. Still, a silver Mustang was parked at the end of Copia’s ramp at the back. The Fire Dept looks to have cut the railing apart to get access to the back entrance. Good thing they had that practice on Lou Hamilton’s diving board!

Above, St. Louis’ new fire chief Dennis Jenkerson changes shoes at the back of his car before leaving the site.

From the front, with the exception of the broken glass and debris, it doesn’t appear a 4-alarm fire just did the damage that it did. Again, the dining room was damaged by smoke and water, not fire.

Later crews were on the scene to board up the building and deal with damage at the Vangard Lofts as well.

Regular readers will note this is the same restaurant where I had my video-tapped confrontation with owner Eyad “ET” Tammas, over valets consuming too much public parking. Despite that, and the on-going valet problems, I would never wish arson upon anyone. Copia, like many other places, was an important part of the downtown scene. I wish them well in their rebuilding. The valet guys, and their tactics to take up more spaces than is fair, can stay gone as far as I am concerned unless they learn to play well with others.