Battle for Control of Cherokee Street

At 1pm this afternoon the Cherokee Street Business Association will hold elections for its board of directors and officers. Unlike most business assocations, where things just continue with little controversy, this meeting may well be as heated as they come. This meeting may be a glimpse of how the upcoming 20th Ward election will go.

You see, Ald. Craig Schmid is pretty much of the same ‘keep out things’ mode of thinking of Wallace and her supporters. In the past, I think this has served a valid purpose. But times change and we must learn and adapt along the way. Among the groups on Cherokee are professionals, business owners catering to Mexican clientele, restaurants and bakeries, various artists and art groups, and a somewhat “radical” left-wing element. Wallace seems to have issues with all of them.

Galen Gondolfi, a candidate for Schmid’s 20th ward seat, is among those seeking change on Cherokee. Jason Deem, a young business man whom I have met and consulted on a rehab project, is seeking to be the new President of the association. Deem has assembled a diverse group of people from the street, all running as a slate. You can view their flyer in: English or Spanish.

Will a win for Deem and his slate mean trouble for Schmid in the larger ward? Maybe, maybe not. But, a Deem win will mark a shift on the street that Gondolfi will certainly tout on the campaign countdown to March 6th. Craig Schmid is not among the favorites of St. Louis’ political establishments but I have to think they’d rather keep him over a more progressive Gondolfi. Ken Ortmann, whose ward includes part of Cherokee, is not up for re-election until March 2009.

At issue is more than just who controls the gavel at meetings. Cherokee is a special taxing district so those who control the board, along with the aldermen, control the use of monies collected from taxes. How this money is used, or not used, will be important in the coming years.

More information on the growing rift on Cherokee from the RFT archives:

• Not on Our Street, June 8 2005
• Ruckus on Cherokee Street, June 14, 2006

The meeting will be held at 1pm on the 2nd floor of the Juvenile Court Building across from the Casa Loma Ballroom, at Iowa and Cherokee (map).  The group, under Wallace’s leadership does have a website, www.cherokeestation.com, which currently has only an announcement about a Cindo de Mayo this past May.

One Year Later: Mississippi Bluffs Project Going Nowhere Fast

A year ago today I did a post about the problems with the proposed design for the Mississippi Bluffs condos, including the razing of the stately Doering Mansion. This was a follow-up post to the November 28, 2005 Preservation Board meeting where the project was given approval by a vote of 6-2. At that meeting Ald. Matt Villa (yes, of Loughborough Commons fame) spoke about how he selected this developer over others. Once again, we have Aldermen medling in development issues for which they are not qualified.

On February 22, 2006 I lamented about the Doering Mansion:

The once stately Doering Mansion is nearly gone. Today only a few walls remain standing as the machinery tears away at the structure.

It its place will be some vaguely interesting condos on an artificial bluff sited much closer to Broadway than people realize. Sadly this will be one of those projects where after it is completed people will be remorseful for the old lady that was razed.

This is how the building looked just over a year ago:

The experts and not-so experts said it was too chopped up and beyond saving. I disagreed. Turns out the so-called experts were wrong about what could be built on the site. If you recall the developer, Michael Curran, argued he had to have 56 condos on the site to make the project feasible. Without the mansion’s site, he’d have to build 120 units on the balance. By April 2006 something was up with the real estate agent returning deposits to buyers. In early September Curren went back to the city to amend his project from 56 units down to only 34. Ooops!

Well, it is December and the mansion is long gone and so are any construction crews. The site has been vacant for months. The development’s website has yet to be updated — it still shows the original 56 units to be constructed.

Who do we hold accountable? We can start with developer Michael Curran, the man that picked him for the project Ald. Matt Villa and the four members of the St. Louis Preservation Board that voted in favor of allowing the Doering Mansion to be razed: Richard Callow (now Chairman) Mary Johnson (vice-chair), Luis Porrello and Melanie Fathman (no longer on the board). Two architects on the board voted against demoltion: John Burse and Anthony Robinson.

Here is what Ald. Matt Villa had to say yesterday:

“I don’t know when the project will start, but I do know that Mike Curran plans to proceed.”

Developer Mike Curran did not respond to my request for a comment. And so one full year later we wait…

Bike Parking Comes to Loughborough Commons, Sorta

The sign reads “For Everyone’s Safety, No Skateboarding, No Roller Blading, No Bicycling. Violators Will Be Prosecuted.” And below the no bicycling sign is, a new bike rack. The sign they should have up at the two entrances would warn pedestrians, “We have no provisions in place for those of you on foot so for your own safety just stay out (unless you work here).” But, back to the new bike rack.

This rack is known as a “dish rack” type of rack and frankly it is one of the worst racks on the market. This type has several problems but the main thing is that it is designed to have a wheel (typically front) slide into one of the narrow slots. This makes the bike very unstable in windy conditions but more critically when attempting to secure the bike to the rack you really can’t use a modern U-lock, you must have a long enough chain to be able to lock the bike’s frame to the rack. Otherwise, someone can easily release the front wheel and take the rest.

This is also a two-sided rack, designed to be accessed from one side or the other but here they’ve pushed it up against the wall so only one side is usable. This is probably OK because I doubt they’d have a mad rush of cyclists all at the same time. What is unfortunate is for the same money (or maybe less) they could have purchased a far superior bike rack capable of holding 2-4 bikes with good support, rather than potentially twisting an expensive rim on a windy day.

But the real problem comes in the placement of the rack. It is increasingly obvious they (developer & engineer) had no thought about bike parking beforehand, only trying to fix the situation later after so much attention. But the sidewalk you see here will someday connect to walks eventually getting you out to Loughborough. This is the only pedestrian route planned in and out of the entire project and if the bike rack is used, bikes will be blocking the sole sidewalk.Pedestrian access & bike parking should have been ready on the day the store opened, something that would have been possible had they given it some thought ahead of time. It would have been the friendly thing to do.

Turning back north toward Loughborough we see they’ve begun to dig out the dirt where a planned sidewalk is going to go. My personal guess is they wanted to wait on this sidewalk until the strip mall building that will be on the left gets built. As with bike parking, the recent attention to these issues has likely rearranged their construction schedule a bit.Note the pedestrian walking along the narrow auto drive as they leave the store. I’ve never once had to hang around to get a picture of a pedestrian, someone is almost always walking to or from the store.

Planning St. Louis Style: Mrs. Heitert Likes KFC

Yes folks, it seems Alderman Fred Heitert (R-12th Ward) has a vision for the not-so-old 7-11 put out of business by the new mega QuikTrip: a Kentucky Fried Chicken. At a recent neighborhood meeting Ald. Heitert told the residents, many of whom opposed the QT on the basis it would leave a vacant 7-11, that his wife enjoys KFC and it takes him 20 minutes to drive to the nearest KFC and bring her back some extra crispy.

The picture here is the tanks being removed from the now shuttered 7-11 store with the sprawling QT in the background. The 7-11 was hardly urban but it was relatively small. The QT, however, overwhelms the area. And despite more than ample room, not a single street tree was planted between the sidewalk and curb. Yes, at last night’s Preservation Board some of the discussion over an 8-car parking lot for a condo project centered around the importance of… you guessed it… street trees! So, the tiny 4-condo developer is required to have street trees at the appropriate intervals but QT is not.

Welcome to St. Louis Planning 101: First, welcome any new development because that will help disguise the fact you actually have no clue about creating a vision for the area. Second, ignore valid concerns about market saturation especially when it involves an auto-centric project. Third, have a backup plan if people were right about killing off an existing building — fast food is a good substitute for a failed gas station and a gas station is a good substitute for a failed fast food chain. No matter what you do, don’t place any demands on the developer or they may leave. Street trees? Who needs those….

I was so thrilled to learn yesterday that Heitert is being challenged for the aldermanic seat he has held for nearly 28 years. I’m not endorsing Matt Browning just yet, I need to see if anyone else files for the position before making a decision. But I’ve already concluded that Mr. Heitert has had plenty of time at City Hall. Someone get this man a gold watch and a bucket of KFC, then show him to the door.

Parking Meter Study on South Grand

South Grand is undergoing a transformation of sorts, new parking meters. These are not just an update on the traditional meters. No sir, these are the latest in parking technology.

From the Suburban Journal:

The city is studying two devices, one by Duncan Parking Technologies and another by Parkeon. Both handle about five to 10 parking spaces.

In the Duncan machine, a person enters the number of his parking space when feeding coins or using a credit or debit card. A meter reader pushes a button on the device and then learns which spaces have time on them and which are expired. Then he writes his tickets on cars parked in expired spaces.

In the Parkeon machine, a motorist parking his car doesn’t enter a space number when purchasing time. Instead, he gets a receipt which he puts on his dashboard for the meter reader to see when he walks through the area.

So let’s take a look at both systems and see what we think. These are generally referred to as Pay-Per-Space (the Duncan system, PPS for short) and Pay-N-Display (the Parkeon system, PND for short).

Pay-Per-Space (PPS):

The PPS units are quite small & short, especially when compared to considerably taller PND units. They’ve put up signs to help you find the units but in this block the sign is a good distance from the unit. In other cities they don’t have the signs, you just know to look for the meters mid-block.

The units are pretty straight forward. With these you make note of your parking space (see below for how they are marked) and add money after indicating the space number. You can add coins or credit card but not bills. I guess if I had to make a trade off between bills or credit card I’d go with the latter. There are plenty of times I’ve had no change and only $5 or bigger bills but with a credit card I can still pay. Visa/MC logo debit cards also work.

The former polls for the traditional parking meters are capped with numbers indicating the number of the space in which you are parked. If this system is accepted, the number of polls can be reduced roughly in half as they don’t mark both ends of each space. Depending upon where you park, your number will be at the front of your car or the rear.

With the PPS system once you pay your time you are free to go — no need to run back to the car to display a paid receipt as with the other system.

I’m not sure what the Suburban Journal article was saying about the enforcement person pushing a button to know who is paid and who is not — the street-side of the unit displays a big red circle for those spaces that are unpaid. This makes it easy for parking enforcement to go down the street to see who is paid and who is not.

The PPS system does have some shortcomings. Basically, it offers credit card payment where regular meters do not. Otherwise, you are still working with conventional spaces — the ‘one size fits all approach’ even though a Chevy Suburban is nearly 6ft longer than my Scion (222.4″ vs. 154″, respectively). What does this mean? It means you’ll still get folks that want to squeeze in on the no-parking end and block the crosswalk like this SUV did by the Post Office on Grand. Without fixed spaces on this block, this SUV may have been able to fit.

Pay-N-Display (PND):

The Parkeon PND unit is much taller than the Duncan PPS unit. Does size matter? Well, perhaps this extra height might make it more visible to people trying to locate the unit on the sidewalk. The solar panel on the top gives a decidedly “green” factor which adds a certain hip factor in addition to being very effective by not running solely off of batteries. Jim Merkel of the Suburban Journal indicated these units cost roughly $12,000 each, quite a bit more than the other units.

As you can see from the graphic you are supposed to place the receipt on the dash on the driver’s side. Well, it doesn’t say driver’s side but that is what it shows on the image. This is problematic for a couple of reasons. First, that means that after paying for the time we must return on the street-side to place the receipt. If it gets blown out of our hand or off the dash it will blow into traffic. These put people at greater risk than if we put them on the passenger side as is the case in places like Seattle. The other issue with driver’s side placement is enforcement —- there is no way an officer can safely check for expired receipts via car or even scooter on the driver’s side. They really need to be on foot to check these, especially if the time is expired (or not displayed at all) and they need to issue a ticket.

Here is a close-up of the main information section of the PND unit. I just used my credit card to purchase a 2-hour receipt for $1. I went ahead and did the buck even though I was not going to be staying 2 hours, even with lunch.

The buttons are located just below the screen and information section.

Here is my receipt showing I am paid through 1:53pm. If we had these all over the city I could drive to my next stop and park as long as I was done before the time expired. However, some cities recognize this and discourage it by printing the name of the street on the receipt. Thus, a Grand receipt would not be valid on say Chippewa. Still, being able to take your time with you is very customer friendly. Besides, it is better to allow someone to take their unused time with them rather than leaving it on a conventional meter. As it is, I left Grand with over a hour remaining on my receipt but the next person that parked in my space had to pay rather than using my left-over time.

They don’t have all the kinks worked out of the PND system being tested yet. For example, an old meter pole was used to indicate paying at the meter with an arrow pointing mid-block leaving it unclear is someone can park in the 20+ feet between the yellow curb and the sign.

Nearly a year ago I talked with St. Louis’ director of Planning and Urban Design, Rollin Stanley, about these systems. He indicated he has been trying to get a test going here since he arrived several years ago — talking to anyone that will listen. In February, when parking was finally permitted on part of the two blocks on Washington Ave between 10th and Tucker, I had hoped this was going to be the test area (see post). But, the Treasurer’s office began installing conventional meters shortly after putting up the parking allowed signs. I called Rollin Stanley again today to get some current feedback.

First, Stanley was unaware the test units had been installed, although he knew it was going to happen on Grand. Second, he was unaware they were testing two different types of units. I don’t get overly confident about St. Louis when our director of Planning and Urban Design is not consulted on these things. I just hope he is involved in helping to evaluate the systems which the Suburban Journal indicated will happen at the end of the trial run at the end of February 2007.

Stanley is pretty clear, he strongly prefers the latter Pay-N-Display system indicating it is “more sensible” than other systems precisely because it gives you more spaces and helps increase revenues. Stanley indicated the small town where his parents live (and where he grew up), 200 miles north of Toronto, uses similar systems. He points this out because that town has a population of only 50,000 or so. The point? This is not necessarily a big-city type of solution. Indeed, I have used a pay-per-space system in downtown Tulsa.

Stanley didn’t have an answer for how to use the Pay-N-Display system with motorcycles, scooters or convertibles where it is not possible to display a paid receipt without it blowing away. He suggested I call Parkeon, which I did. I talked with Bob in technical services and he wasn’t much more helpful. He did suggest in higher traffic areas having designated motorcycle/scooter parking which could be metered on a pay-per-space basis. He indicated some cities have a small pouch that can be placed on the bike to insert the receipt. He indicated that many cities in lower demand areas simply ignore motorcycles and scooters as they take up so little space — that it is not enough to worry about. He didn’t have a good answer on the convertible issue.

I called my friend in Seattle and he said their PND system has a removable strip on the receipt that makes it like a post-it note, where it can be stuck to the inside of a windshield or a motorcycle windscreen. I suppose those types of receipts cost more than the basic paper ones being tested here.

These tests are being conducted on both sides of Grand in the 15th Ward (west side) and the 8th Ward (east side). I personally favor the Pay-N-Display type as it eliminates the need for numbered fixed-length spaces. This will allow more cars to be parked on-street which will lesson the perceived or real need for additional off-street parking. The increased revenues from this type of system and the lower operating costs (solar powered) should offset the additional up-front capital expense.

What do you think?