Massive Demolition List Makes Me Question Decade

Once again actions in this city lead me to wonder what decade we are in. This coming Monday the City’s Preservation Board will consider an application to demolish some 30 buildings in the Forest Park Southeast/The Grove neighborhood.

Michael Allen & Claire Nowak-Boyd from The Ecology of Absence have written a great piece on the subject as well as photographed all the buildings:

Forest West is the real estate arm of the Washington University Medical Center Redevelopment Corporation and acquired these buildings from negligent landlords like Jack Kraus. After a year of ownership and silence to the neighborhood about their intent, Forest West now emerges with a plan for demolition that would severely impact the neighborhood and may stunt efforts to rehabilitate its valuable historic buildings.

Rehab is going on in the area and many of these buildings look like good candidates for rehab. Are we in some weird 1950s world where massive demolition is thought to be a good thing for a city? Do I need to buy copies of Jane Jacob’s 1964 classic, The Death & Life of Great American Cities, for every alderman?

The alderman for the area is Joe Roddy. You will recall that he is willing to do what BJC’s lawyers want with respect to Forest Park because BJC is the largest employer in the city. So now comes Washington University asking for demo permits so I’m sure he just signed whatever letter of support they placed in front of him.

The Preservation Board meeting begins at 4pm on Monday April 24, 2006 at 1015 Locust, 12th Floor. If you come be sure to look for public notices from the LCRA and other board of the St. Louis Development Corporation.

– Steve

Appeal on Variance for Drive-Thru… Tabled.

After sitting through a four hour long meeting we are not any closer to an answer on residents’ appeal of the variance for a McDonald’s Drive-Thru.

The Board of Adjustment, based on their questions, was not impressed with the Florida/Pyramid/McDonald’s proposal. It seems this group is also caving from pressure for more urban design in the area.

Between testimony Jennifer Florida approached me indicating they were willing to build the building up to the street rather than set back as designed. While it helps it does not mitigate all the other valid concerns about noise, trash and traffic.

The Board of Adjustment will likely reopen the hearing after Pyramid/McDonald’s has submitted a new site plan showing the layout with a building up to the street. I think Florida indicated they’d build to the street in the hopes the Board of Adjustment would deny the appeal. This would leave room for them to say the plans that were approved were not up to the street.

If the city is going to continue to ignore sound planning by allowing a drive-thru at this location I’d rather it be built up to the street. But I want this to be perfectly clear, I believe the various fast food establishments in the area are undermining the true potential of the area. If the McDonald’s closed in October as Florida suggests would happen, I think that in the long term we’d be better off.

– Steve

Audio From First Drive-Thru Hearing Online

To help establish a record of the testimony from the first hearing on the McDonald’s Drive-Thru conditional use hearing I have posted a series of 15 MP3 files. These files are the complete recording from the hearing in the order in which it was held on February 16, 2006.

You can hear for yourself how Jennifer Florida describes the quite suburban McDonald’s as “urban-style” and how franchise owner James Proctor indicates the new location will be open from 5:30am to 11:00pm.

Due to the size of the files I have placed these on a separate server. Click here to visit the site and take a listen.

– Steve

NoDrive-Thru.com Launched Over McDonald’s On Grand

I’ve written so much about the poorly designed anti-urban McDonald’s proposed for South Grand that it is all running together. If you are just finding this information it may be a bit overwhelming. To help facilitate finding the articles I created a “McDonald’s on Grand” category some time ago. Articles are posted with the latest at the top so if you need to catch up start at the bottom.

To make it even easier to communicate the message I’ve registered NoDrive-Thru.com (as well as without the hyphen, nodrivethru.com). Both domains will lead people to this site and my category on McDonald’s.

As this controversy continues NoDrive-Thru.com will branch out from here and become a full-fledged website as we continue to spread the message of aldermanic abuse, anti-urban planning, deep pocketed developers, and a questionable fast food establishment. In the meantime be sure to tell people to visit nodrive-thru.com for all the latest.

– Steve

Selling Shirts to Pay Legal Fund?

Ideas are pouring in to Urban Review from citizens upset about Ald. Florida’s tactics to please her campaign contributors over the wishes of constituents. If only I was talented in Illustrator & Photoshop.

This one came in tonight in response to my last post on McDonald’s.

I was thinking we get these printed up and sell them to raise money to pay an attorney to challenge the city’s drive-thru variance and spot zoning attempt.

– Steve