New Website Launched for Northside-Southside Mass Transit Study

A new website has been launched for the Northside-Southside transit study. From the site’s homepage:

From January 2006 for the next 18 months, this is where you will find the latest information on planning MetroLink and other major transit improvements for the City of St. Louis, Missouri.

In reality the locally preferred routes selected a few years back were routes through the city to get to both north & south county. Plus, as I’ve said before, I don’t think light rail in the middle of the street is a good urban solution. Check out the site yourself and be sure to use the comment form!

The site is visually attractive and easy to use. However, it fails to include an RSS feed for updates. Those of us that use feeds to know when a site has been updated must now manually check the site. Not smart!

Click here to view the new site.

– Steve

The South Grand Building With Many Names

0Some call it the Melba Theatre building, others refer to it as the Pizza A Go-Go building for a long-time tenant, and still others call it Grand View Arcade. Whatever the name, it is stunning. With few exceptions, this has to be one of best proportioned and detailed buildings in all of St. Louis.

Anyone looking to construct a new mixed-use building in the city of St. Louis should study this one closely. I’m not advocating copying the detailing, although it is fine. Rather, the massing and relationship of windows to solid is very pleasing.

A modern interpretation of this building would be quite nice a block south on the old Sears site. Oh that is right, Ald. Jennifer Florida wants a McDonald’s on that site. Well, I guess she knows best…

The Lawrence Group is tackling this building along with the former Southside National Bank across Grand. This building will have sidewalk level retail with apartments above. Parking for residents will be in the basement, accessed from the former bank drive-thru area to the south. Unfortunately, the existing curb-cut on Grand will remain. I’d like to see access to this side parcel from the alley, not Grand.

The name Grand View Arcade, according to TLG, is the official historical name of the building. Like the larger Arcade building downtown at 8th & Olive, this one sports an indoor hall with shops facing it on two levels. Basically, it was an early indoor mall. This, in fact, pre-dates the early suburban outdoor mall concept. Where this differs is scale: it works as a small space in a great building in a pedestrian neighborhood.

Apartments will occupy the 2nd and 3rd floors of the building so it remains to be seen if this arcade will once again be a public space or it will become a grand entrance lobby for the apartments. I’d like to see it open to the public.

So the name thing. The Pizza A Go-Go name is simple, it was a tenant for many years and people fondly remember it. But how did the Melba Theatre fit into all of this? Well, not inside this building that is for sure. The Melba was behind the building to the east. Basically you’d enter the Arcade off Grand and walk past this staircase to the actual theatre.

The east facade of the Grand View Arcade is seen at right here. Note how the lovely facade wraps around the corner from Grand onto Miami Street. On the left of the image is an unfortunate apartment building that was built where the Melba Theatre once existed. It is not clear to me how you got from the Arcade into the Melba: by going back outside? By going through a hallway? Did the Melba have an entrance off Miami Street as well? Perhaps some historians will know or someone will look up some old records. Razing this ugly apartment complex and building something new up to Miami Street would be a great next step.

Apparently TLG already has interest from retail tenants for this building so they are moving ahead their renovations. These tenants haven’t yet been announced by it is good to see the strong interest in street-level retail in this area.

Additional photos can be seen on Flickr.

– Steve

Vollmer & Deferring Colleagues Vote to Raze St. Aloysius

I’m not sure what feeling is the strongest: anger, disappointment, sadness. In truth it is all of these. According to the Post-Dispatch the Board of Aldermen passed legislation to bypass the Preservation Board and allow the demolition of the former St. Aloysius Gonzaga complex. Keep in mind the Preservation Board is a volunteer citizen board appointed by the Mayor — the very ones who are supposed to give a balanced view of demolition requests as they relate to the development potential.

On December 19, 2005 the Preservation Board gave the property owner a very clear message: no you can’t tear down these buildings. It was a preliminary review and the owner could have come back another time with more documentation as to why he couldn’t save the buildings.

But instead he relied on the area’s Alderman which delivered the required legislation to snub the city’s 1999 Preservation Review ordinance. Basically the legislation stands to protect our neighborhoods and building stock unless one person, the area’s alderman, decides otherwise. Why even bother having a Cultural Resources Staff and a Preservation Board? Why not streamline the careless destruction of those very buildings and urban settings which make our city unique.

In the end Ald. Vollmer make a horrible decision not only for the immediate area but for the city. As expected, the other 27 “legislators” deferred to his judgement. I guess we have 28 cities within a city.

In place of this unique setting we’ll have some very ordinary houses — maybe. I’m not holding by breath. Based on what I’ve seen to date this developer he won’t get very far beyond razing the historic structures. My prediction is he’ll get no more than 5 houses completed and sold this calendar year with another 5 in 2007. More than half the sites will remain vacant eyesores.

This is if he does the project at all. Some have suggested he is busy shopping the building lots to other builders. This might be a good thing as ugly suburban looking homes are better than vacant lots with weeds and debris.

Neighbors will be hugely disappointed by the end result of all this. Of course, at that point it will be too late. As with so much of what we’ve lost, we don’t miss it until it is gone.

Perhaps the most disappointing thing about all of this is we’ve failed to learn from past mistakes. Mistakes around razing great old buildings. Mistakes around electing the same types of folks.

You can express your feelings on this project in the comments below, to the Board of Aldermen and the Mayor.

– Steve

Condos at Former Southside National Bank To Have Great Views

Last week The Lawrence Group gave me a personal tour of the former Southside National Bank at Grand & Gravois in South St. Louis. They are busy converting the tower into 13 condos (official website).

We started with the 2nd floor bank lobby. Uh, wow. How could Walgreen’s officials have looked at this building 6+ years ago and thought tearing it down made any sense at all. This lobby is absolutely stunning. Finding a new use for this space will be a challenge for architect/developer The Lawrence Group (TLG) since the bank teller divider must remain. It certainly seems suitable for a restaurant.

One of the best things about the project is the amount of street-level retail. Facades such as this one facing Grand will have additional windows and doors cut into it. This is good thing because this area needs as much street-level retail to help offset all the sprawl allowed in the area in the last 4-5 years (new White Castle surrounded by parking, Walgreen’s with excessive parking, proposed McDonald’s relocation a block away).

The fact TLG is willing to do this project, while surrounded by so much bad development, is a testament to their commitment. I just hope it will lead us toward a more urban context and away from drive-thru development.

I mentioned views right? Well, every unit has great views of the city but from the roof you can see far and wide. You can see downtown, the Arch, Clayton, JB Bridge, and the lovely street grid of the city. If you are one of the lucky purchasers of a condo here please keep me in mind if you have a roof-top party.

We walked through the display being constructed on the 6th floor. They are anticipating an opening next month which is realistic since the unit was already in drywall. I really like the layout on the 4-8th floors. The 3rd floor layout is different due to the issues of running plumbing through the stunning bank lobby seen above. The project manager is investigating to see if they can make the 3rd floor layout more like the others.

The 9th floor penthouse has windows in all four directions and will be quite an impressive space.

TLG is planning some new construction along both Grand & Gravois. This will do wonders to minimize the impact of the parking and make the sidewalk more urban. I had a few concerns and suggestions on the site planning, which I have shared with the team.

TLG is also doing the building across the street on Grand. I’ll get to that interesting project later this week.

– Steve

Possible Modern Streetcar Routes for St. Louis

It is no secret I want modern streetcars in St. Louis. For those not familiar with the concept of modern streetcars, they are new high-tech vehicles quite similar to light rail vehicles. They have a low-floor design which allows for easy entry/exit from a curb. Unlike light rail systems, the modern streetcar runs in “mixed-traffic” with cars. Where vintage trolley/streetcar systems are more nostalgic than functional, the modern streetcar is highly function for local transit while The only example in North America is in Portland although a number of cities, such as Tucson, are considering such a system.

I’ve been reading up on Porland’s system, now a few years old, and they’ve had an amazing amount of development around their line. This is largely due to development being the initial goal, the line was designed to connect two vacant (or nearly vacant) industrial brownfield sites. Zoning was changed to require minimum density. Developers have been able to get a good return on their investment. From the Development Report dated January 2006:

The Portland Development Commission (PDC) negotiated a Master Development Agreement with Hoyt Street Properties, owners of a 40-acre brownfield in the heart of the River District. The Agreement tied development densities to public improvements with the minimum required housing density increased incrementally from 15 to 87 units per acre when the Lovejoy Viaduct was deconstructed, to 109 units/acre when the streetcar construction commenced and 131 units/acre when the first neighborhood park was built. The developer has stated that without the Streetcar and the accessibility it provides, these densities would not have been possible. The agreement was a unique and essential piece of the public/private partnership that catalyzed development of the River District and serves as a model for the agreement established for in South Waterfront.

Those are some serious densities. The kind of density that makes a neighborhood vibrant and a transit system that is highly viable. With the idea of placing transit where it could be coupled with new development I have prepared a few possible modern streetcar routes. I have intentionally placed the routes so they intersect or come close to the existing MetroLink line.

Basic Assumptions for all Concepts:

Streetcar line would be modeled on the Portland Streetcar with modern low-floor vehicles (not “vintage” or “heritage” vehicles). Streetcars would operate in mixed-traffic but would be given signal preference over cross-street traffic. Lines would run in the outside travel lane (not center) and would stop at curb bulb outs every 1/5 of a mile or so.

Eminent domain (or even threat) should not be used to assemble land for development within streetcar zone.

Form-bsaed zoning overlay should be enacted for the area served by the streetcar (three city blocks on each side of line). Zoning overlay should set out minimum units per acre (gradually increasing at certain benchmarks) and maximum parking spaces.

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