Month: January 2006

Categories
Abandonment Adaptive Reuse Industrial Buildings North St. Louis

What To Do With The Army Ammunition Plant?

by Michael R. Allen

What to do with a huge, transite-clad steel-framed building? That’s the question to ask about the Army Ammunition Plant at Goodfellow and I-70 in north St. Louis.

The answer that the Mayor offers is demolition for retail construction.

Of course, removal of the transite covering and thorough abatement would leave a highly-adaptable steel frame in a highly-interesting shape. Re-cladding in any number of materials is feasible, and the resulting big retail outlet would be less of a big box and more of a big curiosity. The rumor is that Home Depot is interested in the site. Don’t they want to open the world’s coolest Home Depot?

Categories
Columbus Square North St. Louis

Bottled District

by Michael R. Allen

What is the fabled Bottle District going to look like?

This?

Or this?

Will the towers shrink, the architecture get more conservative and the tenant list atrophy? Probably. While the site is excellent for very tall buildings, it is extremely disconnected from areas of residential and commercial density. While the plans hint that it will be a drive-in, self-contained world, it is being billed as a great entertainment district. Unfortunately, it would need for the demolition of I-70 and Trans World Dome to be a walkable complement to other areas of downtown activity. It’s not likely to attract vibrant street life or many interesting stores and restaurants; the tenant list so far could easily be confused for the Union Station renovation tenant list, with barbecue restaurants, go-karts and other things that attract auto-bound visitors.

As a place to live, it could do very well, though. But the designs need to be progressive. I was not a huge fan of Libeskind’s plans, which were rather derivative of his other work, but I admired the flair and the notion that the site should be a visual focal point. The newer renderings show rather commonplace buildings, better suited for the high-rise-choked Chicago Gold Coast than the skyline of St. Louis.

Categories
Hyde Park North St. Louis

Goodnight, Bremen

by Michael R. Allen

Bremen Bank, Broadway at Mallinckrodt in Hyde Park. Photograph taken at 10:13p.m. on January 21 by Claire Nowak-Boyd.

Categories
Preservation Board South St. Louis St. Aloysius Gonzaga St. Louis Board of Aldermen The Hill

St. Aloysius Gonzaga Church Loses Two Votes

by Michael R. Allen

Yesterday, the Land Clearance for Redevelopment authority approved the project known as “Magnolia Square,” that would demolish venerable St. Aloysius Gonzaga Church to build 36 new houses.

Today, the aldermanic Housing, Urban Design and Zoning (HUDZ) Committee unanimously voted — without roll call — to send Board Bill #361 (sponsored by Alderman Joe Vollmer, An ordinance establishing a Planned Unit for City Block 4054.11 to be known as “Magnolia Square Subdivision”), to the full Board of Aldermen. Alderman Vollmer and developer James Wohlert presented their plans briefly. Wohlert told the committee that DiMartino Homes primarily buys vacant lots for new construction or old houses for demolition and new construction; he did not mention any experience in historic rehabilitation. The presenters barely acknowledged that the project failed to receive preliminary approval from the city’s Preservation Board.

Categories
Art

Triefenbach and the City

by Michael R. Allen

If you have yet to see Jason Wallace Triefenbach’s video/installation Hero, Compromised at the Contemporary Art Museum, get over there as soon as you can. Jason’s work, part of the Great Rivers Biennial, is a dreamlike reflection on the ideologies and myths embedded in the life of a fictional city dweller, played by the artist. The end credits are interspersed in a monologue-style musical performance that is as fitting an ode to living in St. Louis as I’ve ever seen. Jason is willing to transcend simple parody by pushing his critique past the limits of humor and self-consciousness and into the realm of the uncomfortable — exactly where art should take us.

For an artist whose work is deeply rooted in the everyday experience of life in St. Louis, it would be easy to mock, deride and sulk. That’s what others tend to do — offer their assorted fuck-yous and I-can’t-seem-to-get-always to those of us foolish enough to like this town. Jason is way ahead of others, though, because he curses the town down while making it a better place to be. His curse is full of as much life as the river that flows through St. Louis; it’s no self-indulgent death wish.

Categories
Columbus Square Historic Preservation LRA

Neighborhood Gardens Coming Back to Life

by Michael R. Allen

Today, I stopped by Neighborhood Gardens Apartments and chatted with developer Dan Dalton. His crew is working steady, and the results are apparent. The site is a beehive of activity during the day, and the buildings are starting to look much different. Windowpanes have even been installed in one building facing 7th Street. Dalton told me that 99% of the original steel cast window sashes were restored for the project — that is impressive. Window sashes typically don’t survive rehab projects, often because they are wooden and have not been maintained well enough to warrant saving.

When Dalton and company are done with their work, Neighborhood Gardens Apartments will be a shining example of what good can come of persistence and sensitivity to historic materials. Dan and his brother Jim have taken a large, neglected LRA-owned landmark and restored it without the fanfare and financial assistance that other developers have received. Good work, guys!

Categories
Local Historic District Preservation Board Visitation Park

#19 Windermere Revisited

by Michael R. Allen

There’s a good turn of events for #19 Windermere Place: At the Preservation Board meeting last night, the owners withdrew their application to alter it after a lengthy and productive discussion with staff from the city’s Cultural Resources Office. Instead of destroying the veranda-like porch, they will be exploring the possibility of a renovation using state historic tax credits.

Categories
East St. Louis, Illinois Granite City, Illinois Infrastructure Metro East Mississippi River

New Bridge Could Widen the Gap

by Michael R. Allen

In a St. Clair County Journal article discussing the possibility of tolls being imposed on the proposed Mississippi River Bridge, mayors and alderpersons of several different Illinois cities were quoted, and all favor the new bridge. The mayor of Granite City, Ed Hagnauer, thinks that the new bridge will bring Missourians into Illinois.

One city rarely mentioned in discussions of the new bridge, and without an elected leader quoted in the article, is East St. Louis. Perhaps this neglect is due to the fact that new bridge has no real physical connection with East St. Louis, and will instead divert I-70 from even passing through the old city. The new bridge’s backers tout the economic growth it will bring to Illinois, but overlook or dismiss the inequity such growth will bring. Cities farther east, liked Edwardsville and Collinsville will benefit greatly from a quick route connecting their new strip malls and office parks to the moneyed residents of St. Charles County. This economic flow will miss older cities close to the river, like East St. Louis and even Granite City — cities that face depopulation, widespread poverty and a lack of economic growth. The bridge will allow the haves to gorge on growth while ensuring that have-nots continue to remain economically malnourished. It will carry people over the old cities and their minority populations, just as the highways built in the late twentieth century did for larger cities.

Proponents of the bridge dodge the issue. The bridge will spread the sprawl eastward, and balance out the effect of the far-west suburban growth in St. Charles and Warren counties. But it will be creating a distribution pattern resembling a donut, fueling new growth on the edges of the east side’s developed area instead of helping redensify the inner core of east side cities.

East St. Louis is left out, again. Why not? Dealing with its problems is too difficult and requires careful, long-term action. Preventing exurban growth requires strong will on the part of politicians, who would have to tell their big-bucks backers “no.” Building a bridge gives everyone a relatively quick dose of what they want: faster profits on new east side development, a short-term decrease in commute time between far suburbs in Illinois and Missouri and a fancy new structure to experience from a car.

Categories
Local Historic District North St. Louis Preservation Board Visitation Park

Windemere Place Owners Want Inappropriate Alteration

by Michael R. Allen

The owners of #19 Windermere Place want to cut up their historic front porch to add off-street parking to their home. They have applied for a permit to alter the home to create a parking lane that would run at yard grade under the existing canopy — a plan that would remove a section of their original porch deck. What a mistake that would be!

While other houses on the street have off-street driveways, they are either original to the home or did not get built through alterations to the houses. The homes on Windermere Place are part of the Visitation Park Local District (made a City Landmark in 1975 and expanded in 1987). Owners of homes here have to adhere to historic district standards that preclude major alterations like this one; they must get a variance from the Preservation Board to go against the standards.

Rarely does anyone seeking a variance aim to do anything other than damage the architectural quality of both home and street scape. The owners of this house are no exception to the norm.

These owners and those of other properties will be appearing before the Preservation Board at its meeting on Monday, January 23 at 4:00 p.m. at 1015 Locust Street (12th floor meeting room). Thankfully, the Cultural Resources staff recommends denying the permit.

Read the Cultural Resources staff summary of the application to see photographs of the home as well as plans for the remuddling.

Categories
Downtown Historic Preservation

Roberts Brothers Buy Buildings on Locust Street

by Michael R. Allen

Roberts brothers take bigger stake in Old Post Office district – Lisa R. Brown (St. Louis Business Journal, January 13)

The Roberts Brothers have acquired the buildings at 919-21 and 923 Locust Street, just west of the St. Louis Design Center where the offices of Landmarks Association of St. Louis are located. The Roberts Brothers now own the entire north side of the 900 block of Locust, with the Board of Education Building at the other end of the block.

The building at 919-21 Locust is a rather plain, four-story brick commercial building, likely built between 1900 and 1920. The other building, though, is of great historical importance: It may very well be the last remaining Civil-War-era commercial building in the Central Business District (excluding Laclede’s Landing). The building consists of two sections, a three-story portion at the corner of Tenth and Locust and a two-story section facing Tenth. Aside from later cast iron columns on the first floor, the building’s older features are completely covered by stucco and timber in a kitschy mock-Tudor style. Underneath the stucco, the buildings are probably very simple Federal style buildings with red brick walls adorned with stone windowsills and lintels. Perhaps a dentillated cornice in brick exists. Few buildings like this one are left in the entire city, and no other in the downtown core.

The brothers are contemplating demolition of the newly-acquired buildings, although they have no certain plans. One idea is to build a new condo tower on the site, which would confirm the old rumor that the Century Building Memorial Parking Garage exists not just for the Old Post Office but for a secret new tower project. Who knows? Discussion is underway on the Urban St. Louis forum.

Demolition is ill-advised on one of the few downtown block faces that has not had any demolitions in the 20th or 21st centuries. The 900 block of Locust only recently had intact faces on both fronts, complementing the also-intact 1000 block of Locust and the 800 and 900 blocks of Olive. What a dynamic urban context this was, and still could be. The wise choice would be to renovate the two buildings on Locust, with a full restoration of the old building at 923 Locust. The recovery of the original appearance would add even greater visual complexity to this part of downtown.

Building any new buildings on the north side of the 800 block of Olive seems logical; there is an entire city block front that could host a stunning, modern design that would provide space for a new, taller residential building that would fill in one of downtown’s most glaring visual gaps. The proposed downtown plaza and its associated public urination would never come to fruition, but no matter — there is too much open space downtown as it is, with the old Ambassador Building site already providing a lifeless park one block east. Why not rebuild that space instead, build up the 800 block of Locust and restore the 900 block of Locust? Locust Street needs a boost, and the resources are at the ready.