Author: Michael R. Allen

Categories
Downtown Parking Planning Urbanism

Too Much Parking Around 900 Block of Locust

by Michael R. Allen

“Viable real estate development in the Midwest depends in large part on the availability of parking. This is convincingly demonstrated in the Frisco Building, which has been beautifully rehabilitated but has enjoyed less than 50% occupancy since its completion — parking is the missing ingredient for success.”

So wrote Barbara Geisman, St. Louis Deputy Mayor for Development, in an August 29, 2002 letter to Carol Shull, Keeper of the National Register of Historic Places, opposing the National Register listing of the Century Building.

This statement came to mind as I thought again about the problems faced by the 900 block of Locust, which contains one of downtown’s largest parking garages and is just west of the one of the largest surface parking lot areas in the downtown core. If parking was the ingredient for success, the block would be thriving. The new Renaissance Grand Parking Garage opened in 2003 and the last building standing in the middle of the surface lots on the 800 block of Locust fell in 2002, creating more spaces. Yet the block is regaining health only with new residents and a new business that will have no reserved parking spaces.

I think the abundance of parking areas actually hurt the block by eliminating businesses that were located in storefronts cleared to make so much parking. The Ninth Street Garage that is replacing the Century Building on this block is a setback. Parking does nothing to create life on a block.

Categories
Downtown Streets

900 Block of Locust on the Rebound?

by Michael R. Allen

I have worked inside of the St. Louis Design Center Building at 917 Locust (built 1913, designed by Harry Roach) in downtown St. Louis for a few months now. First I worked at Art St. Louis and now I work at Landmarks Association. During this time, the building and its block has been rather gloomy: few tenants remain in the Design Center due to a forthcoming renovation planned by owners The Roberts Companies, the lobby is dark and cavernous from a 1980’s rehab and there has not been a single occupied storefront on this block of Locust. Add to this the ongoing demolition and construction morass at the Century Building site across Locust, the closure of 9th Street since last September, the ugly Renaissance Grand Parking Garage on this block and the ugly empty parking lot nearby that stretches from 8th to 9th along Locust, and the 900 block of Locust has been a fairly dispiriting place to work this year.

Until now, hopefully. Residential tenants have been moving into the rehabbed Board of Education building at 911 Locust since the spring, and a first-floor tenant seems to be preparing to open. More immediate to my concerns, Heuer Hardware and Locksmith is moving from the Louderman Building into the empty storefront downstairs at the Design Center. The block may be coming to life again! Perhaps next Gus Torregrossa will think about developing the shuttered four-story commercial building at 919 Locust and a buyer can be found for the stucco-covered 1860’s storefront building at the corner of 10th and Locust.

Density is life!

Categories
Century Building Demolition Downtown

Century Building Lawsuit Update

From Roger Plackemeier:

A number of people recently have been asking me how my lawsuit of the Century is going, so I want to give all who are interested a quick update. I disclaim upfront that I am not an attorney and so my legal vocabulary might not be perfect.

First a sentence or two of background. In 2004 Marcia Behrendt, Marti Frumhoff and I took legal action regarding the demolition of the Century Building. The Century Building is gone. Earlier this year the defendants in our lawsuits….MDFB (state), LCRA (city) and the two development firms (Stogel and Schnuck)….filed a malicious prosecution suit against Marcia and me (Marti’s case is still a live one so she was not included). They’re suing us for $1.5M+.

Two hearings have been held in front of Judge Steve Ohmer of the 22nd Judicial Circuit. The first was a month or so ago. The plaintiffs in the malicious prosecution case filed a motion to have our attorney, Matt Ghio, disqualified from the case. Judge Ohmer has not yet ruled on this hearing.

The second hearing was this morning. Marcia and I filed a motion for summary judgement. My non-legal explanation is that if the judge rules in favor of our motion, he is saying the case should go no further. I don’t know when he’ll rule on this hearing, but I can’t imagine it’ll be quickly given the amount of work he has in front of him.

If anyone is interested in my opinion on how the case is going, feel free to contact me privately. If you’re interested in how the plaintiffs think this case is going, read the Business Journal. In the meantime, I presume your tax dollars are paying for some rather hefty legal fees for the state and city.

[Roger can be reached at placker@excite.com.]

Categories
Century Building Demolition Downtown Historic Preservation

Century Building Demolition Started One Year Ago Today

by Michael R. Allen

Demolition of the Century Building at the behest of a determined group of polical actors began one year ago today. At least, the ceremonial wrecking began. The developers of the Old Post Office project that claimed the Century ordered their wreckers to gouge out parts of the building’s corners the night prior to a hearing on a restraining order against a demolition.

I’m sure readers know the story, but the loss of the Century Building and the ongoing attack on civic participation, tacitly endorsed by the Slay administration, still hurts pretty badly. Although I have to say that many good people opposed to the demolition met each other and made lasting and creative relationships through it. The opposition has taken the death and made life from it, while the some players on the other side seems to be mired in the quicksand of destruction. We have celebrations and friendships, and they have that hideous sinking parking garage with the cheap, cheap stucco and granite cladding so offensively displayed at Ninth and Olive. To say that they “won” would be very difficult indeed.

I should also note that our blog is one year old this week, as more testament to the fact that very good things were emerging when demolition began.

Categories
Downtown Louis Sullivan

Remember the St. Nicholas?

I just found this article in the online version of the May-June 2005 issue of the newsletter of the Antique Doorknob Collectors of America:

Louis Sullivan and the St. Nicholas Hotel, St. Louis, MO by Patty Ramey

It’s heavy on doorknob information, which is good because most people probably don’t know much about Sullivan doorknobs.

Categories
Brick Theft Historic Preservation North St. Louis Old North

Brick Thieves Strike 914 Madison Street

by Michael R. Allen

Over at 914 Madison Street in the eastern reaches of Old North St. Louis (which the city officially considers the “North Riverfront” neighborhood), a crew of brick scavengers recently pulled down the exterior walls of the last remaining residence on the block, a building recent damaged by fire. The interior walls and floors are collapsing slowly, forming a shape reminiscent of a pine tree burdened by heavy snowfall. The building is owned by Carlos Johnson. Thankfully, I photographed the building over the summer.

Categories
Documentation People Urban Exploration

Matthew Coolidge Coming to Town

Thanks to Larry Giles for the heads up on this.

Looking for St. Louis

Matthew Coolidge, founder of the Center for Land Use Interpretation, to explore St. Louis urban landscape Oct. 26-29

Oct. 12, 2005 — Forget purple mountains and fruited plains. The contemporary American landscape is more typically composed of parking lots and shopping malls, factory towns and industrial developments, argues Matthew Coolidge, founder and director of the Center for Land Use Interpretation (CLUI) in Los Angeles. Later this month, Coolidge will host a series of events investigating St. Louis’ urban landscape.

The visit — co-sponsored by the Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts and the Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts at Washington University — comes as part of “Unsettled Ground: Nature, Landscape, and Ecology Now!” a yearlong series of lectures, panel discussions, artistic interventions and workshops exploring the intersection of contemporary architecture, art, ecology and urban design.

At 7 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 26, Coolidge will lecture on “Interpreting Anthropogeomorphology: Programs and Projects of the Center for Land Use Interpretation.” (“Anthropogeomorphology,” a phrase Coolidge coined, refers to the landscape as altered by humans.)

The talk is free and open to the public and takes place in the Sam Fox School’s Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, located near the intersection of Forsyth and Skinker boulevards.

On Thursday and Friday, Oct. 27 and 28, Coolidge and Washington University students will examine a variety of “unusual and exemplary” St. Louis sites through a series of workshops collectively titled “Looking for St. Louis.”

On Saturday, Oct. 29, workshop participants will in turn lead additional volunteers over “routes” established by Coolidge.

Events conclude from 6 to 8 p.m. Saturday with a special, one-night-only exhibition, also titled “Looking for St. Louis,” at the Sam Fox School’s Des Lee Gallery, 1627 Washington Ave. The exhibition will include images, texts, artifacts and diagrams drawn from the workshops.

For more information, call (314) 935-9347 or email samfoxschool@wustl.edu.

Categories
Demolition Downtown Parks

Bleeding Red

by Michael R. Allen

Some people look at the red-dyed water in downtown’s fountains this week and see the color of the St. Louis Cardinals baseball team, currently ending its last season is lovely old Busch Stadium.

Others swear that the red in the fountains comes from deep within the city, and that it may be the blood of the wrecked buildings that once stood where the fountains now jet. Does that red water in the US Bank plaza at Seventh and Locust not look like the life-stuff of the fallen Ambassador Building?

Categories
Fire North St. Louis Old North St. Louis Place

Old Garage at 14th & Cass Burns

by Michael R. Allen

LOCATION: 1516 E. 14th Street; Old North St. Louis; Saint Louis, Missouri
EARLIER NAME: Anderson Motor Service Company
DATE OF CONSTRUCTION: c. 1930
DATE OF FIRE: September 15, 2005
OWNER: Khaled Salameh

The former Anderson Motor Service Company building at 14th and Cass — last named the St. Louis Bus Maintenance Center — is now ruined by fire. Here is a not very extraordinary building brought down through extraordinary circumstances: a spectacular and mysterious early morning blaze detected at 7:30 a.m. on September 15, just weeks after the covert demolition of its beautiful next-door neighbor, the former Crunden Branch Library. The St. Louis Fire Department calls the fire, which took two hours to douse and seemed concentrated in the south end of the building, “suspicious.” The long-vacant building, originally a service garage for trucks and finally a bus maintenance center, contained asbestos as well as residue from various vehicle fuels and fluids, all of which made for a long-lived and smoky fire.

We were shocked that the building would go up in flames after the surprise demolition of the Crunden Branch, news of which was very distressing. With various players in Ward 5 pushing redevelopment of the entire block through demolition, no one expected either building to survive much longer. Few would have predicted that each would come down so abruptly after rumors began, and in such proximity to each other. Once the fire-damaged remains are cleared, the entire block will be clear of buildings.

Alas, fortune is a clumsy and unscrupulous planner.

Categories
Central West End Forest Park Southeast Streets Urbanism

Sidewalk Failure

by Michael R. Allen

Have you ever tried to walk on Kingshighway through the I-64/US 40 interchange? It’s almost impossible. On both the east and west sides of the street, the sidewalks are almost nonexistent except of the actual bridge over the highway, where they are built into the bridge. Even there, the sidewalks are no wider than five feet. The other sidewalks between Oakland Avenue on the south and Barnes Hospital Plaza to the north are a travesty. The pedestrian literally has to cross busy on and off ramps with no marked pedestrian crossings — the sidewalks just end at the ramp lane, and continue directly across. There are no signs instructing motorists to behave well toward pedestrians — not even a basic sign stating to slow down and be alert for pedestrians.

Walking through here is dangerous, but safer than one alternative — the pedestrian walk behind the Central Institute for the Deaf. I have heard about muggings on this bridge, which is secluded and only visible to motorists below on the highway — they ain’t exactly in a position to help if they manage to see anything while shuttling by at 65 miles per hour.

The worst problem is that this sidewalk is totally, completely and utterly inaccessible to people using wheelchairs. The sidewalk is not continuous, for one thing. It’s also lacking adequate width even for walkers to pass each other comfortably, let alone someone in a wheelchair. Trying to wheel across an on-ramp lane is probably not the smartest thing someone could do, either.

Oh, and if the pedestrian manages to walk successfully through the intersection on the way to the MetroLink station on Euclid Avenue, it isn’t exactly easy to find or well-marked. The hospital looks like a fortress that starts at Kingshighway, and someone unfamiliar with the station may not assume it would be located where it is — the streets seem to be more private service drives back in the complex.

Perhaps the mammoth BJC Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine should think about this the next time they spend several million dollars on new streetlights, planter boxes and illuminated street signs. How about new safe (and ADA-compliant) sidewalks and illuminated MetroLink signs?

The we can start thinking about what to do with the growing spread of ugly huge parking structures for the complex located along Taylor Avenue.