Opening up Euclid to through traffic would have done more for this area than fancy fountains.
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What would opening Euclid to through traffic have done for the area?
I am normally greatly against the closure of roads or blocking off one end, but in this case I actually think it contributes to the area.
It would make the medical center part of the City, instead of an island fortress. It would improve traffic flow and access for BJC staff, vendors, and patients. It would help tie together the medical center and Cortex, and perhaps encourage some retail and other support services.Alex Ihnen wrote:What would opening Euclid to through traffic have done for the area?
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I understand your points, and have certainly made the argument myself, but my thoughts have shifted a bit. Nearly 15,000 people work at the WU/BJC medical center. It's a dense area and having Euclid open would allow only very narrow sidewalks. I think retail at BioMed 21 would make sense, but the area isn't mixed-use (lacking residential) so it wouldn't be a commercial strip per se. Euclid north of FPA fulfills that role well. Going south Euclid's a dead end, but it's important that Taylor, Newstead, etc. say open. Also, CORTEX remains more of an idea than a real place...I don't know, I see what you're saying, but I don't know that there's a huge benefit to an open Euclid.Framer wrote:It would make the medical center part of the City, instead of an island fortress. It would improve traffic flow and access for BJC staff, vendors, and patients. It would help tie together the medical center and Cortex, and perhaps encourage some retail and other support services.Alex Ihnen wrote:What would opening Euclid to through traffic have done for the area?
An open Euclid would allow people to go...nowhere. Cortex is to the East and Euclid is North-South...and both of the buildings on the Cortex site are surrounded by iron fences. No one goes from BJC to Cortex. Ever. Or at least not often enough to be worthwhile. Meanwhile, to the South, as Grover said, there's nowhere to go. And the areas to the South are absolutely and constantly dominated by pedestrians. An open Euclid would literally only be detrimental to pedestrians without having any benefits to drivers.
I'm thinking of the future. Cortex may not be much now, but hopefully in another decade or so it will have filled in with lots of biotech companies. Presumably, they would benefit from easy access to the world-class research going on at BJC.
I would like to see not just Euclid opened up, but more east/west streets too. Then traffic (and shuttle busses) could navigate through the entire biotech/biomedical area, rather than around it. Remember, it's a hell of a lot easier to keep the street grid open now, than to re-open it in the future.
I hate cul-de-sacs!
I would like to see not just Euclid opened up, but more east/west streets too. Then traffic (and shuttle busses) could navigate through the entire biotech/biomedical area, rather than around it. Remember, it's a hell of a lot easier to keep the street grid open now, than to re-open it in the future.
I hate cul-de-sacs!
I'm pretty sure that's the reason they closed Euclid to cars in the first place. BJC didn't want all the vehicular traffic on their streets considering the high amount of pedestrian traffic the hospital generates. Back in the day, I used to be somebody who used the east-west roads to cut through from Taylor to Kingshighway. Anyways, the east-west roads don't mesh perfectly at Euclid diminishing the efficiency of the grid.Framer wrote:I'm thinking of the future. Cortex may not be much now, but hopefully in another decade or so it will have filled in with lots of biotech companies. Presumably, they would benefit from easy access to the world-class research going on at BJC.
I would like to see not just Euclid opened up, but more east/west streets too. Then traffic (and shuttle busses) could navigate through the entire biotech/biomedical area, rather than around it. Remember, it's a hell of a lot easier to keep the street grid open now, than to re-open it in the future.
I hate cul-de-sacs!
http://news.wustl.edu/news/Pages/20393.aspx
The official Wash U story about the data center, with a photo of the building to which it will be appended.
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The official Wash U story about the data center, with a photo of the building to which it will be appended.
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The building in the photo above isn't at Newstead and Duncan. What am I missing? The genome center is located at 4444 Forest Park Avenue - which is the northwest corner of Newstead and Duncan....I don't know if the data center is housed there or not.
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^ The BJC data center and human genome data center are two different things.
I thought the same thing initially. The data center for The Genome Center is located across the street from 4444 Forest Park Avenue and is at the northeast corner of Newstead and Duncan. The building in the picture posted by Dr. Drew is what currently exists and looks like it was built rather recently according to Google Street View (the newer images from FPP have it, the ones from Newstead don't).Alex Ihnen wrote:The building in the photo above isn't at Newstead and Duncan. What am I missing? The genome center is located at 4444 Forest Park Avenue - which is the northwest corner of Newstead and Duncan....I don't know if the data center is housed there or not.
I believe the new building is being built to the north of the current one, which should be on the parking lot on the east side of Newstead between Duncan and FPP. You can see the location by clicking here: http://tinyurl.com/yg4vlty. There, you can see the current building being constructed.
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The northeast corner of Duncan and Newstead is a power substation - it's finished in the image linked to above. The articles have said that the center would be building to the east. I'm just a couple blocks from there so I'll have to take a walk!
The Genome Center's data center is built in an L-shape surrounding the power substation, with frontage on both Newstead and Duncan (the backup generators and cooling units face Duncan). The photo shown in the WU news article is of the Newstead-facing side of the building.
Here's some better shots of the existing data center.
View from the roof of 4444, looking east toward Newstead
View from the SLCH parking garage across Duncan from 4444, looking north toward Duncan
Here's some better shots of the existing data center.
View from the roof of 4444, looking east toward Newstead
View from the SLCH parking garage across Duncan from 4444, looking north toward Duncan
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^ Nice - thanks. I'll embed one for ease of viewing.... I will say that it's too bad that land isn't valuable enough in this area to justify a multistory data warehouse. Once this is built it will be there for a long time....
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Interesting read about the challenges of building the BJC Institute of Health at Washington University.
http://www.stlouiscnr.com/features/arti ... ch_center/This unusual project hosts several unusual features, including:
• a subterranean loading dock capable of receiving up to nine tractor-trailers at one time and reached by a new traffic tunnel underneath Euclid Avenue;
• 12 different skin types that function as a single system to keep out the weather;
• 36 miles of low voltage wiring to serve the data and conferencing needs of the laboratories;
• the use of 100 percent outside air in the heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) system instead of recycled air.
Unusual projects can present unusual challenges in design and construction and that was the case with the BJC Institute of Health.
Don't Stop The Train
Walsh said the chief challenge was building the facility over Metrolink, an active commuter rail line, without causing a halt in train service
The steel for the new HQ is going up fast. They're on the second level.
Is the HQ building going to extend all the way to FPP? From the looks of steel already erected it doesn't appear so.
How's the construction of the new HQ building coming along? Could one of the BJC employees on the forum offer an update? And perhaps a photo or two if possible?
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This is about three weeks ago now. Nothing's really changed, except that the third and fourth floor steel is up on the far north end of the building.
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