jefferson wrote:This is the line that stuck out to me:
the city of St. Louis owns much of the land adjacent to Mr. McKee's many holdings, and it could use eminent domain to help him fill in holes.
That's the first time I've heard eminent domain mentioned in connection to Mckee. Personally I'd support it in this case as many of the properties in question seem to fit the condition of "social liability" as recently defined by the Missouri Supreme Court in the Centene case.
Most of those "social liabilities" are already owned by Paul Mckee. Eminent domain is not necessary to give them to him.
jefferson wrote:This is the line that stuck out to me:
the city of St. Louis owns much of the land adjacent to Mr. McKee's many holdings, and it could use eminent domain to help him fill in holes.
That's the first time I've heard eminent domain mentioned in connection to Mckee. Personally I'd support it in this case as many of the properties in question seem to fit the condition of "social liability" as recently defined by the Missouri Supreme Court in the Centene case.
McKee's properties fit the definition, too. The one located behind my house is the only truly derelict building in a one-block radius. Should my neighborhood be able to use eminent domain to acquire it?
You need to examine the area that McKee is targeting. Most of the properties he has yet to acquire are those that would completely fail to meet any legal definition of blight. Those that do meet the definition are largely his own buildings and the city's.
Remember, the strongest households are always the last to sell out. Hence the backlash against eminent domain, used more often to get well-kept property owned by holdouts than true nuisance properties.
I keep hearing "If Paul McKee doesn't save north St. Louis, who will?" or "Paul McKee is investing where no one else would." Why do people think that it takes one developer to "save" the north side? It's been a heckuva lot more than one person behind ONSL's turnaround - why should other parts of the north side be any different?
^Good point. And I think we all pretty much agree that many investors, rehabbing or building new projects independently of one another, do far more to bring the city back to life than the "silver bullet," mega developers do.
I would only add that the vacant lots and derelict properties of the Northside seem to me to dwarf any other neighborhood that has been resurected in St. Louis. Maybe it took Soulard and Lafayette Square 20 years to come back, it would take the Northside 100. Let's keep demanding quality without reservation or exception AND let's do what we can to encourage investment from many, big and small, in our city.
Grover wrote:I would only add that the vacant lots and derelict properties of the Northside seem to me to dwarf any other neighborhood that has been resurected in St. Louis. Maybe it took Soulard and Lafayette Square 20 years to come back, it would take the Northside 100. Let's keep demanding quality without reservation or exception AND let's do what we can to encourage investment from many, big and small, in our city.
Agreed. I just don't see small scale rehab/infill being enough to bring back the north side. There's room for the small scale as well as the big project.
I think what has the best chance of getting done is some sort of redevelopment along the lines of Gaslight Square/Botanical Heights, with the historic core of ONSL and the best bits of the other neighborhoods (such as the aforementioned mansions along St. Louis Ave.) preserved. A gut rehab, if you will, that replaces the nuts and bolts of the neighborhoods while leaving the best of the historic properties. The main difference I'd like to see with the other projects I mentioned is a greater variety in housing prices. Some of the marginal blocks between new development and recently rehabbed blocks could be left as well, to provide more diversity in the housing stock and as a lure for future rehabbers.
One of the things that does concern me, and that I'd like to see discussed further, is the social fallout of redeveloping such a large area. Many renters would most likely get pushed farther north and into areas of S. City (63111, 63118) that already have their share of low-income high-crime areas.
I really don't want to sound negative but the other thing that the editorial reminded me of was the gentleman who with all the good intentions in the world bought up much of Forest Park Southeast many years ago and mismanaged it into complete blight. Good intentions alone pave the road to ruin.
How will infill and rehabs not work? Along with code enforcement of problem property owners, I don't see how this wouldn't work? Moreover, the expansion of forgivable loans for home improvements, which are currently only 5k, would help many.
The Healthy Home Repair Program could be expanded too.
If only we had these programs, instead of urban renewal, when federal dollars were flowing. Maybe the current state of affairs wouldn't have actualized?
These programs empower residents and give them the capacity to improve their own property and the surrounding neighborhood. This is a far better solution than the destruction of the old neighborhood, then supplanting it with something alien like McRee Town.
As we have seen with McRee Town, the problems simply go elsewhere into surrounding neighborhoods. Moreover, the historical context of the area is forever destroyed by a cancerous horde of vinyl. This theory reminds me of the idea that street barriers will deter and control crime. Interestingly, they only appear in areas commonly referred to as ghetto. Perhaps people associate barriers with ghetto, thus automatically assume they are not places to invest or operate business. And maybe they deter pedestrian traffic thus make it easier for criminals to prey on the wayward bystander.
The way to address the current situation, in my opinion, is not to repeat those mistakes which propagated them.
I've avoided having to gut rehab my house by taking preventative measures even before rehab work began.
If someone does nothing to a house for fifty years, gut rehab might be the last resort. But it's always a last resort. Most of the remaining near north side isn't even that far gone.
Of course, if you start with the assumption that the area needs gut rehab and won't change your opinion, you probably will end up doing a gut rehab.
^ I largely agree with you eco that gut rehab is a last resort, but I also think certain areas have a sort of "perfect storm" of negative factors that make it ripe for redevelopment: high rate of absentee landlords, high crime, and little or no architectural value. This was the case with McRee Town and that's why I think redevelopment was the right call. Between the properties that Mckee already owns, the city's land, and some ED for some of the abandoned/decrepit and perfect storm areas in between, the city should be able to get a project going that is beneficial to the developer and to the north side, while leaving plenty of areas for us urban enthusiasts to enjoy.
I do share peoples’ desire either to see a project get going or to see the properties at least secured if not maintained…the current situation isn’t helping anyone.
jefferson wrote:the city should be able to get a project going that is beneficial to the developer and to the north side, while leaving plenty of areas for us urban enthusiasts to enjoy.
Shouldn't we enjoy what McKee builds?
Why would the city use eminent domain and handover taxpayer-owned land to a project that does not meet high design standards?
When it comes to incentives, the only criteria I want my government using is whether or not a project benefits the city. We already have someone looking out for the developer: the developer.
(As a resident of the near north side, I'll spare this forum my emotional response to the idea of being surrounded by a suburban sea in tiny ONSL. Think about what it would be like for your neighborhood to be surrounded by the same.)
ecoabsence wrote:When it comes to incentives, the only criteria I want my government using is whether or not a project benefits the city.
I agree with you comments, but don't you think that an additional 10,000 people living (and paying taxes) in the city benefits the city, no matter what type of home they live in? I very much want to see historic renovation and historically sensitive new development on the northside. On the other hand, not everyone wants what I want. For example: I've met a number of residents of Botantical Heights and eventhough I can't stomach the type of home and neighborhood development that was put in, it has added several hundred middle class residents to St. Louis City. In the end, I want to see the city built in a dense manner with walkable neighborhoods. I will forever dislike vinyl siding in our sea of red brick, but cities change and in the end they must serve those who live/would like to live here, not our sense of historic accuracy.
^I'm going to disagree wholeheartedly with you, Grover. The "anything is better than nothing" approach has proven absolutely disastrous for neighborhoods in St. Louis and plenty of other cities that have lost irreplaceable urban fabric in the name of urban renewal. Trust me, if the buildings now being neglected by Blairmont and associated companies were rehabbed, they would in turn attract other rehabbers and infill developers to the neighborhood. As it is now, all potential for restoration and tasteful, urban infill are stifled. McKee's intentions may be good (although I have my doubts), but his execution is absolutely, positively abhorrent and completely unnecessary unless there are sinister motives at work.
In terms of regional competition, what sense does it make to destroy historically and regionally unique housing? It will never come back. Why should viable construction be actively pillaged and supplanted by mediocre construction which already exists elsewhere? Why would someone move here for that which is cheaper elsewhere?
Moreover, it is possible to create new infill that will attract suburban people without destroying entire neighborhoods, or building McMansions.
JivecitySTL wrote:Trust me, if the buildings now being neglected by Blairmont and associated companies were rehabbed, they would in turn attract other rehabbers and infill developers to the neighborhood.
Trusting these properties to be rehabbed if McKee would leave them alone is a huge "if" and not one I'd be willing to stake the future of the northside on. From my understanding, he didn't have a whole lot of competition to buy up these properties.
JivecitySTL wrote:Trust me, if the buildings now being neglected by Blairmont and associated companies were rehabbed, they would in turn attract other rehabbers and infill developers to the neighborhood.
Trusting these properties to be rehabbed if McKee would leave them alone is a huge "if" and not one I'd be willing to stake the future of the northside on. From my understanding, he didn't have a whole lot of competition to buy up these properties.
You needn't look any further than Lafayette Square, Soulard, Benton Park, DeBaliviere Place and parts of Old North St. Louis to see how once-neglected neighborhoods and buildings have been reclaimed tastefully. There was a time when you couldn't pay people to move into those neighborhoods. Guess what? Things change. What is happening in Old North St. Louis and Hyde Park is not an isolated trend-- people are moving back to some of the most distressed neighborhoods in the city to renovate old buildings. But the long-term potential is limited as long as landowners like Blairmont actively neglect their properties. The North Side could well be the next hot area if we could get rid of the slumlords. We all know that the quality of the housing stock in some of those 'hoods is some of the best our fair city has to offer.
And even if nobody is clamoring to buy up and rehab these properties, why should we have to accept mass clearance as an alternative? We don't.
The fact that nobody knows what McKee's plan is also stifles other development. Like eco-absence said, who wants to take a chance on moving into a neighborhood if their rehab project can reasonably be expected to become completely de-contextualized by an adjacent suburban transplant? I don't think that there is much of an "if" about McKee's land-grab having a chilling effect on organic re-development in parts of North StL. I think the question is better phrased in "how much of an effect" terms.
Look, I’d love it if there was just one big open parcel of land where a developer could build some new housing, but what we have on the northside is scattershot, and some attempt is going to have to be made to assemble land at some point. Relying on the possibility of future rehab to justify keeping some of the more remote areas of neighborhoods in one of the worst sections of any city in the country seems more than a little specious. It reminds me of Jim Roos claiming that McRee Town would become the next Soulard if people would just leave it alone.
Doug wrote: Why would someone move here for that which is cheaper elsewhere?
Part of economic restructuring involves rebuilding markets. Markets, including capital markets and investment, work when their is information available to all players. Information builds confidence and reliability.
Again, an older urban market involves dozens if not hundreds of actors. Experience gained by being one of only several actors building in greenfields doesn't necessarily inform a developer adequately.
jefferson, your reasoning neglects a very important fact: that the Blairmont properties are some of the biggest contributers to the abandoned and desolate appearance of many North Side neighborhoods. They allow their properties to rot, thereby inviting crime, vandalism and a self-fulfilling prophecy of hopelessness. I'm not saying Paul McKee alone is responsible for the squalid condition of some of these neighborhoods, but he sure as hell isn't helping them. By allowing his properties to sink into their sad state, he is taking an active role in the decline of the North Side, period.
And please, let's not even attempt to discredit the value of historic renovation and tasteful infill whenever possible. It would be so much more attractive than any large-scale urban renewal project that we have seen insult so many once-urban landscapes in the past. If we sit back and allow this mistake to happen again, St. Louis will yet again become an example of a short-sighted city that just doesn't get it. We will show the world that we live in a throw-away society in which our historic fabric is seen as a liability rather than an asset. Look at the most successful city neighborhoods in St. Louis and around the country-- they are the ones that have a harmonious mix of new and old, where the past is respected and embraced as a competitive advantage. If we turn North St. Louis into a suburban fortress, we will lose that advantage. We're not talking about one little tract of historic homes either. We are talking MASS CLEARANCE. Imagine if Mill Creek Valley had been saved-- it would probably be one of the most sought-after neighborhoods in the city. Would a first-rate city ever even think of bulldozing hundreds of historic properties in exchange for suburban tract housing or "open space"? I took a graduate level St. Louis history class at Wash. U. in which we watched a filmstrip about Lafayette Square in the late 1960s. The entire neighborhood was DISGUSTING and desolate and downright scary. Who would've imagined that one by one, independent developers would help make it one of the Midwest's most attractive urban neighborhoods?
I'll remind you that the 1947 City Plan for St. Louis called for the mass clearance of Soulard, Lafayette Square and much of the Near South Side to be replaced by suburban development. Thank god that didn't happen. Can you imagine if it had?
I wonder how many mistakes St. Louis can handle before it actually gets it. When it thinks big [urban]: Washington Avenue, Lafayette Square, CWE, Soulard, Benton Park, etc, it succeeds; and when it thinks small (suburban): St. Louis Centre, Gateway Mall, Mill Creek Valley, etc, it fails. We should be looking to the successes that are in our own back yard to give us a clue for where we should go in the future. Or we can always go backwards, which we seem pretty comfortable doing too. But in 50 years we will look back on the decisions we make today. The most interesting, vibrant cities in the world are the ones that think outside the box, beyond what is readily apparent. They don't just jump at just anything that comes along. They demand high standards. Self-depracating cities don't do that. They are good at settling for whatever, whenever. Mediocrity is usually a lot easier than common sense urban planning. What kind of city do we want to be?
Anyways, I got bored today, so I went over to the zoo and on my way back I took a little bit of the scenic route. I took a little detour down Page/MLK(I got confused when I was on Page then next second I was on MLK, is it the same street?) and then up into Old North. And I must say, I feel stupid for ever defending McKee. To let derelict properties just far farther into disrepair is just sickening. I've taken trips to the northside before, but I still don't know that much about it. I'm starting to become a little more adventerous, and I find myself particularly attracted to the northside(outside of the view from GCS Ballpark, I think the northern view is the best of the skyline...though that's not the main reason).
Enough with the diary entry, I've seen it said on here before that people expect Old North to become more upscale, like the soulard of the north. And while driving around, I can see this, but what timeline are we looking at? 5, 10, 15 years? Also, just from the photos and entries I've seen I really want to explore St. Louis Place. As that, out of all neighborhoods in the city, intrigues me the most even though I've never been there. I never heard of the people trying to rehab it until eco said something. What's going on there? Though, I must admitt that I am kinda hesitant to explore it. I know the media perception of going there is suicide is wrong, I still get the notion that it's not exactly the neighborhood for a suburban white kid to drive aimlessly around in. Any advice?
Maybe that should have went somewhere else. Whatever, I confused myself with this post. Sorry, I'm tired.
Jive, I think you're setting up a bit of a straw man to knock down by saying you're against mass clearance for suburban tract housing. Of course...I think almost everyone would be against that, and if that's what the city/McKee have in mind I'll gladly join the chorus against the project. But I think it's also possible to design a project that preserves what's best about the old North side while getting rid of the worst of the worst and building some new middle income housing. There are some quite nice single family detached infill houses in Benton Park and on Arsenal east of Grand that I think could provide a nice model for some new neighborhoods. You guys make some good points about how other neighborhoods have bounced back, although I still feel there are large sections where the problems are orders of magnitude worse than the areas you cite.
I agree part of the problem is not knowing what the plan is, and that the current situation is bad for everyone. Even though I'm in favor of some larger scale type redevelopment I can't say whether McKee's plan is one I'd support. So until we get to see a plan I'm in the same boat as everyone else...wait and see. Until then most of us could probably follow Shimmy’s good example and go drive around this area to get a better idea of how much of it is intact.
