A very large building has been torn down over the past week on S. Hanley (next to Home Depot and the Animal Shelter) and signs have been put up for a development to be called "Hanley Station"



It will have the luxury residences, restaurants, and shopping. Looks a lot like "The Boulevard" that is across from The Galleria (which I'm not that impressed with)



Says it will open in Spring 2007.



It will stick out like a sore thumb next to the other industrial buildings but it would be my guess that those will be bought and torn down soon.

hopefully something good comes out of this new development, like a Costco.

No, Costco definitely won't be going into this place, especially with a brand new Wal-Mart and Sam's Club right across the street.



LUXURY being the key word. It's a living center, like the Boulevard.



The best living center I've seen is West Village in Dallas, TX. It has the perfect set-up and I wish that's what the Boulevard was going to be.

MLP, the same company behind Kirkwood Station Plaza is doing this development. If the the Kirkwood development is any indication, this will be a very nice and high end addition to the Brentwood development explosion that we've seen in the last 5-10 years

The renderings look nice and looks like it will be better than The Boulevard. The thing I hate about the Boulevard is that it is just one street, which makes it seem like a two-sided strip mall.



West Village in Dallas is inter-connecting and creates an atmosphere that you are in a "village" while being just a few minutes away from downtown.



It has upscale restaurants, a few bars, great shopping, an Indy movie theater, Italian ice cream shop and it's undergoing a huge expansion. Of course, that's the Dallas way but the setup is much better than the Boulevard's.



West Village Link

All that retail development around the Metrolink stations are great. Makes carfree living more viable.

I believe the city of Brentwood, or the developer of Hanley Station, had Metro change the design of Metrolink through this new development to allow for a future station within the development. Sounds like good planning to me.

That would be difficult seeing how close that stop would be to the station they just finished building next to Best Buy.



With that said, it may help because on Hanley Industrial Ct and the number of employees that work there, as well as the Maplewood Commons employees (but I think they are building a station right there).



Also, the old Serta warehouse building is currently being torn down for the Hanley Station project. It's going to be a good sized development and will really add a lot of value and life to the surrounding area, which up until about a year ago was very bleak.

Work begins on mixed-use project in Brentwood

By Eric Heisler

ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

10/27/2005



>>Link to story



MLP Investments has begun work on one mixed-use project in Brentwood while backing away from another.



The Frontenac-based developer has started site work for Hanley Station, a $45 million development that will bring condominiums, apartments, shops and restaurants to the former industrial site. Construction will begin next year, a Brentwood official said.



But MLP has decided against pursuing a second, larger development next door that would have added a theater and other amenities to the area.



"They were having trouble acquiring the land at a price that would have made it work," said City Administrator Chris Seemayer. "The land costs would have been too high, so we asked them to drop it."



MLP declined to comment.



MLP is known for its New Urbanism-style developments, which mix residential units and retail space. Its projects typically rise on underutilized sites in the older suburbs of St. Louis County.



In Kirkwood, MLP built Station Plaza - a mix of condos, apartments, restaurants and retail - on the site of a former Target store. And in Creve Coeur, MLP is in the early stages of building 157 high-end apartments atop restaurants and shops.



In Brentwood, Hanley Station will be part of a fast-changing landscape around Hanley Road that was once mostly residential, but now includes a Wal-Mart store and other big-box retailers. MLP's project will be across the street from the Wal-Mart.



MLP recently demolished two warehouses on the 6-acre site, including one vacant building that was formerly operated by Serta Mattress Co., Seemayer said.



In its place, MLP will build 180 condo and apartment units, along with four restaurants and an additional 25,000 square feet of retail space.



MLP expects to begin construction in early 2006, Seemayer said. As part of the project, MLP also agreed to spend $2 million to extend Strassner Road to Hanley Road, he said.



Seemayer said Brentwood was looking for a mixed-use development for this site because the city already has added several shopping venues.



"Big retailers are very important in terms of adding revenue and of offering shopping avenues for our residents," he said. "But we want to keep a good balance, too. I think this is more along the lines of what we'd like to see in future developments."



The site where Hanley Station will rise is a corner of Hanley Industrial Court, an early suburban industrial park that was built in the 1950s. Rising vacancies caused the city to seek redevelopment that was to include additional phases.



A second phase would have added the cinema and a themed restaurant "like Dave & Buster's," Seemayer said.



But when some landlords began holding out for a better offer for their property, the city balked at the second phase, Seemayer said.

Sounds like the last part of the article is aimed at pressuring the landlords to take their asking price down.



A movie theater and Dave & Buster's in that area would be a HUGE plus.

While a D&B location or mega movie complex would likely be successful with mid-county locations, I'm actually glad those components of MLP's planned Hanley Station development are currently off the table.



Seeing as MetroLink borders the sites, I hope these more auto-oriented uses die quietly. In the meantime, the success of MLP's denser residential and mixed retail components could mean more of the same in a latter phase. After all, we're talking about MLP possibly getting an additional South Hanley MetroLink station via TDD funding (not Prop M), a new station between Eager and Manchester not opening with the line next fall.



And to me, a mega movie complex and/or D&B sound like more of the same. We already have the non-transit-supportive Wal-Mart- and Sam's-anchored strip-mall across Hanley, hardly TOD. In summary, D&B and large movie complexes should consider a mid-county location, but not sites within walking proximity to the new Cross County MetroLink line.

Does a D&B or movieplex have to be auto-oriented? I don't see any reason they couldn't be built with inviting facades and parking underneath.



Granted, it's unlikely that D&B or AMC would be inclined to do so. Still, as a Metro user, I would enjoy access to either. (It's just easier to find a movie that the crowd can agree on when you've got 12 screens to choose from.)

No, any big box doesn't have to be entirely auto-oriented, but even with underground parking, a big box still takes up land that could have supported more housing units and more smaller, mixed use spaces within the closest walking proximity to a station.



Plus, even hybrid big boxes not immediately proximate to any planned or future station can still by way of their large footprints create superblocks, thus straining the walkable access from other nearby established relatively dense neighborhoods along an existing street grid.



Given the 15-year lifespan of strip-retail, I'm not worried about the Cross-County corridor south of Clayton having more TOD its long-term future. But now that the tracks are going on the ground, and the line opening within less than a year, it seems silly to keep building even more big-box development in the Brentwood-Richmond Heights-Maplewood area than already excessively exists.



Besides, 40 will be closing or at least severely reduced during its 3-year reconstruction very soon. So you think developers and businesses would be smart enough to realize the quickly approaching wake-up call facing mid-county and plan accordingly right now for an area that will soon have dramatically enhanced transit access but substantially reduced highway access.

I've never enjoyed Dave and Busters. Frankly I don't understand the draw.

Ryan Heinz

Of the Suburban Journals

Citizen Journal

04/12/2006







But the city finally will get its first hotel as part of the Hanley Station development at 1801-1819 Hanley Road. At its meeting last week, the Board of Aldermen approved an amendment to the development ordinance that initially had called for that hotel to be four stories tall when it was approved in October 2004. The hotel now will be seven stories tall.



City officials expect the Frontenac-based developer, MLP LLC, to announce the name of the hotel within the next couple of weeks.



The development also will feature about 50,000 square feet of retail spread throughout the seven-acre area, 130 condominiums and three restaurants, including a Houlihan's restaurant and two other restaurants to be named later, one of which could be an Outback Steakhouse, Seemayer said.



The Houlihan's likely will be open by February, he said.

There's currently a Houlihan's at the Galleria and an Outback on Clayton & Big Bend. This makes just about as much sense as when they built the Applebee's on Hanely (at Maplewood Commons) when there is already a successful location at Clayton & Big Bend.



Does anyone understand the logic here?

shadrach wrote:(For a while I was calling all these restaurants "TGI O'Chilihans")

Oh, that's good! We sometimes call them "Pieces of Flair" restaurants (you know, like Chotchkie's from Office Space).

I get my Onion Bursts with Honey Maple Ranch sauce at Grizzlebee's.



Grizzlebee's: You'll wish you had less fun! (Call now and get a free order of cookie bread.)



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I've eaten three times at that new Applebee's on Hanley and I've never had a good experience - bad food, worse service.

Crapplebee's is just bad news. Their food is gross.

But getting back on topic ... my point was not about the quality of their product so much as the over-saturation of the SAME casual dining chain restaurants in such a small area.



Will the Houlihan's and Outback be moving to Hanley Station, or will they really just be duplicates in such close proximity (like with Applebee's)?