urbanSTL

I do wish we had this problem to be honest. TOO MANY people living downtown. Heck if you take the same precentage, that would be 1/2 a million people downtown. That kind of demand would be awesome, but its not reality.



Honestly : Our metro area is much different than Vancouvers, and I don't forsee that this would never happen (or at least much more than it already has) If in 15 years we have 100,000+ residents downtown that would be a massive sucess. And Downtown Vancouver is nice, but its far from a "resport community"

I think that the issue isn't that there would be "too many people downtown," but that the whole thing would be reversed:

People living downtown and commuting to work in Clayton or further into the county. As much as I love seeing people live downtown, a strong business center is what truly makes a place the "CENTER" of the region, of which all other development will pivot around. Ideally, we would have both a business center and a strong residential community to keep things going after dark.

But again, I am not sure what downtown Vancouver was in 1991, but STL has a strong mix of established companies that more than likely aren't all going to vanish (a lot of HQ have left but still have lots of SqFtage being used) in the next decade or two, and now good residential.



If this were to really happen, yes it would be depressing.... but I think we should concentrate the step that we are on, rather than some step that is possible at 20 years. Again I see (especially with this new MW tower and its alledged tenant) our downtown as a healthy environment with a combination of both residential, commerical, and touristy hotels all intermixed.



And to answer your question, YES, if chesterfield was the center of employment, people in ballwin would move downtown because its the opposite of logical.... but chesterfield and creve coeur and earth city will always be places of employment, but downtown is THE place of employment.

tbspqr wrote:But again, I am not sure what downtown Vancouver was in 1991...

I attended the World Fair in Vancouver in, what 1989? We stayed in an RV site outside of town. It was not hard to figure out why so many people lived in town in Vancouver -- the interstates (or interstate -- there was only 1) was completely clogged and we sat in traffic for at least an hour every night just trying to get to the RV just outside of town. I don't see how anyone could have worked in the city and lived in the suburbs back then. So I assume everyone did the logical thing and moved into the city where they worked. Makes for a vibrant city, but they must have had a feeling of being trapped with few residential options. It is probably better now, but I don't think we want that approach in St. Louis.

From what I've read, jobs follow population, but have a 10-15 year lag. That makes sense, because the bosses like to live close to work, and they make the call on where work is located. Get the bosses to live downtown or in the city, then the jobs will follow. It wouldn't hurt to court a big company or two along the way, but remember how important residential is.

SoulardD wrote:From what I've read, jobs follow population, but have a 10-15 year lag. That makes sense, because the bosses like to live close to work, and they make the call on where work is located. Get the bosses to live downtown or in the city, then the jobs will follow. It wouldn't hurt to court a big company or two along the way, but remember how important residential is.

Or God forbid, a CEO could actually decide to locate downtown because it's good for the region instead of his or her commute.

DeBaliviere wrote:Or God forbid, a CEO could actually decide to locate downtown because it's good for the region instead of his or her commute.

Or good for recruiting, which is why our Kirkwood-dwelling CEO established the office Downtown.

Are these computer models on the HOK site new? I don't recall seeing computer models with the new stadium. Just overheads and artist drawings.



http://www.hokplanninggroup.com/service ... ort=Alpha#

I believe those are new - and check it out. There's a big tower on the parking lot directly west of the stadium (as there should be) - there's a building on the parking lot directly east of the stadium (as there should be) and the much balloyhoed highrises along the riverin chouteau's landing are there as well ...

markofucity wrote:- there's a building on the parking lot directly east of the stadium (as there should be)...

Hmm, perhaps that is a scaled-down version of the MW Tower? Looks to be about 35 stories. Interesting...

also - take a peak at the "master plan" .... there's a building where the vacant lot in the middle of cupples' is .... there's a building on the stupid extra piece of land in the "park" across from the eagleton court house. ....



god - if I could wave a magic wand

^While they were dreaming, I wonder why they didn't put something on the parking lot east of the ballpark? EDIT - Oh, nevermind, they did - it appears to be a two-story building that takes up the whole block. What is that, a Wal-Mart?



Also, I really like the townhouses directly south of Busch.



But HOK might want to remove this image. It is kind of old, and they flooded Union Station and all of the Cupples buildings!

Good grief! Is that really old, or did they just get carried away with the lake?

no - i think thats the natural layout of the lake. I don't think they're planning on flooding union station - though it would be an interesting experiment to see if anyone would notice.



funny that you mention the MW building being on that lot west of the stadium and south of the westin ... thats exactly where I was thinking it should go. It certainly is a great spot for a multi-use high rise - you would have a perfect view of the stadium (and the field from your balcony) - and your literally next door to the metro, the highway and the lake (cross your fingers)

That is where the original Chouteau's Lake was located untill it was filled in.

^Duh. Should have realized that, but the old Busch Stadium threw me off, and the fact that they show some existing buildings and not others, e.g. Cupples Station. I also would have thought Union Station was at a higher elevation than the area south of Busch, but I guess there is a pretty big elevation drop on Market St. there. They must have done quite a bit of infill, or it was a very shallow lake.

BTW, I think these were released a few years back when HOK did the initial planning. They still have the old design for the stadium, and I remember seeing these a few years back.

Those are old, they were on the web when the Chouteu lake site was up.

While the tower shown is clearly not 71 stories, I do like its location-- just west of the new Busch Stadium. The size and angles of the images makes it look like the tower occupies a full city block bounded by Hwy.40/I-64 (S), S. 7th (E), Spruce (N) and S. 9th (W). Such site wouldn't require any demolition (it's only parking, grass and tracks today) and could be built over MetroLink, where it turns south of the Stadium station. Hardly any other open land downtown combines such strong highway visibility and MetroLink accessibility as does this site. And like the new Stadium, building very close to the highway should encourage more people to feel comfortable about walking under 40 into the redeveloping Chouteau Lake area.



As for the skyline, a new tower south of Market would join the Eagleton in balancing those north of the Mall. Plus, being built west of 7th street (or technically in line with 8th), 71 stories could look only about as high as Met Square does on Broadway (like 5th street), since such new tower would be twice as far back from Memorial Drive (western edge of Arch grounds) as our tallest building.

This is all counting on the railroad lines moving right? has there been any headway in that department that anyone has heard of? This project could really take this city to the next level. The potential development around such a project as this blows my mind. If it were to happen this would be the greatest thing to happen to STL ever. I believe that with the open tract of land along chouteau between grand and jefferson this could be possible. But back to my main question has anyone heard anything about the moving of the rail lines?



Rich by lindenwood park.



If this has already been asked an answered I apologize, I read back a 4 pages and hadn't seen it mentioned. thanks

There are really a lot of rumors floating around, so it's hard to discern what's really the truth in these matters. From what I understand, there is an optional plan in place that would purchase much of the rail lines but not all, leaving a few still active that would cut through the lake (there's a PDF file somewhere in this thread that shows this version). Railroad Co's are notoriously hard to negotiate with on these things, but from what I've heard (again, rumors), there are preliminary plans in place for this project to be able to proceed, with cooperation from the railroads. It's all in this thread, but like I said, it's hard to know what is and isn't the truth, since this is such a massive project, and it's still a ways off from being started.

Will the lake have adequate flood control?

I can't imagine the prospect as huge and costly as an 81 story building being even "proposed" on a lake development if there were freight trains running thru at all hours day and night. I agree with everything that Trent says in 99% of cases (as he seems to be a deistic being in these matters) I have to be childly optimistic and have some faith in MW and other people involved.

cumulonimbus wrote:Will the lake have adequate flood control?

OK, well, my first response was to laugh and dismiss this post. But then I gave it some thought, and this actually might be a valid concern. The lake will probably only be about 5 to 6 feet deep, but it will cover over a hundred acres when all phases are complete, so it is a large volume of water. In addition, the lake is at a lower elevation than all of the surrounding terrain, EXCEPT that to the east, between the lake and the river. If an earthquake were to weaken the fill at the east end of the lake, I suppose you could have a scenario which would send hundreds of millions of gallons of water cascading through Chouteau's Landing to the river. I just can't imagine a scenario where it would all pour out at once. Much more likely that even in the worst case, it would just be a slow leak.