urbanSTL

^ East-West Gateway office on the 17th floor has a great view of the whole site
they are in the KMOV building

Did anyone else notice that the two entry paths into the arch grounds where memorial used to run are slightly too narrow? Perhaps only 15 feet wide? I can't imagine the thousands of people entering and exiting through these narrow openings during large events such as Fair St. Louis. More than likely, people will tear through the plantings and hop over the low-rise security wall. Were people that are actually from St. Louis involved in the design of this new park? Overall, I think the changes will ultimately look great, but there are a few things like this that surprise me.

right above the tunnel, where Memorial Drive used to connect through the park.

Not converting the highway between the arch grounds and the rest of downtown into an at-grade boulevard will be looked back on decades from now as one of the city's biggest missed opportunities.

^agreed

Can the surplus funds raised beyond the city arch river goal please go to a boulevard fund!

Mound City wrote:Not converting the highway between the arch grounds and the rest of downtown into an at-grade boulevard will be looked back on decades from now as one of the city's biggest missed opportunities.

I'm still not necessarily convinced that an at-grade boulevard is/was the best option, but the highway/entrance/exit design by MoDOT is proving to be absolute garbage. A bunch of very bland, easily grafitti'd smooth grey concrete, a random narrow piece of grass between the highway and an entrance ramp that will likely never be maintained as anything other than weeds, an entrance ramp onto what is now I-44W that is ridiculously short and dangerous considering the traffic volume and the need for people to change lanes ahead of the I-44/I-55 split. Even the lid with its high grey concrete side walls looks like s**t when approaching from the north or south.

Compared to what MoDOT did, I think I would have rather left I-70/Memorial Drive alone and spent more money on the museum, Arch grounds (without a lid), riverfront, Keiner plaza, etc.

I-44W that is ridiculously short and dangerous considering the traffic volume and the need for people to change lanes ahead of the I-44/I-55 split.

I'd really love to know what they were thinking with this. It's plain dangerous and creates new backups.

I am praying this gets put back the way it was, not holding my breath.

anyone have site plan so we can visualize these ramps everyone is talking about

moorlander wrote:anyone have site plan so we can visualize these ramps everyone is talking about

I looked on MoDOT's website and I didn't see it shown on the general City/Arch/River site plan. Essentially, I-44 W is choked down to two lanes and people entering the highway from Walnut/Spruce need to merge into the right lane of those two lanes very quickly otherwise they'll run into the leg of a train trestle. To complicate things, drivers already on the highway in the right lane are loath to move over to the left lane to accommodate merging traffic because right after the trestle, the highway becomes 4 lanes (due to two new lanes joining from the bridge traffic) and if you want to continue on I-44W, you'll need to be in one of the two new right lanes.

It would be infinitely better if the train trestle were rebuilt to allow the merge lane to go under it (and, ultimately, merge with the new lanes coming off the bridge). I hope that's in future plans sometime soon.

south compton wrote:

Mound City wrote:Not converting the highway between the arch grounds and the rest of downtown into an at-grade boulevard will be looked back on decades from now as one of the city's biggest missed opportunities.

Compared to what MoDOT did, I think I would have rather left I-70/Memorial Drive alone and spent more money on the museum, Arch grounds (without a lid), riverfront, Keiner plaza, etc.

In the arm chair QB world it's that simple but in the real one money not spent on the lid would have gone back to the MoDOT account and not spent on other things at the arch grounds, riverfront, keiner plaza

Looks like they are setting up fences and cones to start work on Kiener Plaza -- from CityArchRiver webcams. Look at the lower left.

Kiener Plaza Work Starting by Gary Kreie, on Flickr

^ Hopefully there is a plan to "take care of" those two hideous garages. Yikes!

PD story and Cirtyarchriver press release

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/govt ... bbd61.html

http://www.cityarchriver.org/2016/02/08 ... on-begins/

Construction starts Monday on the $19 million revamp of Kiener Plaza, the city park just west of the Old Courthouse downtown.

CityArchRiver, the nonprofit coordinating and raising money for the $380 million Gateway Arch grounds renovation, has redesigned Kiener “to better connect to downtown’s urban fabric, be flexible for events year-round, and offer new urban park amenities,” according to a statement released on Monday.

Work is scheduled to finish in spring 2017.

From the latest renderings it seems the Kiener Plaza redo is being heavily influenced by the new Maggie Daly Park http://maggiedaleypark.com/ in Chicago. When I visited this summer it seemed that most of its activity was being generated by people cutting through from Millennium Park/Michigan Avenue to the lake front. It will sure be interesting to see how new Kiener is activated relative to its current state and in relation to the Arch grounds and the rest of the Gateway Mall.

CarexCurator wrote:It's a shame they couldn't just maintain what we have. It needed an update, not a replacement. Again, HoK's daydream is to blame.

What they have was pretty poorly executed - and HOK has nothing to do with this

But the best thing that could happen is demolition of Kiener East and West replaced with something not just better looking but addresses the street also

Randy wrote:^ Hopefully there is a plan to "take care of" those two hideous garages. Yikes!

Vote for this on Rallystl:

http://www.rallystl.org/Ideas/Detail/1635

^ has anything been funded recently on RallySTL? i didn't even realize it was still around.

gary kreie wrote:

Randy wrote:^ Hopefully there is a plan to "take care of" those two hideous garages. Yikes!

Vote for this on Rallystl:

http://www.rallystl.org/Ideas/Detail/1635

I'd prefer to have images projected on the facades, as opposed to painted.