urbanSTL

framer wrote: Yeah, I understand the stairwells, but the first floor was all heavy steel framing, then they switch to lightweight walls. And now they've put up those four tall steel wicket thingies in back. 

Granted, I'm no structural engineer, but it all just looks curious to me. 

My speculative thought is additional structural supports for roof mounted HVAC or similar type building utilities.   Base the guess on your observation of the change to lightweight framing and thus the needed load bering capacity to transfer rooftop HVAC down to the sturdier construction/stronger construction (my weak attempt at lingo from being years removed from my structural engineering courses many many moons ago).   The other thought but don't believe they are sized appropriately was the the steel wickets was for a small or open mutlifloor atrium.

The heavier structure of the first floor might also have to do with larger clear spans for the lobby and amenities. It looks like there's structural ironwork in there buried behind the framing. And the "wickets" could be framing for a tall interior void, which some of the renderings appear to have. Not quite sure what's current and I can't quite make the above photos match any of them in my mind.

framer wrote: Yeah, I understand the stairwells, but the first floor was all heavy steel framing, then they switch to lightweight walls. And now they've put up those four tall steel wicket thingies in back. 

Granted, I'm no structural engineer, but it all just looks curious to me. 

It is difficult to see from that angle, but if you look closely at your photo at the building corner, you can see the upper floors extend out past the ground floor facade.  The steel framing cantilevers out to support the upper floors.  The structural steel is also necessary to frame all of the large openings at the lobby level for the entrance, windows, and the lobby space itself.  On the rendering below you can see the 2-story lobby space extends out 15' or so for a staircase leading up to the WXYZ space.  I assume they want that lobby and bar space as open and wall-free as possible, so that space has to be steel frame.  The rest of the building is mostly just corridors and rooms, with lots of walls, so light-gauge steel construction works very well for that.

As for the wickets, they support the framing for the rooftop hood scoop / aloft sign, and as dredger suggested, there may be a mechanical room, cooling tower or somesuch tucked in there too.

Its all much more apparent from this other (southwest) corner:

More good pics on WUMCRC's Facebook page.

framer wrote: The South façade of the new Cortex garage will be getting some new artwork (highly visible from the highway):

https://www.constructforstl.org/cortex- ... ture-cafe/

Love it.  Centene should take note.

Pretty sure Goodwill did sell to Cortex. 

There have been drilling rigs onsite for a couple of weeks now. 

framer wrote:There have been drilling rigs onsite for a couple of weeks now. 

Soil testers. They were there when I went to take pictures a few weeks ago.

Is there any chance that IKEA would give up some of their parking lot?

I don't think anybody can be too angry at them, considering I think they've played a role in helping revitalize this section of the city, but when driving down Forest Park Avenue by their store, I can't help but kind of hate that parking lot. 

I think it'd be foolish to expect anything that would block visibility of the store. I know we hate fast food drive-thrus in the city, but I'd even take a few of those at the edges of that lot over the vast openness that we see today. 

^^^ Chris, Thanks for pics, love the last one with SLU/Grand Center in background.  

Think it is a good time to speculate if CORTEX/Wexford has an anchor tenant.  I doubt it but would be nice if Microsoft is quietly growing presence.   At same time, assume it is not Square as they finally made it clear that they are going downtown and part of new downtown innovative district.   The fact that Square is going downtown and yet they are breaking ground on a new CORTEX 10 story building is really good new in itself.

Anyone with thoughts or info who might be filling the new space?

I've always thought it would be cool if IKEA built branded apartments on their lot. Rooms could be pre-furnished with IKEA furniture and the buildings could be blue and yellow. Pipe dream? Yes. Feasible? Also yes.

KansasCitian wrote: Is there any chance that IKEA would give up some of their parking lot?

I don't think anybody can be too angry at them, considering I think they've played a role in helping revitalize this section of the city, but when driving down Forest Park Avenue by their store, I can't help but kind of hate that parking lot. 

I think it'd be foolish to expect anything that would block visibility of the store. I know we hate fast food drive-thrus in the city, but I'd even take a few of those at the edges of that lot over the vast openness that we see today. 

No.  IKEA is very particular about their parking and loading space requirements, and the St. Louis store already has less parking than most of their stores, believe it or not.  Generally, their parking footprint is larger than that of the store itself, but in St. Louis it is smaller.

In any case, I think we can write off Forest Park Ave. as ever being anything resembling an active, urban boulevard.  The half a billion dollars in recent development along FPA has or will add exactly one hotel entrance and one grocery storefront to the FPA streetscape...

^ Holding out hope that at lest Grand Ave and FPP become an at grade intersection.  If so, you might have a shot with N Grand Ave if SLU would ever want an active, urban blvd as part of their campus tied to Grand Center.    Which I don't think it all that bad considering you might have some interesting cross streets from Euclid (extending the street across I64 I think would be good as well), Boyle, Sarah and Vande on future development.   Now all you need to do is add a modern low floor street car on Euclid/Boyle and a Grand Ave BRT.    

I'm far more interested in seeing the giant lawn at the NorthWest corner of FPP and Vandeventer (directly across from Ikea) built upon ASAP than the Ikea parking lot, but Kansas is accurate in their assessment.

dredger wrote: ^ Holding out hope that at lest Grand Ave and FPP become an at grade intersection.  If so, you might have a shot with N Grand Ave if SLU would ever want an active, urban blvd as part of their campus tied to Grand Center.    Which I don't think it all that bad considering you might have some interesting cross streets from Euclid (extending the street across I64 I think would be good as well), Boyle, Sarah and Vande on future development.   Now all you need to do is add a modern low floor street car on Euclid/Boyle and a Grand Ave BRT.    

Yes, and that reconstruction also will have to solve the problem of that non-signaled I-64 on-ramp south of Reinert Hall.  That ramp is a deathtrap, and as it is kills any chance of making Grand Ave. a walkable north-south connection.  

But, the last remaining hope for a pedestrian-friendly, active streetscape along FPA is that stretch between Spring Ave. and Grand.  There's only four or so buildings worth saving on that entire stretch of FPA.  Every other property can and should be razed and redeveloped, including Reinert Hall and the CircleK, and planned with the future at-grade intersection and shifted on-ramp in mind.  That whole area could be completely transformed and integrated into the campus with the right plan and design, but that just doesn't seem to be a high priority for SLU.