When is there ever going to be any development around the Forest Park Metro station?  This has got to be one of St. Louis' areas with the most untapped potential.  Right in the middle of Clayton/the Loop/Washington University and the CWE with a Metrolink transfer station and soon a trolley.  Not to mention located right on Forest Park.  This area should be a hub of activity!



Who owns that awful strip mall?  It should be torn down and replaced with mixed use.  Are there height restrictions in the area?  There are great views of Forest Park and the Museums to had here!  Are Opus and Conrad aware of this?  We can't have highrises directly on Lindell, but what is stopping them along this area?



What about that Metro parking lot?  What a waste of prime real estate.  Metro should put out a request for proposals for mixed use with a parking garage.  Perhaps much of the garage can be built over the tracks?  Maybe retail can be built over both sides, effectively making it an underground station and connecting the area to the park.  Then some mixed-use midrises on the "park land" in front of the Missouri History museum.  Then maybe Crossroads Academy can move out of its horrendous structure (and into one of the numerous beautiful vacant school buildings in the city) in order to make way for more condos and retail.





Also, while we're at it, can we extend DeBaliviere north and get rid of all of those useless "parks" where it once ran?



Oh wait, I forgot this was in St. Louis!  Tear down the remaining historic structures and replace with parking...

I COMPLETELY agree with you, Bastiat. Let's bring back the DeBaliviere Strip! It could be such a bustling little district just like it used to be. Its proximity to the park, MetroLink, the CWE and the Loop makes it a no-brainer for great urban development.



I suspect that the awful strip mall would be the hardest part to get rid of, considering it is full of businesses that are sure to put up a fight.

JivecitySTL wrote:This month's Times of Skinker-DeBaliviere mentions that McCormack Baron has applied for federal credits to build a mixed-income, mixed-use transit-oriented development at the corner of DeBaliviere & Pershing where that god-awful stripmall now stands. Though the project is still in its very preliminary stages, the article says the 5-story building will have four floors of apartments above streetfront retail.



Of course I wish we could go back to the days of the DeBaliviere Strip, a seamy district of burlesque theaters, smoking dens and Garavelli's Cafeteria. They tore that down in the 1980s to make way for that piece of $#!+ we have now.

hell ***** yeah. i remember when that was built, but i have absolutely no idea what was there before. does McCormack Baron own the land, or is the application the first of many steps. i also bet that the times of skinker debaliviere have not gone online yet. so there is no link to the article.

I worked on the design for the DeBaliviere TOD proposal for MBS. That is quite a exciting site and look forward to the next few months when some key decisions become more concrete. It's not going to be the same DeBaliviere we love to hate. There's a perfect storm of transportation options with the streetcar, Metro, biking lanes, we just need some pedestrian activity. That park and ride lot along with the Transit Access Center site are ripe for a first phase development on Debaliviere. How about a urban grocery store out there Schnucks? Another key component should be in my opinion, high density housing. Maybe even Universal Design style to give some otherwise less mobile people some ligitimate choices to get around our city.



That's my 2 cents.

Hopefully the first of many steps toward a thriving Deb between Lindell and Delmar....great news.



Speaking of housing, I stopped in yesterday at the new townhomes on the Hill at Macklind/Magnolia.....those would look great on Deb. Only issue with them is the siding, but their relationship to the street is fantastic.

Whatever is built, PLEEEEEASE don't make it look "bricky" and historic. We need more contemporary design in this city.

quincunx wrote:

bikin'_man wrote:i also bet that the times of skinker debaliviere have not gone online yet. so there is no link to the article.

Here it is. They have issues all the way back to its beginning in 1970. It's interesting to see in the ads what businesses were where back then. The Feb 1985 issue has an article about what to do with this site.

Link

thanks for that. now i did absolutely nothing at work toady looking through old issues. man has the old hood changed. i think for the better though.

Would it be possible for a pair of 'towers'; a 2nd across the street on Talanya's lot, set back to align also with Pershing? A matched pair would look very inviting, viewed from the FPP, and the Jefferson Memorial.

^ that would be brilliant - anything six stories + would be really nice

^ I was just thinking about that - I think the NIMBY factor here would be almost zero - or at least a heck of a lot less than in the CWE, Clayton or elsewhere. Anyone else have thoughts on this? At least on the east side of DeBaliviere you have apts/condos of ~4stories. The west side does border single-family residential. I can imagine a tower stepped back on the west side with terraces would be sweet!

I second that! ^



Maybe the remains of the strip mall can be sent to either Bob Cassilly for Cementland on the North Side or the Gateway Foundation for some Citygarden sculptural expansion.