urbanSTL

Why would people push for a monorail here? Wouldn't a streetcar be a better approach?

Alex Ihnen wrote:^ sorta, kinda, but something on the south site could be on a much larger scale

I would wager that what I was envisioning would be substantially more impressive. As far as scale, not sure. I will have to measure out the size of the bird cage vs what I was thinking, which is a work in progress.

the central scrutinizer wrote:

imran wrote:Put an aquarium south of the highway!

Don't be silly. It will compete with the one in Ballpark Village.

Humor aside, I'd argue that an aquarium would generate too much parking demand, at this site, and a significant reason we should be concerned about the redevelopment of this site is that the demand for vehicle parking will be handled in the typical, city-defiling manner. The zoo currently has quite an interesting, but small exhibit on some of the typical aquatic life in the Mississippi River, as seen from beneath the surface of the water. This can be unendingly fascinating, especially if the exhibit were to be enlarged to that of the majority of the south zoo site, and to allow self-propelled, glass-bottom boats to ride along a winding route that similuates the serpentine nature of rivers. The shoreline would feature the ecosystemic flora one would have encountered before industrialization, and perhaps a theme-based tie-in would be something along the lines of the Lewis & Clark expedition. Whatever the zoo feature, it would need to be something significan enough to draw visitors over a walkable connection from the north side of I-64, and also to justify charging a fee for parking in the new facilities at the present FP Hospital site. I believe something of this nature would be a mere fraction of the cost of a new aquarium, and would not likely generate an unwanted increase in parking demand. An aquarium, however, would be a significant draw from well beyond the metropolitan region, would be able to serve visitors year-round, and would never suffer from unanticipated environmental failures of recreating an ecosystem that would undoudtedly require much maintenance, and mostly for the amusement of visitors.

How about integrating a part of an aquarium into the bridge over the highway? An enclosed walkway with movable sidewalks and tanks for smaller fishes on either side.

quincunx wrote:How about integrating a part of an aquarium into the bridge over the highway? An enclosed walkway with movable sidewalks and tanks for smaller fishes on either side.

The weight of water is approximately 62 pounds per cubic foot. If there were a walkway with fish tanks along each side, at approximately 1 foot thick, and 8 feet wide and 8 feet tall, there would be 64 x 62 = 3,968 pounds, or 1.98 tons of water each 8 foot section of fish tank. This is a tremendous amount of loading, and bridges need to flex for both high wind loading, variable weights of (vehicles traveling across, for instance), and for thermal expansion so of the conceivably thousands of water sealed joints between fish tank and walkable path, this would be one hell of an engineering feat... but nonetheless an excellent idea.

I'm beginning to turn around to the idea of an aquarium on this site, but the parking could not be allowed to sprawl and consume all of the adjoining surface abutting the building.

^would a bridge built to highway standards be able to handle that? Is a fully loaded 18-wheeler about as heavy per foot? FWIW the bridge in my avatar pic could handle a million pound engine and tender.

I would imagine that a vehicle traffic bridge experiences a loading factor that is only a fraction of what continuous lengths of fish tanks would be, but I was illustrating a worst case scenario. There are known examples of (at lease one bridge) that carry hundreds of thousands of moving gallons of water per minute. There is such a bridge in Germany, and ancient examples of aquaducts, so it is possible to transport large amounts of water, but I'm not sure the zoo had such an undertaking in mind. I wouldn't worry about what the zoo may have been initially thinking, however, as this call for ideas is to collect as many proposals as possible. There should be some envelope pushing expected by some ideas. I, personally, love the idea and have a similar one regarding bees and beekeeping.

It would be awesome if we could vote on our favorite components of each design and integrate them into one. Thats one of my biggest gripes with design competitions...its all or nothing as for who wins. Most of the time I would like to meld elements from multiple entries.

I think something like that is very possible, and in fact we discussed just such an approach. We are not expecting a lot of initial ideas being submitted (between 6 and 10, perhaps, or even less), but the the posting of the results may inspire others to throw something into the idea pot. This is a call for ideas, and not a design competition. There will be no winners selected, and no prizes awarded. That is not the point. If you have ideas, please submit them, and even if they are not presented graphically, they can be collected and discussed at the time that the graphic submissions are posted. I would expect ideas to be very schematic, and that the exercise is mostly an urban design-scaled problem, and less one of singular components depicted in great detail.

I get that it is not an ideas competition, that was more of an example where ideas are not typically conglomerated.

I would wager that some people will focus on parts, while others will look at the whole. I can specifically see some focusing on FPH, some on the south lot and some on the connection between the two. Regardless, it would be really interesting to see another stage of planning/design after the initial submittals.

Personally, I am not sure I will be able to get my submission in on time do to unfortunate circumstances, so allowing later submissions would be great in my opinion.

Alex Ihnen wrote:^ I think some may submit their own ideas, but there's no reason why people here couldn't do just what you're saying. Someone can submit their own and contribute to another idea as well.

I'm incorporating some ideas bandied about on the forum already. I wouldn't advise a large clearinghouse of component parts to be listed and then recommended for use in a proposal, however, because that might steer proposals in a direction that would not reflect the purest design intent of the submitter of the ideas. I think this [first round] of ideas may culminate in a more concerted effort to combine great ideas into more allied proposals, and then be presented in a cleaned up, and more specifically detailed manner. This [first round] of ideas will likely be schematic, as there is much area to resolve on this site, but don't let that hold anyone back.

Dogtown, Saint Louis @Dogtown_STL

DOWN GOES FRAZIER! The final walls have come down at old Forest Park Hospital. Welcome to the neighborhood @stlzoo!

driving by today and it occurred to me that this has been a field for about a decade now. A large, prime piece of property in the heart of the central corridor. 

I know the zoo has (rightly) been busy with the North County park - But are they even still interested in this? a decade without a peep is way too long to sit on something with no plan. 
 

I know people involved in various Zoo boards and confirm that as of the last time I asked (a couple years ago) this space is a total afterthought. I know the nature park has been a focus over the last decade, but that’s frankly a bad excuse.

Non profit land banking is a problem that the city should address.

I'm not a legal expert on how this could be done, but I really think the City should have a way of taxing property nonprofits buy just for landbanking. Like not immediately but if you're just going to tear something down for grass or a parking lot "temporarily" but have done nothing after 10 years you should start paying property taxes. Nonprofit institutions shouldn't feel so relaxed about holding onto land for time immemorial while doing nothing with it. 

i don't recall—did the zoo fund the demolition?