urbanSTL

No pictures, but it's going up nicely. Can't wait to see when it's finished.

That is kinda nice. The cinder block wall at the sidewalk is unfortunate.

From the highway, it looks straight outta St. Peters.

stlgasm wrote:From the highway, it looks straight outta St. Peters.

The highway is straight out of St. Peters.

Alex Ihnen wrote:

stlgasm wrote:From the highway, it looks straight outta St. Peters.

The highway is straight out of St. Peters.

True. Overall, I think the design of this project stinks. It could've been something really cool and bold for St. Louis, but once again we're stuck with the lowest common denominator. But don't mind me, I'm just being an a**hole today!

Gripes about construction details aside, it really is cool to see everyday as I drop my kid off at Stix the construction at the Aventura to the SE and Cortex to the NW. Awesome!

Also really cool to see along Tower Grove is the Olio opening, the imminent opening of the adjacent patissiere (pardon my french)and the quality rehab of the two family just south of Manchester. Now we desperately need to get the buildings on the NW and NE corners of Tower Grove & Manchester filled with quality businesses. Anyone remember JaBoni's at the NW corner? The building(s) across the street where the old book shop was located is undergoing at least some kind of rehab but it looks to need a lot of work.

Drove by to see the progress yesterday-- utterly disappointing. Why is St. Louis still building this crap when other cities are building this:

Cleveland:


Philadelphia:


Minneapolis:


We are WAY WAY WAY behind almost every other city in terms of infill, including even rust belt cities like Cleveland and Milwaukee. I realize there are a few good examples here and there, but the Adventura just reminds us that we are 10 years behind the times.

^ I like the examples from other cities, but we have great examples here as well and I don't know why we don't focus on them more (OK, so looking at these, they're not so adventurous and STL could use some creativity, but my main frustration is that we apparently don't even learn from decent infill just down the street):

Alex Ihnen wrote:^ I like the examples from other cities, but we have great examples here as well and I don't know why we don't focus on them more (OK, so looking at these, they're not so adventurous and STL could use some creativity, but my main frustration is that we apparently don't even learn from decent infill just down the street):

Alex, I agree those are good local infill examples, but it is interesting to see the heavy material reference to brick compared to stlgasms outside examples. Although we may be cheating on the side a bit, we still are married to Brick City. Btw, anyone have thoughts on the new single-family infill across from the Botanical Garden along Tower Grove? It would have been nice to see something other than brick, but probably that would have upset a lot of folks.

Here's an older nextSTL story on it: http://nextstl.com/south-stl/botanical- ... o-relocate

I like it. I think it's a transition from replica to something new. Now the infill by the same company in The Grove is cool - though also adhering to the red brick color:

^ Alex, my bad. I was referring to the new home in Shaw directly across from the Garden at what I think is Flad. All brick/no imagination (imo). I agree... gotta love Botanical Grove! btw, what infill are they doing in the Grove?

Oh - I know the one. Yeah, blah. It looked awesome with the dark blue insulation wrap - would have been cool that way. And the brick work is so ridiculously plain. It will blend in for vast majority of people.

Alex, thank you for keeping my perspective balanced. We do have quite a few examples of great modern development to be proud of. It's just that The Adventura is just sooooo bland and exurban looking and it makes me rather pissed!

Yes! The setback, design, parking, etc. are all so wrong.

And say what you will about this design, but at least it's urban in massing and street orientation (below). The bad thing is that these apartments will very likely be successful, though fail by a long way to reach the potential for the site. If the apts are full the decision makers will declare success and move on, emboldened. IMO - the development doesn't ruin anything (other than potential), won't be bad, or whatever, BUT it could have and should have been much, much, much more.

Yep, I meant what I said. This project demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of what makes cities attractive. The only difference between this development than that of the new suburban and exurban apartment buildings is location. No consideration was given whatsoever to the design, aesthetics or curb appeal of this building or the surrounding neighborhood. So for that reason, I would rather see a vacant lot than this offensive, awful, shortsighted, UGLY crapbox in this location. A vacant lot at least represents opportunity for something better; a horrible development represents a wasted opportunity. There is really nothing worse. Anything is NOT better than nothing, and St. Louis needs to stop settling for the first thing that comes along. Low standards set a dangerous precedent. We can do better.

I agree completely. The bigger issue STL needs to contend with is that with this city being the "beneficiary" of some of the most extreme white (money) flight in the country, there are probably very few developers of real means who have actually experienced city living in the first place. Thus when they design and build stuff like Aventura, the fact that it looks exactly like what they see outside their county home 1) means it looks perfectly fine to them and 2) makes it impossible for them to critically say "this is not appropriate for a City." AND because for so much of the region, City itself is kind of a bad word that means ghetto/black/poor it is probably even harder to get developers to build real, city appropriate projects. So how do you get people that think Cities are bad to build good Cities? Is this off base?

^ Sounds spot on to me. This is hurts St. Louis in many ways, see: lid over the Interstate. One of the prominent developers/philanthropists told me that he doesn't like crossing streets and so Memorial Drive should go. This person experiences the city by driving into it on I-64, choosing an exit ramp and pulling into a parking garage. It's killing us.

At one time, I used to be of the mindset that the city should take whatever it could get. As the years have gone by, my feelings have changed as reinvestment has continued to improve St. Louis City.

The solution, I think, is for the City to move in the direction of setting basic architectural standards (or guidelines) for the entire city - instead of a few neighborhoods. Certain basic standards or guidelines could be palatable for everyone - developers, architects and residents - if the city guidelines are done right. The simple guidelines could be set up by a consortium of local architectural firms, construction firms, developers, city representatives and residents.

In neighborhoods like O'Fallon, Lafayette Square, Soulard, Compton Heights - for example - standards would be more stringent. However, in other neighborhoods there would be more flexibility for architects and developers, but they still would need to follow some of the most basic guidelines for architectural design set forth by the city. The effective date for such guidelines could be a future date like January 1st, 2020, for example.

The city needs to be proactive because St. Louis is only going to get healthier.

A "suburbanesque" apartment complex, in my opinion, shouldn't be built in the middle of a historic neighborhood. Designs like North Sarah and Renaissance Place or the planned Citywalk on Euclid are more suitable for a city neighborhood than Aventura. Although the Cortona @ Forest Park should have been a high-rise, in my opinion, I think the design is suitable for its setting/development.