urbanSTL

After checking out Citygarden this weekend (and Kiener as well), the linked article was interesting to read.



How people will use the Kiener space must be clearly defined, particularly in light of the City's plans for the "civic room" across from City Hall and the existing Old Post Office Plaza and Citygarden. How many amphitheaters and stages do the parks downtown need? Such spaces die unless the City is committed to year-round special event planning.



Given the park's location, across from the Old Court House and near the Wainwright, rather than going for an out-there design (or worse something that can only be successful with constant event planning), lets focus on simple and classic. Leave the fancy modern art and crazy design to other areas and instead focus on making what should be a thriving public space in the heart of downtown by focusing on simplicity and flexibility.



Additional, I think the one failing of the Kiener space has long been that there is little connection between the eastern and western half of the blocks even though they are one whole space with the closure of 6th street. A simple and effective choice may be to re-open 6th and treat the area as two separate blocks rather than one large space (even in the Beacon article rendering, I think the proposal would function better as two separate blocks).



As for the western end, some dumb ferris wheel, column or mound of dirt is not the anchor needed at the western end. Keep it simple. A new office building with good urban form and interesting architecture. No reason to go crazy. The mall needs people to succeed; that must be the constant mantra of those planning the mall.

I believe that the ideas proposed are sound and should be supported. They demonstrate dedication and progress. It should have our united and full support.



Now personally, I ideally envision something else entirely. This includes Kiener Plaza’s redevelopment coinciding with the two Kiener garages being replaced with two tall office towers, surrounding the park with tall architecture and completing a more urban design that just can’t be met with six stories of parked cars behind tan cement. With that, the area underneath the Plaza could be dug up and filled with replacement garages underground. Such actions could draw new investment from the private sector while increasing worker population, including and especially directed at the Plaza’s users. Should this happen, I’d be so happy that I wouldn’t care if the Plaza was a sod field.



While we’re at it, put another tall building between the Bank of America Tower (the black one) and KSDK/1010 Market. You know, to complete it.



Meanwhile, the entire project west of 14th Street must be designed in cooperation with the new owners of the Plaza Square Apartments, which really look like subsidized housing and the worst parts of capitalism nowadays and not like an expression of modernist architecture and a diverse workforce. I can’t walk to get a pack of cigarettes without running into obese bums, wigged-out crack heads, guys asking me for change, a dude pissing for all to see on the City Courts Garage (three evenings ago), or a hooker. Cross Chestnut, and all bets are off.



What will keep W/AVE thriving with a new volleyball court?

A: The bums will keep people from wanting to be over there.



Now, if a full & cooperative redevelopment could occur, it would be a jewel and bring even more people in. As it is now, you’ll just create a giant litter box for street urchins instead of a public dedication to public good through the promotion of athletics. I have hope, but I gauge that hope with pragmatism.



And for the hell of it, let’s put parking underneath this whole stretch of parkland, too. Benefit: It would draw more people to the area, including new businesses looking to set up shop, revitalizing Downtown West. It doesn’t all have to be boutique shops and restaurants.

Hey all you developers and politicians, want to know how to make CityGarden and the City of Saint Louis look absolutely incredible?



Surround CityGarden will heighth.

Make it a broad, green canyon surrounded by the infrastructure of commerce & development.

Open it to new major companies through buildings with new & glorious architecture.

Have the City's offerings compliment the Arch.

What a way to celebrate 50 years of Saarinen, right?

Make the area around the Gateway Mall the most wanted office space in StL.

The Park's a more desirable view than Clayton's view of Forest Park Parkway, isn't it?



Density, commerce, glorious architecture, a saturation of the streets with a work force, increased revenues to city coffers. This makes so much sense that it's really surprising to know that it's so available and begging to have our support.



That's my dreams for the Gateway Mall.

The only thing I see on these images is open green space. They're still following the underlying failed concept that brought us the clearance of these City blocks.



The area around the mall shouldn't only be office space, but yes we need more construction around the mall, but most importantly on the mall. Remove Twain. Sorry Emily but we don't need a cell phone number to explain that Serra's Twain happens to be disgustingly ugly. Like pornography, this entices disgust and has no artistic merit. Remove it like Tilted Arc.



Abandon most of this civic room. If we want our Firefighters to be honored then how about we remove placeless Pinocchio and put the statue in City Garden where, at least for now, people will actually see it.



Living across the street from City Hall and Soldiers Memorial would be a hot commodity. There should be nothing less than mixed use residential at this location. The same goes for the neighborhood room. What kind of hoosier town do we live in? We don't need a beach volleyball course and a ***** dog run: we need places for people to live. A hallway? Isn't this what we have tree-lined sidewalks for? Or is that simply to make the half-mall on the former site of the Buder Building not look like a joke?



BTW we were supposed to have underground parking underneath what was supposed to be where City Garden is today.



The Gateway Mall will continue to be a failure until we abandon it entirely.

Doug, I agree with your principles entirely. The development of a narrow strip of parkland was wasteful in light of what was there.



Now that the buildings are cleared, and there's a concept to activate the space in some way, it would be great to focus on improving the edges.



Narrowing Market Street would be a great and not so costly start to the process. The Gateway Foundation could remove the westbound lanes and put a Farmers'/Art/Crafts/Floral Market on the surrendered right-of-way. It could stretch from Union Station to the Soldier's Memorial if there were enough demand. Plus, locals could tell tourists that Market Street actually has a Market.



Other than ideas like that, removing parking garages and filling in gaps is key. Clearly there's not demand bursting at the seams to build atop the Mall (or anywhere downtown) or we'd have seen a development proposed. I really don't think the city, especially in its nadir, would have considered the Gateway Mall real estate so protected that they would not have allowed a major corporation to construct an HQ atop it, honestly. The problem is that many other parts of downtown have gaps too, and nobody is eager to create a Gateway One effect and ruin the mall (even if that building has high occupancy!).