On second thought, being a recent high school grad, I probably would have killed some time on a downtown, artsy miniature golf course with my friends. Also, I think it would be a popular date idea, especially among teenagers. Go to dinner downtown, the arch, miniature golf...could definitely see it happening.
UrbanPioneer wrote:I say run with the idea and see where is goes.
While openness to creative ideas is a good thing, one has to think about the costs of focusing both time and money on a mini golf course. Is adding such "entertainment" west of 14th Street really one of the most important changes we can make to downtown generally or downtown park space more specifically?
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JMedwick wrote:UrbanPioneer wrote:I say run with the idea and see where is goes.
While openness to creative ideas is a good thing, one has to think about the costs of focusing both time and money on a mini golf course. Is adding such "entertainment" west of 14th Street really one of the most important changes we can make to downtown generally or downtown park space more specifically?
On second thought, I think you are all correct. Why would we want "entertainment" in this area? I mean its a few blocks from washinton ave where the majority of the population lives, its close to Busch and Scottrade Center, and it may have an Opera House next to it one day.
Anyway, none of us have seen any renderings or plans but it astounds me how in the last year or so this board is so negative. Nothing is good enough for St. Louis. I bet if someone came in and proposed a massive redevelopment of the northside hoping to lure business and residents, alot of people on this board would be upset, or if someone proposed to finally finish the Dillards Building and tear down the skybridge, or even propose to inject some life and activity to perhaps the most desolate part of the gateway mall, I bet someone would complain.... Oh wait...!
We are not Chicago, and unfortunately we do not have developers lining up to build beautiful towers on our mall to meet the demand. What we do have is a great neighborhood in our downtown that appeals to many types of people, things like ferris wheels on the landing, Urban Mini-Golf, Sculpute Gardens, Festivals, Etc are all part of the puzzle...Anyway, I guess as usual we will all just have to agree to disagree. But lets wait and see what it might look like before we shoot it down.
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I don't think the point is to put a mini-golf on the Gateway Mall, but to make local artists' sculptures interactive. It's not going to be South County's Arizona Golf imported in the Gateway Mall, nor will there be an adjacent go-kart course.
That's what I think SPACE meant when its Twitterer stated that they wanted to make sure it jibed with Citygarden. Expect something high class and really cool, in all likelihood.
That's what I think SPACE meant when its Twitterer stated that they wanted to make sure it jibed with Citygarden. Expect something high class and really cool, in all likelihood.
MidcoastSTL wrote: But lets wait and see what it might look like before we shoot it down.
Ah, but the issue being raised is not the specific design of the minigolf course as much as the concept of whether addressing this section of the mall should be a priority for the City, particularly since we don't even know the final design of the employment center proposed by McKee to anchor the western end of the mall.
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I know of a great vacant lot downtown where we could fit approximately 180 holes of mini-golf. Now THAT would be an attraction. Throw in a Legoland theme park and I will NEVER leave STL.
MidcoastSTL wrote: We are not Chicago, and unfortunately we do not have developers lining up to build beautiful towers on our mall to meet the demand. What we do have is a great neighborhood in our downtown that appeals to many types of people, things like ferris wheels on the landing, Urban Mini-Golf, Sculpute Gardens, Festivals, Etc are all part of the puzzle.
The City wouldn't allow towers on the Mall.
Everything you cite happens to be what separates St. Louis from a town with actual planning.
Actual planning reveals that St. Louis' Downtown population isn't big enough to support City Garden, let alone any of those other things. It would also reveal that we could sink 100,000,000 of LED lights and programmed events into the Mall, but that wouldn't create sustained activity because we don't have enough residents -- suburbanites abandoned Downtown and we need to stop trying to lure them back as visitors.
Completely forget about competing with suburbia. Continue the rehab effort, place a moratorium on the construction of parking facilities, conduct a parking study and maximize on street parking, perform a study of the residential market Downtown and determine the best locations for new residential in the next 10 years, rezone Downtown accordingly and establish design standards for new construction, and finally target our efforts at competing with other cities.
People from San Francisco, New York, and Chicago won't move here for ***** miniature golf. Besides more residential, we need street performers, to change the street vendor permit process from being an alderman payoff scheme, more economically priced housing that attracts those of alternative lifestyles, and other efforts that encourage diverse life on the sidewalk. It's pathetic when I go Downtown on a Sunday afternoon and for blocks the sidewalks are predominant filled with visiting Rams fans. Who wants to move to a Downtown where the majority of street-life encompasses Hoosiers from suburbia?
I've spent my time on Cherokee and South Grand. I bet this will continue because they have it going right. We have countless examples of neighborhood development across our City, but in Downtown we still concentrate on these "silver bullet" strategies. Would you build a pedestrian mall through the Grove and build a Ferris Wheel with Miniature Golf? No. Then why should it go Downtown? We have to keep following it simply because some idiots 100 years ago decided it was a good idea? They've been proven wrong.
We need to think of Downtown as any we do any other commercial or residential district and stop these ludicrous ideas.
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There is one person would is planning to build a tower on the Gateway Mall.
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First off, I agree with some of the things you said. We do need more residents. But you state that suburbanites abandoned Downtown and we need to stop trying to lure them back as visitors.
The city was abandoned decades ago. This was a different generation. This generation now has children who are young and interested in returning to the city. I did not grow up in the city, should I not be welcome to live here? My parents did not live in the city but they like it and have considered a downtown condo. My grandparents used to live in East St. Louis, and although they left, they are proud to see the activity return to the city.
Why after about 10 years of solid progress would we just give up on suburbia and the young people that still live there? When my older sister was in college a while back it was not even an option to graduate and live in the city. There was no coolness factor. They all left and went to CHI, BOSTON, NYC ETC. Now about 4 years ago when my youger sister graduated, her friends who were moving back to the STL area were excited to live downtown on washington or in soulard. This is a change. But they are suburban kids and we should not try to "lure" them into the city.
^agree!!!!!!
^ No Sh@T, I don't really think anyone ever thought that this was going to cause people to move to STL from other cities. But you know what, it is another thing that makes downtown fun, when the demand is what it is in chicago or nyc lets talk about building on the mall. In case you do not know we have lots of available land for high rise living and have had only 1 highrise tower built DT in the last few decades. So lets get off of this hatred for the mall that a) the current administration did not have a hand in, and b) the idea that the only thing keeping the mall from being built on is the big bad city. To my knowledge Mckee is the first one in decades to propose such a tower on the mall and it appears that it may happen.
Again, I do not think that a mini golf is a silver bullet that everyone is hoping will transform the region. It is a solution to a desolate strecth of parks that will add a little life to the area. It will bring suburban dates for a game after dinner as well as urban ones, it will give families on vacation another thing to do with their kids, and it will be just another neat thing about ST. Louis.
Wow, are you really that depressed that this is a bad thing? Rams fans, going to a Rams game, downtown is bad? Hoosiers? You are the same guy that gets in a tizzy when someone makes racist comments about people in north st. louis but you have no respect for anyone else. Hoosiers is also a racist comment. Just because people live outside the city/suburbs or what ever and like football or something that you don't, do you really have to label them?
Seriously people, what is the deal. Do we only want certain types of people to live in our city. We can't welcome anyone who wants to visit, live, or work? Well I know I will never be able to change your mind, but some of your posts and comments are ridiculous. Stop labeling groups of people and open your mind that to build this city's population we are going to needs lots of people from all over the place to fill this city up.
And I am sorry that I moved to the city from outside of it, and that I tailgate on sundays for rams games. I guess I am just a hoosier that does not deserve to live in this city because you do not like this demographic.
The city was abandoned decades ago. This was a different generation. This generation now has children who are young and interested in returning to the city. I did not grow up in the city, should I not be welcome to live here? My parents did not live in the city but they like it and have considered a downtown condo. My grandparents used to live in East St. Louis, and although they left, they are proud to see the activity return to the city.
Why after about 10 years of solid progress would we just give up on suburbia and the young people that still live there? When my older sister was in college a while back it was not even an option to graduate and live in the city. There was no coolness factor. They all left and went to CHI, BOSTON, NYC ETC. Now about 4 years ago when my youger sister graduated, her friends who were moving back to the STL area were excited to live downtown on washington or in soulard. This is a change. But they are suburban kids and we should not try to "lure" them into the city.
Continue the rehab effort, place a moratorium on the construction of parking facilities, conduct a parking study and maximize on street parking, perform a study of the residential market Downtown and determine the best locations for new residential in the next 10 years, rezone Downtown accordingly and establish design standards for new construction, and finally target our efforts at competing with other cities.
^agree!!!!!!
People from San Francisco, New York, and Chicago won't move here for f***ing miniature golf.
^ No Sh@T, I don't really think anyone ever thought that this was going to cause people to move to STL from other cities. But you know what, it is another thing that makes downtown fun, when the demand is what it is in chicago or nyc lets talk about building on the mall. In case you do not know we have lots of available land for high rise living and have had only 1 highrise tower built DT in the last few decades. So lets get off of this hatred for the mall that a) the current administration did not have a hand in, and b) the idea that the only thing keeping the mall from being built on is the big bad city. To my knowledge Mckee is the first one in decades to propose such a tower on the mall and it appears that it may happen.
in Downtown we still concentrate on these "silver bullet" strategies. Would you build a pedestrian mall through the Grove and build a Ferris Wheel with Miniature Golf? No. Then why should it go Downtown?
Again, I do not think that a mini golf is a silver bullet that everyone is hoping will transform the region. It is a solution to a desolate strecth of parks that will add a little life to the area. It will bring suburban dates for a game after dinner as well as urban ones, it will give families on vacation another thing to do with their kids, and it will be just another neat thing about ST. Louis.
It's pathetic when I go Downtown on a Sunday afternoon and for blocks the sidewalks are predominant filled with visiting Rams fans. Who wants to move to a Downtown where the majority of street-life encompasses Hoosiers from suburbia?
Wow, are you really that depressed that this is a bad thing? Rams fans, going to a Rams game, downtown is bad? Hoosiers? You are the same guy that gets in a tizzy when someone makes racist comments about people in north st. louis but you have no respect for anyone else. Hoosiers is also a racist comment. Just because people live outside the city/suburbs or what ever and like football or something that you don't, do you really have to label them?
Seriously people, what is the deal. Do we only want certain types of people to live in our city. We can't welcome anyone who wants to visit, live, or work? Well I know I will never be able to change your mind, but some of your posts and comments are ridiculous. Stop labeling groups of people and open your mind that to build this city's population we are going to needs lots of people from all over the place to fill this city up.
And I am sorry that I moved to the city from outside of it, and that I tailgate on sundays for rams games. I guess I am just a hoosier that does not deserve to live in this city because you do not like this demographic.
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I think that mini-golf could be really cool IF pedestrians could someone walk through the course on regular sidewalks that crossed the player's path so that anyone would see the course/art from different angles and from within. It could be as simple as a single bisecting sidewalk.
St. Louis City didn't acquire a coolness factor in the last 10 years.
Sculpture gardens, plazas, miniature golf, dirt mounts, LED lights etc. don't keep people in St. Louis nor are they timeless.
Those familiar with the history of the Gateway Mall know it's most recently, as in the past 30 years, been about luring businesses and visitors back Downtown -- competing with suburbia. Only recently have we had the infrastructure supporting residential. If people think that City Garden or miniature golf brings residents, or businesses as Slay thinks, then they're insane. Open space on the Mall has not brought one new firm Downtown. It has not kept them from leaving either. No resident on Washington Avenue ever moved Downtown because of Twain -- and we're from Mars if we think they will because of loaned art and a crappy cafe with wonderful views of bad 70's and 80's architecture, along with sidewalks sporadically filled with not diverse residents but homogeneous sports fans.
People would have moved Downtown, and in fact businesses already resided in Real Estate Row and the buildings where City Garden now stands. Interviewees said they were Downtown because of the already unique experience, the architecture, the history, which Gateway One and City Garden either destroyed or place erased. How many remember the buildings that once stood where City Garden exists? If they did they would laugh at this colossal waste of 30 million.
People move back to the City because of a diverse lifestyle which results from historic architecture, diverse uses, and walkable commercial districts -- all not existing in suburbia and something suburbia cannot replicate. Do this not destroying them or squandering new opportunities by promoting the Gateway Mall.
Sculpture gardens, plazas, miniature golf, dirt mounts, LED lights etc. don't keep people in St. Louis nor are they timeless.
Those familiar with the history of the Gateway Mall know it's most recently, as in the past 30 years, been about luring businesses and visitors back Downtown -- competing with suburbia. Only recently have we had the infrastructure supporting residential. If people think that City Garden or miniature golf brings residents, or businesses as Slay thinks, then they're insane. Open space on the Mall has not brought one new firm Downtown. It has not kept them from leaving either. No resident on Washington Avenue ever moved Downtown because of Twain -- and we're from Mars if we think they will because of loaned art and a crappy cafe with wonderful views of bad 70's and 80's architecture, along with sidewalks sporadically filled with not diverse residents but homogeneous sports fans.
People would have moved Downtown, and in fact businesses already resided in Real Estate Row and the buildings where City Garden now stands. Interviewees said they were Downtown because of the already unique experience, the architecture, the history, which Gateway One and City Garden either destroyed or place erased. How many remember the buildings that once stood where City Garden exists? If they did they would laugh at this colossal waste of 30 million.
People move back to the City because of a diverse lifestyle which results from historic architecture, diverse uses, and walkable commercial districts -- all not existing in suburbia and something suburbia cannot replicate. Do this not destroying them or squandering new opportunities by promoting the Gateway Mall.
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I don't really disagree with Doug. But as I recall those buildings weren't demolished for CityGarden.
They were demolished for the Gateway Mall -- several different projects were supposed to be on these blocks. We should have pushed for a higher use and abandoned the Mall.
^Unfortunately, they were actually demolished for new buildings with the half-mall concept. I know you know that, but just in case anyone else doesn't.
as long as it isn't more sand volleyball courts, i'll support it. awesome!
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Looks fantastic... well done Space. It's great that people not playing will still be able to use the space and appreciate the art.
I'm curious to see some renderings of the "inside" to get a better idea what the sculptures would look like and how they might interact with the mini-golf holes.
I'm curious to see some renderings of the "inside" to get a better idea what the sculptures would look like and how they might interact with the mini-golf holes.
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My first critique:
- Wish this was on the block of the Serra sculpture instead of 15th and market.
- Wish this was on the block of the Serra sculpture instead of 15th and market.
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Maybe it's not right but sand volleyball didn't seem like that bad of an idea to me. Problem was, I never saw anyone using them.Nerfdude wrote:as long as it isn't more sand volleyball courts, i'll support it. awesome!
That mini golf looks pretty cool.
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Sand volleyball seems to be a much better fit at the privately owned Wave Taco than it did on the gateway mall.
I'd still really like to see a skating rink.
I'd still really like to see a skating rink.