urbanSTL

According to Arch's first post, groundbreaking should be next month.

While some of your concerns over the Bottle District seem founded, such as the closed off streets, I think it will be well integrated into downtown. First off, I think it makes sense to look at the landing and the BD as one unit because if either are to grow and thrive, the best work together. The key to connecting the two is utilizing the open land and vacant warehouses north of the landing, which is something that may happen once the Pinical development gets going. Many of those building seem to be owned by noted loft builders, such as the McGowan Brothers.

I hate to bump a really old thread, but brickandmortar brought back all these threads with his mocking of a newbie...



I wanted to jump in and say something that occured to me on rereading of this threads on everybodies agreement that the streets should be open. Lacledes Landing works with open streets, so does Wash Ave, and the loop. All of Soulards streets are open...but something that Wash Ave and the Landing have is bricked streets. Why not brick the streets, this encourages pedestrian traffic, and seriously slows down cars. I think having open streets is important to having a lively atmosphere, particularly watching peds cross the street inbetween cars going slowly, one of my favorite scenes in a crowded area...



Just a thought.

Would this Pittsburgh district (old steel mills, now shops, etc.) be comparable to the Bottle District?



http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/20/reale ... 0pitt.html

Does anyone know if Neighborhood Gardens will be preserved? The buildings are very interesting.

STLgasm wrote:Does anyone know if Neighborhood Gardens will be preserved? The buildings are very interesting.

Here is a thread with the latest updates...

<A HREF="http://www.urbanstl.com/viewtopic.php?t ... ighborhood Gardens Redevelopment Update</A>



Neighborhood Gardens is undergoing redevelopment.

ByTheRiver wrote:Would this Pittsburgh district (old steel mills, now shops, etc.) be comparable to the Bottle District?

I'm not sure the Pittsburgh "South Side Works" is really a comparison here. The development is located between Carson Street (I think that is the name), which has always been a bit of a cool strip and the river. Across the river is downtown, which due to Pittsburgh's geography, and lack of interstates, has much more residential in it and around it, so South Side Works has decent residential surrounding it (enough so that Cheesecake, M & S, Urban Outfitters, Sur La Table, etc have all built there). Basically it fits a hole, is adjacent from an already existing commercial strip, and is asthetically nice due to its proximity to the river.



The Bottle District on the other hand, seems to be planned for its location based strictly on the fact that the moving company has land there and wants to build this thing.

I was wondering myself, I drove past there last week and its just a deserted area now, no signs of buildings being prepped to be torn down. Their website still says ground breaking summer of 05 and I believe that leaves about 2 more weeks. As much as I would like to see this project take off, perhaps it is to large of a project for our city. Maybe convert the area to more of an urban residential/retail space like Lafayette Park with the convenience of being downtown. I have seen ground leveling at Cochran Gardens so I would imagine the tear down will be occurring this year and the gutting of the low income housing at Cass & 10th St. I think the urban/retail would fit better.

STLgasm wrote:Does anyone know if Neighborhood Gardens will be preserved? The buildings are very interesting.

I agree, the Neighborhood Gardens are great and should be preserved. Not sure if they will be, but they should be. More than a little concerned with the scale of this proposed Bottle District project - I do not think a residential tower as tall as the Gateway Arch is appropriate on any level. The latest design looks like a Daniel Libeskind re-tread (I think I have seen it before)

Neighborhood Gardens is already well under reconstruction. Read about it in the Neighboprhood Gardens thread.



Go to the downtown projects and construction forum for more talk about the Bottle District.

jambalaya wrote:

STLgasm wrote:Does anyone know if Neighborhood Gardens will be preserved? The buildings are very interesting.

I agree, the Neighborhood Gardens are great and should be preserved. Not sure if they will be, but they should be. More than a little concerned with the scale of this proposed Bottle District project - I do not think a residential tower as tall as the Gateway Arch is appropriate on any level. The latest design looks like a Daniel Libeskind re-tread (I think I have seen it before)

Yeah god forbid a world renowned architect doing something that doesn't include a brick building

The St. Louis Business Journal reported today that the residential plans have changed a little and will be marketed as the Gateway Village.... <A HREF="http://www.urbanstl.com/viewtopic.php?t=12">The Bottle District</A> will be the name of the entertainment and dining district of the development. The new plans call for at least two 35-story residential towers and possibly a taller one. The original plans showed three towers at 24-, 28- and 32 stories. There could be as many as 2,200 residential units when fully built (includes additional mid-rise developments within the Gateway Village as well as residential above the entertainment and dining venues). Construction on two residential building will get underway in March. The number of floors of each building is still undetermined, however each will contain 250-300 units.

Starting in March I can feel the excitement brewing from here.



Gateway Village - sounds like they have been fine tuning.

Wasn't Gateway Village supposed to be the name of the golf course/housing development that Mayor Bosley was pushing for in the '90s?

It also sounds like the interest in the highrise living must have been high enough to increase the size of the buildings. This is good news.



I hope they are able to accomplish the two large towers, that would be exciting.

Expat wrote:Starting in March I can feel the excitement brewing from here.



Gateway Village - sounds like they have been fine tuning.

Anyone know if they've set pricing? Hopefully they keep it affordable so young professioanls and recent college grads like myself can enjoy living there.

trent wrote:It also sounds like the interest in the highrise living must have been high enough to increase the size of the buildings. This is good news.



I hope they are able to accomplish the two large towers, that would be exciting.

Two large bildings. That'll be a great expansion to the skyline. Might one be larger than the arch?

If they build more than two towers, I hope the number of stories is varied, or at least different enough in design that they're not all indentical towers. I find more than two identical towers to be boring, even if the structures are attractive...like Presidential Place in Chicago, all those identical towers look so cookie cutter, and with Mansion House on our river front there with three identical towers I feel we could use a little diversity in design to avoid redundantcy. That said, I am still disappointed the Liebskind designed towers with a reworked base/street design could not have been accomplished. I think their design would truley have complimented the Arch and would have put some real pazzaz on our skyline.

I think a 60 story building would be a little out of place in St. Louis. I'd rather see two towers (25 and 35 stories). We need to fill in the skyline, not make it taller.

Continuous, linear density along cross-town streets would make our City more lively than any one massive building. So I have to say I prefer multiple mid-rises to a single high-rise.

southslider wrote:Continuous, linear density along cross-town streets would make our City more lively than any one massive building. So I have to say I prefer multiple mid-rises to a single high-rise.

Me too. The first priority is to fill in the streetscapes.

ya we really don't wanna be like New York. You can almost tie the building thing to baseball salary caps. New York has a crap load of big buildings and it kinda takes the fun out of having quality building like St. Louis has, just like baseball with the Yankees having 200 million dollars for the team, it takes away the special feeling of having a great Player like Pujols if you just buy him instead of acquiring him.