urbanSTL

Alex Ihnen wrote:

framer wrote:"...state-of-the-art parking garage..."

But they mention how quick they can build using precast

This thing is going up quick and its going to look just as cheap as the crappy pre-cast materials it is going to be built with.

Work is under way on The Sheldon's portion of the Art Walk.

And the .Zack arts incubator selected its first group of tenants:
http://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/news ... first.html

The restaurant on top of the Big Brothers building should open in October...

Link to the Rooftop + Test Kitchen:

http://meetanew.com/

The rooftop sounds like it is just for events, right? Not a normal restaurant where two people can show up for dinner.

Maybe they can add this type of louvers to the new garage in Grand Center:

http://stlouiscnr.com/departments/compa ... dium=email

^ Or maybe they can, you know, just not build the garage.

I don't know that I have a problem with any possible garage, as long as it replaces surface parking. One of the first things that happened in Columbia, that arguably helped the place grow, was that garages replaced surface parking. (There used to be quite a lot.) Most are pretty simple affairs, but they add mass to neighborhoods. In Midtown there's so blasted much asphalt that almost any structure on top of asphalt is probably still an improvement . . . but it would be nice if it looked more than strictly utilitarian. And of course first floor retail would have been nice . . . assuming there's enough traffic for it.

Yeah, I'm not against the garage either, I just wish it were going to look better. I mean, this is the ARTS DISTRICT, for crying out loud! If anywhere deserves some thoughtful, progressive design, this it it. And it's right smack in the middle of everything!

Really, really disappointing.

I would be perfectly fine with a garage if they made any effort to fit it in with its surroundings. What they are proposing would be a perfect garage to put next to a stadium built in the middle of a field. A bare bones garage without even any retail is completely inappropriate for the center of what is supposed to be a vibrant mixed use area.

The potential of Grand Center is incredible, but building a garage like this one takes the entire area down a notch.

See, I'm not sure I can agree with you. Could it be better? Absolutely. But it beats a surface lot. It should help to free up land currently serving the parking gods for other uses. It should help to improve the perceived safety of the area, making it look more vibrant and less vacant. (Nothing looks quite as dead as a dark empty surface lot.) It could be better, but it's still a step up not down. It brings density. Even parking density is density. People don't build garages around stadiums out in suburban fields. I don't remember any garages blocking the view of Arrowhead, and I was just through there a month ago. Some of the first major developments in downtown Columbia (in fact pretty much all the developments in the 90s and early 2000s) were parking garages. They made the place feel less empty. The helped nearby merchants. They created street traffic. And the garage they've proposed is surely no more ugly than most in CoMO. I'd love to see it better. But there's a sea of vacant land nearby. And there are still vacant and decaying buildings. Even now. The building where the VA thrift store was (the old Palladium) is empty and barely two blocks away. Also large. The only reason there's not more vacant buildings there now is that they tore so much down. Storefronts at Vandeventer and Olive, houses on Olive and Grandell. A car wash on Delmar. There's so much empty land you can't even pave it for parking. It's mostly just grass. I don't think it's reasonable to demand retail in a privately funded garage when you can't fill all the buildings that are there now; when there's so much chronic vacancy that only now are rehabs beginning to outpace demolitions. It isn't a healthy or vibrant neighborhood . . . except on show nights. It could be one, but putting a few storefronts along Washington isn't the one true answer. This will help. It's a good thing. Even if all it does right now is help change perceptions that's something we need. People coming in for a show or to visit a gallery will see permanence and stability where all they see now is a sea of grass. They'll get out of their car and walk across the street and feel safer. They'll leave the show and walk back their car and see a big brightly lit building. It will help to break up the view. It wasn't so long ago you could see all the way from Olive to Delmar easily. (East of Grand you still can.) It was three blocks of empty. Now it's two on the west side of the street. Maybe soon it will only be one and a half. Every block smaller that view gets is one block better.

A bit of retail progress for Grand Center...

Music Record Shop moved from the Grove to a temp spot by KDHX and will move to the new .Zack space on Locust when that is up and running around January. And Miss M's Candy Boutique is opening soon in the Metropolitan Building. Good to see.

...on the down side, Bruno David Gallery (just across from the Contemporary) was forced to close when structural defects were found in their building. Bruno hopes to re-open as soon as he can find a space.

http://www.stltoday.com/entertainment/a ... b1264.html

framer wrote:...on the down side, Bruno David Gallery (just across from the Contemporary) was forced to close when structural defects were found in their building.

Is that building a goner then? Any chance of saving it? It's not the most significant building in the area, but I hate to see more grass in a place that already has too much.

symphonicpoet I just now read your response, and while it has merit, I still cannot agree. From my point of view, a new parking garage in such a prime location right off the main strip on Grand is selling out a bit. Will a new garage do more good than bad? Maybe. Right now Grand Center isn't exactly hot right now so it could be argued that any development is good development. But garages seem to have a lifespan of 50-60 years. I'm not sure I as a city would be ready to write off such a large strip of prime real estate for the next 50-60 years in an area which is more likely than not to come roaring back long before then.

I just think we as a city shouldn't settle for mediocre.

symphonicpoet wrote:

framer wrote:...on the down side, Bruno David Gallery (just across from the Contemporary) was forced to close when structural defects were found in their building.

Is that building a goner then? Any chance of saving it? It's not the most significant building in the area, but I hate to see more grass in a place that already has too much.

I haven't heard anything official, but the building has been condemned. I highly doubt that it will be saved; it's just not worth it. It's a great site, though, and it's owned by the Pulitzer Foundation. Emily Pulitzer has long-term plans to build a pretty significant building on the south side of Washington, and I'm sure Bruno's site will support new construction as well. How soon this all happens, I have no idea.

GoHarvOrGoHome wrote:symphonicpoet I just now read your response, and while it has merit, I still cannot agree. From my point of view, a new parking garage in such a prime location right off the main strip on Grand is selling out a bit. Will a new garage do more good than bad? Maybe. Right now Grand Center isn't exactly hot right now so it could be argued that any development is good development. But garages seem to have a lifespan of 50-60 years. I'm not sure I as a city would be ready to write off such a large strip of prime real estate for the next 50-60 years in an area which is more likely than not to come roaring back long before then.

I just think we as a city shouldn't settle for mediocre.

To me there's so much empty land that I don't foresee it filling up completely in the next fifty years. Let's consider the area bounded by Lindell, Grand, Delmar, and Spring. The garage will be smack in the middle of this area. There's about thirty usable acres contained inside this box. It's home to the Fox, the Sheldon, the Pullitzer, the Scottish Rite, the Masonic Temple, the Continental, the old Woolworths, and quite a few other buildings large and small. I suspect it is the most heavily developed portion of Midtown apart from SLU. And yet . . . there's thirteen acres of empty grass lots and basic surface parking. And that's not even counting grassy art installations like Tilted Plane at the SW corner of Grand and Grandell. All told that's more than forty percent of the available land. Over the course of the last twenty years this little box has seen about four acres of new development. At that pace there will still be an acre to spare in sixty years. I really don't think we need to be worrying about mediocre versus ideal. I think we need to be worrying about full versus vacant. And that's a lot of vacant. The place looks like someone dropped a bomb on it. A lot of bombs, really. A whole strategic bombing campaign. It looks okay from Grand, but from Washington or Grandell it looks very different indeed. In no way does it resemble "prime" real estate. This garage will break up the big empty. That's a remarkably underrated function. Better is achievable. Something with retail is clearly possible. It's a deeper lot than the one occupied by "Parkzilla" at Fifth and Walnut in Columbia MO, and that little piece of happiness has a full side of ground floor retail, some of which is two stories with an outdoor deck. (Never mind how long it took to rent it. Or that it's generally more loathed by the locals than any of the myriad older garages that look remarkably like the proposed Washington garage. Of course I think they're silly on that point, but . . . ) It's worth fighting for something better. We might well be able to get it. But at the end of the day, if they want to build it on their own property with their own money . . . I don't see a good reason to stop them. If you don't like it use the tax abatement to get something better. I can certainly support some negotiation. And it's absolutely possible to do better. Just . . . more expensive. There are questions to answer, of course: How much added cost is Alex's retail wrapper? How many years will it sit vacant? The developers are asking for tax money. You're asking the developers to give the community something. Okay. Negotiate, if you're in a position to do so.

It may well be that we'll simply have to disagree. I'm certainly not going to try to convince you it's pretty. It's a plain brick box. But in the end, I just don't see any harm in it. They're tearing anything down. They're not asking the city to vacate any streets. They're not using anything we don't have plenty of. It won't even really show up in the postcard views of any of the signature buildings. I believe it would show up in precisely none of the photographs in Alex's article and exactly two of the renderings. (And it would be pretty unobtrusive in those: It would be in the distant background of the Lawrence group sketch, behind the Fox, and largely obscured by trees in the rendering of the Arts Academy Plaza.) To top it off it really will provide a useful service in a neighborhood that still needs real help. I just don't see how there's such a strong fight against it. The reaction seems completely out of proportion to the situation. There's quite a lot of boring boxes in the neighborhood already. Do you love the Channel 9 building? The warehouse they tacked onto the Sheldon? They're awful. But . . . at least they're not grass. I'd love to see something better. But who's going to build an Ando parking garage there? Where's the money going to come from to fund it? We have to have some realism here. And some give and take.

This could've been possible though.





(I can't get the images to show, but if you right click the Image, you can see an alternative site plan the Fox could've used)

Because the Fox owns all of this land, they could've used an alternative site plan- turned 90 degrees and shifted west 100 yards, that would've allowed for the same number of parking spaces, but had a much reduced negative impact on the streetscape. This alternative site would've also allow the Fox to sell or develop the 3600 block of Washington into a mixed use commercial and residential structure- a much more profitable use for this site and a much more marketable site for such a development than the 3700 block of Washington. They could've made more money, fulfilled their parking needs, and helped the Grand Center district in the long run. To be fair though, this would've required Fox Theatre patrons to walk further, but no further than many of them are already walking as this site already is surface parking for the Fox.

I have no doubt that a modest commercial space could work in the garage by time it opens... just look around at what's going in the nabe. Delivering a clunker of a garage should be unacceptable but that's why we're Saint Louis, I guess.

Yes. It wouldn't be hard to just move the garage over. Maybe the current spot isn't "prime real estate," but it is the most prime real estate. Should a developer decide to build some nice mixed use infill, that spot on Wash ave is at the very worst a top 3 location in the area. When things start to take off, the site will be one of the first lots developed.

^ The alternate placement would certainly keep real estate available. However, I would be more inclined to accept the current garage and massing if they would have simply speculated on some street level commercial space and or if Fox Theater/Grand Theater found a way finance a better design and facade instead the of cheap prefab construction that will take place. Heck, I would argue some money for streetscape or more green space redirected to this structure would be a better long term plan

I state that because you still got a lot of prime real estate just fronting Grand Ave alone whether it be next to Powell Hall, or the hideous SLU sculpture park at Grand & Lindell or Grand & Grandel. In the meantime the city has prime real estate galore from comments about the Landing being a couple projects away from critical mass, to BPV to west downtown to even just beginning to fill in Cortex/Federal Mogul and maybe Armory. On top of the next mega area now being proposed in mid-town/SLU hospital to the south of Grand Ave (don't forget the city still has McKee's northside & Cortex).