wait, what old church? The one at the intersection of Grand & Lindell? I hope you don't mean that one, that's one of the most beautiful buildings in the area!



Grand Center should not be a residential area, I'm sorry. It could have a few people living there, but it's an entertainment district, not a residential one. Walkability to the Fox and other attractions - who goes to the fox more than once every few months? Even those with season tickets don't go more than 6-8 times a year. I think you've misjudged people's priorities a bit.



Same for Cardinal Ritter - sure it's nice having a school nearby, but it's a private catholic school! Nothing against them, but I've never heard of people moving into an area because the local parochial schools are good.



Keep Grand Center focussed on providing entertainment every day, in all forms. Plays, concerts, movies, athletics, bars, nightclubs - keep it moving all the time. Throw in a few apartment buildings to help build critical mass (one or two more buildings like the Continental and Coronado aught to do it) and let 'er rip.



And for the love of god - no more coffee shops! can someone please give me a pub!

I am all for people living in Grand Center. It creates 24 hour vibrancy and sprouts more business.

The burnt-out church is off Spring - I think its ruins could be creatively reused, but either way, something needs to be done about it.



My main problem with GC is that despite the presence of arts organizations and institutions, there are no (or very few) artists there. I'd like to see more studios, galleries, art schools, housing for artists, etc. - make it the premier location for St. Louis' artist to call home.

The Contemporay Art museum owns the church. it will eventually be reused as a sunken garden, but it is still very much in the planning stage.

Miguel Tejada, this is very prime to become a residential entertainment district. There are so many open lots where some 5-8 story urban buildings could be built with first floor retail and residential on the upper floors. I know that the Gills own some abandoned houses in Grand Center and are probably sitting on them until they are satisfied with The Grove.



The reason places like Rhythm & Blues Coffee House and the old drug store closed was because there is practically no foot traffic in that area. SLU has DPS pretty much blockade the campus so that no one goes up in that area. The only real residential buildings are the apartments in University Plaza, above Gary's Fine Dining, and the Continental Building. Well, I guess there's Jesuit Hall, too, but you don't really see too many 90 year old retired Jesuits walking around the area very much.



Right now all the places in Grand Center are destination stops. The Fox, the Baptist Church, the Symphony, the Centene Center for the Arts, the Sheldon, KETC Channel 9 aren't places that many people go to everyday. But if some residential mid-size towers were built with first floor residential, this could and should become a great residential-entertainment district.



The key is density. It needs to focus on being a neighborhood with people living close together. Unfortunately not much housing exists at the moment.

migueltejada wrote:Nothing against them, but I've never heard of people moving into an area because the local parochial schools are good.

I know this is O/T, but I really want to respond: When you've decided to settle with children in the city, and when you absolutely refuse to consider public schools, you'd better believe it's a consideration. It's why we hope to move in the next year or two into a neighborhood with a stronger parish (that isn't the only consideration, but it's near the top of the list). And I still rue the day Abp. Burke closed the parish in one of my favorite neighborhoods- Holy Family- but that's another rant for another day. Cardinal Ritter may be a different case, but I know of families (mine included) that consider the proximity of parochial options when they're searching for a home in the South Side.

And for the love of god - no more coffee shops! can someone please give me a pub!

I'm all for another pub, but I'll never refuse another coffee shop. I like how there are so many places wherever I go in the city to feed my caffeine addiction.



Anyway, I agree with DeBaliviere's take on the future of Grand Center. It may never have the residential base of a neighborhood like the CWE, Soulard, or even downtown, but that would make it perfect for artists' lofts IMHO. It's a perfect area for new high-rise construction as well, since a certain Ms. Teper lives a mile or two away from here.



Keep the rents affordable, at least for SOME units, and while we're adding to the arts scene in that immediate area, it'd be nice to attract at least one arts school as well.

And Grand Center completely ignores the fact that there are almost 12,000 students just a block away. When I was a student, most people lived in the heart of the CWE, and many of us lived in DeBaliviere Place, as did a significant amount of Wash U. students. As more and more buildings in between SLU and Wash U. go condo (the number of apartments in DeBaliviere Place in particular has been significantly reduced), SLU students are going to have to live somewhere - why not develop more apartments geared towards students in GC? Heck, SLU could build a new dorm there, expanding the campus to the north to blend itself in with GC instead of turning its back on it.



GC has the potential to give SLU more of a "college town" feel, but it's going to take work on both the part of the university and GC Inc. to make that happen.

Or just take Grand Center Inc. out of the real estate business.

In forums elsewhere, I usually got slammed when I tried to draw a parallel between Wash U/Delmar Loop and SLU/Grand Center, but I think it was, and still is, completely valid: SLU built a fortress, and Wash U concentrated on developing local neighborhoods.



The other issue here is that, although he's a great guy and a "visionary," Schoemehl's development track record is, um...spotty. St. Louis Centre. Gateway Mall. Union Market. Union Station. Was he in power for the first failed redevelopment of OPO as well?



Finally, there's the whole idea of the Grand Center TIF, whose largest single project thus far (the new SLU arena) will do absolutely nothing for what has traditionally been known as "Grand Center," and apparently is wildly creative with its interpretation of the "tax increment" part of TIF. (Can anybody cite where this alleged increment will come from once the arena is open?)



I'm hoping my newspaper might do an in-depth, cogent analysis piece on GC sometime soon, but I'm also hoping the Bills will make the Final Four this year.

bonwich wrote:In forums elsewhere, I usually got slammed when I tried to draw a parallel between Wash U/Delmar Loop and SLU/Grand Center, but I think it was, and still is, completely valid: SLU built a fortress, and Wash U concentrated on developing local neighborhoods.

Of course, it could be argued that SLU had to "build a fortress", given the surrounding neighborhood at the time.

The Central Scrutinizer wrote:Of course, it could be argued that SLU had to "build a fortress", given the surrounding neighborhood at the time.

*Sigh* Save your breath, CS. This forum is convinced that Biondi and SLUCORP, Inc., are hellbent on destroying the city to recreate O'Fallon.

Doug wrote:

steve wrote:

The Central Scrutinizer wrote:Of course, it could be argued that SLU had to "build a fortress", given the surrounding neighborhood at the time.

*Sigh* Save your breath, CS. This forum is convinced that Biondi and SLUCORP, Inc., are hellbent on destroying the city to recreate O'Fallon.

Shouldn't something be done?



Like I said, I have access to a F250.



Seriously, what are the options?

Huh? Options for what?

Forgive me -- I'm new to this particular forum. I didn't say Larry was hellbent on destroying Midtown, nor do I disagree that the campus now is about 1,000 percent better than when I graduated in 1979. However...



I also grew up in U. City, and I can state from direct experience that the neighborhood around the Loop, especially directly to the north, was every bit as decrepit and dangerous as Grand Center was in those days. SLU (and Biondi didn't start this) simply abdicated its role in anything save for the campus proper; Wash. U., on the other hand, turned into a developer, even to the point of buying chunks of multi-unit residential.



Of course, Grand Center has never had a Joe Edwards or a Paul Schoomer, and its "redevelopment corporation" has operated as a typical St. Louis City institution for most of its existence. And Grand Center has never figured out that gigging people for parking once or twice a week is not a long-term growth strategy.

bonwich wrote:SLU (and Biondi didn't start this) simply abdicated its role in anything save for the campus proper; Wash. U., on the other hand, turned into a developer, even to the point of buying chunks of multi-unit residential.

I don't disagree with this, but I think you are comparing apples to oranges in some respect. WashU is smack dab in the middle of residential (except for FP to the East). The only residential around SLU is mostly the apartment buildings along Lindell. A lot of the rest of it is/was commercial and light industrial.



And I believe the Garden has followed a similar strategy as WashU, but again, they are in a similar situation, surrounded by residential neighborhoods.



Biondi has done one hell of a job in the last 20(?) years.

I'm going to sound like a broken record here, but what the hell.



Biondi came to SLU with one goal: make it the finest Catholic* university in the nation. It already had a fairly solid, if overlooked, academic program--especially in history and medicine. But this sort of intangible matters little to today's typical undergraduate and the institutions that rank them. What the university needed was a "campus"--and I parenthesize that word because the kind he wanted was of the rarefied variety (see Wash U). So he set about, for better or worse, to expand and consolidate. He did an excellent job of that, even if I disagree with much of his aesthetic vision. Did he, to some extent, destoy the urban fabric in the area? Yes, he did. But you know what? It would have been lost anyway if hadn't done so.



But back to my story. SLU has already gone from a minor regional player to a school gaining increasing recognition and prestige on a national level. Once the arena and research facility are completed SLU will rise on the charts even more. Now that he's accomplished his first step, Biondi can now focus with greater attention on building the neighborhood. Which he will do.



It astounds me, really, how small-minded a lot of people think Biondi is. This man knows the value of his location, and wants to see a thriving urban neighborhood. I know this because he's told me this personally.



How quickly we forget that it was Biondi who loaned, on generous terms, a critical million bucks to the developer of the Continental. How quickly we forget that it's Biondi, not Pyramid or McGowan-Walsh, who's pouring millions of dollars in an area most developers to this day would not touch--I have serious doubts that Gills would have invested what they did if it weren't for SLU's presence. And how quickly we forget that Biondi made conscious decision to stay in Midtown when he took the presidency--in 1987, no less!--when he could have just pulled a CBC. Let's face it, SLU is the only reason that Midtown/Grand Center is even a place worth talking about. Without it, Fox, Powell Hall, the Pulitzer and Contemporary would not be open today.



As the chief administrator of my undergrad and now graduate education, I've had some serious disagreements with him. And I do think there are some mistakes he's made in terms of the built environment. But he's had a tough, uphill battle, and I wonder if any of us could have done a better job.







*There's an interesting story in a recent addition of Missouri Lawyer's Weekly about the TIF litigation between SLU and the Masonic Temple. The Missouri Court of Appeals determined that SLU is not a "religious" institution.

There are definite trade-offs to a lot of the development that Fr. Biondi has led. When I think back over what's gone on at the SLU campus over the past 10-15 years, here are some of the good and bad developments:



Good:

-Closed off West Pine and Spring to create pedestrian mall

-Tore down section 8 high rise at Spring and West Pine for law school atrium and green space

-Tore down seedy motel on Olive for Parks College

-Expanded athletic facilities - Hermann Stadium, new facilities for baseball and softball, on-campus practice field for soccer team, on-campus arena

-Acquired several buildings on Lindell and Laclede to give the campus a more cohesive feel

-Renovated the historic Queens Daughters building for use by the law school

-Renovated what is now the Bannister House for alumni functions

-Built the clocktower at Spring and West Pine

-Renovated Xavier Hall and its annex for the Department of Communication

-Expanded the library

-Cook Hall (business school) expansion - one of the most impressive buildings on campus

-Student Village apartments (replaced parking lot and decrepit warehouse)

-Established SLU Museum of Art on Lindell



Bad:

-Demolished Marina Building at Grand and Lindell for ??

-Forced Clark's and 20 North out of business, demolished buildings

-Took too long to remove astroturf from soccer field - team played off campus for a few years during the late 90's

-Demolished State Apartments - a charming but run-down apartment building at the heart of the campus - for a pointless swimming pool

-Demolished a gorgeous historic building at Spring and Lindell for parking lot



Neutral:

-Tore down Mercantile Bank at Grand and Lindell for fountains (I would prefer to have a signature building at this corner)

-Demolished Scholars House on the West Pine Mall - the house was cool and fit in well with the campus, but the landscaped area that replaced it is really impressive

-Busch Student Center expansion - It's nice, but SLU still deserves better

-Park-like area near Olive and Compton - pointless

-Fences/gates - personally, I like them - help give the campus an identity

-Statues - some love 'em, some hate 'em



I'm sure I'm missing a lot, but those are a few things off the top of my head.

DeBaliviere wrote:Forced Clark's and 20 North out of business, demolished buildings

Are you sure you are remembering this correctly? I seem to recall Clarks going out of business a long time ago.



And 20 North was no loss. Just a dive bar with a dreadful Greatful Dead cover band.