urbanSTL

My first drink at a bar in St. Louis was at Talayna's. It was a weekday in the winter, you could still smoke inside, and Mike came out talking about all the new disco balls he received. A lot of them weren't hung up yet and were still sitting on tables. I went there a lot in my 20s. Lots of good... well... fuzzy memories. Lol!

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Time for another drive-thru!

North side of Hampton has been seeing a lot of fast food joints going in but at least it's filling in.
Would be nice to see something with a little more human scaled development but I think that area is what it is at this point.

South of 44 from Loughborough to Nottingham however it's great to have all the local restaurants and shops and the record exchange, I think if we end up with the road diets on Hampton that were talked about before it could be a great commercial corridor similar to Macklind Ave or  Maplewood Manchester area.

You'd have to imagine what a dieted north end of Hampton would do for business though.  It's right by the park.  Walking it is a death trap as it is.  Why do we do this to the roads around our major parks?

I recently drove the southern portion last week.  It was nice, and the diet will be incredibly successful I think.  I do believe that the city needs to rid itself of the mentality that a stretch is 'too far gone' though.

bwcrow1s wrote: ↑

Jun 08, 2021

You'd have to imagine what a dieted north end of Hampton would do for business though.  It's right by the park.  Walking it is a death trap as it is.  Why do we do this to the roads around our major parks?

I recently drove the southern portion last week.  It was nice, and the diet will be incredibly successful I think.  I do believe that the city needs to rid itself of the mentality that a stretch is 'too far gone' though.

True, putting the I-64/40 interchange right at the same spot you have a roundabout to enter Forest Park never made sense, traffic is always a nightmare at that section at rush hours.

I would be onboard with a Hampton road diet on the southern portion but leave the north section wide to accommodate the traffic needs of the interchange.

npav wrote: ↑

Jun 08, 2021

North side of Hampton has been seeing a lot of fast food joints going in but at least it's filling in.
Would be nice to see something with a little more human scaled development but I think that area is what it is at this point.

I'd rather have an empty lot than another wealth sucking, public health deteriorating fast food restaurant. 

Please stop with the "is what it is" mentality. People said the same thing when the QT was put in at Chouteau and Jefferson and then a few years later we get the Edge, Steelcote, Chouteau Landing. But how could that be? I thought it is what it is?

Citizens can and should demand better.

dweebe wrote: ↑

Jun 08, 2021

I still can’t figure out why McCausland, Hampton and Kingshighway are near freeways. Why is everyone is such a rush to get north/south in this area?

Because you can't get access 70/55/44 from 40 DT. If I'm in the CWE and want to go to Carondalet, I have to get over to 44 sometime before I'm downtown. Its a colossally stupid design oversight

dweebe wrote: ↑

Jun 08, 2021

BellaVilla wrote: ↑

Jun 08, 2021

dweebe wrote: ↑

Jun 08, 2021

I still can’t figure out why McCausland, Hampton and Kingshighway are near freeways. Why is everyone is such a rush to get north/south in this area?

Because you can't get access 70/55/44 from 40 DT. If I'm in the CWE and want to go to Carondalet, I have to get over to 44 sometime before I'm downtown. Its a colossally stupid design oversight

I know the “mechanical” reason. Plus let’s not forget 170 dead ending at 40/64: and I’m perfectly fine with that as the option of having it extend to 44 or 55 is much worse.

My question is more about the velocity which everyone flies up and down those three roads.

Gotcha. I subscribe to the theory that people drive the speed the road is designed for, not the speed that is posted. Those roads are built to accommodate speeds in excess of 50 mph, so people drive that fast.

BellaVilla wrote: ↑

Jun 08, 2021

dweebe wrote: ↑

Jun 08, 2021

I still can’t figure out why McCausland, Hampton and Kingshighway are near freeways. Why is everyone is such a rush to get north/south in this area?

Because you can't get access 70/55/44 from 40 DT. If I'm in the CWE and want to go to Carondalet, I have to get over to 44 sometime before I'm downtown. Its a colossally stupid design oversight

Oddly, I usually don't bother to take the 55/44/Hampton trick unless I'm in a spectacular hurry to get somewhere further west and on those occasions I usually miss my exit to inattention and end up at Shrewsbury or even Elm before I realize my error. If the west edge of the world is my final destination I just cut over to Kingshighway and take that direct since going "west" on any localish street probably puts you on a heading of 300 degrees anyway. (Which is to say nearly NW.) My most usual route for your O/D pair is Bates to Christy to Eichelberger to Kingshighway. Depending on where you are River des Peres to McCasuland also works fairly well. (My wife frequently takes that from here to 40 to get out to her office in Clayton. And comes home 40-Jefferson-44-55-VN grocer-home. Which is kind of like the Hampton trick, but maybe more Google Mappy.)

Anyway, yes, they're like highways because people envisioned them as parkways to drain people out of the fancy spots and into the neighborhoods. Most of that wasn't developed until the 20s or 30s at earliest, by which point we were beginning to go car hard. Stuff further east had to be widened to make it automotive hell, but that far west was often pretty empty pretty late. I recall seeing a big parkway plan from, oh, 1920 or so that had several of the above as a part of a giant parkway system loosely similar to Kansas City's.

dweebe wrote: ↑

Mar 21, 2021

chriss752 wrote: ↑

Mar 20, 2021

Building framed up. Such a small building

Is this some new post pandemic model where it's drive thru and pickup only: with little or no inside seating?

EDIT: What's odd is the almost complete Starbucks on Jefferson by Wells Fargo seems normal sized.

I think the model still has inside seating, but no more wait service. You order your food at the counter, and when it's ready your name is called out and you pick it up yourself from the counter (rather than having your order taken tableside and brought out to you by waitstaff). Same model as Panera. And Shake Shack.

Hampton and Victoria- Then and Now.
Ironic that the Starbucks's footprint is about the same as the building that was on the corner.

Can someone with development expertise explain why this corridor hasn't attracted large, mixed use development? To my untrained eyes, its a perfect location.

BellaVilla wrote: ↑

Oct 10, 2021

Can someone with development expertise explain why this corridor hasn't attracted large, mixed use development? To my untrained eyes, its a perfect location.

Yes, STL region is growing at a very vert slow pace

Agree w dblnSouthCity as your only going to see so much development in a slow growth region and for most parts its clustered around the area with job clusters & strong institutional presence.   However, my two cents on what is missing at the moment.   A strong dense St. Louis zoo proposal on the old Old Forest Park Hospital site.  Might not be a big jobs driver but it will be something for the immediate.   Of course, I think it will help if Wise was reconnected as a through street from Hampton ave to Science Museum & new vision to actually reduce Forest Park Community College footprint 

dbInSouthCity wrote: ↑

Oct 10, 2021

BellaVilla wrote: ↑

Oct 10, 2021

Can someone with development expertise explain why this corridor hasn't attracted large, mixed use development? To my untrained eyes, its a perfect location.

Yes, STL region is growing at a very vert slow pace

I don’t buy this explanation. All the neighborhoods around FP are growing and attracting large mixed use development except this spot.

There is a mixed use complex about a block east of Hampton. There's another one about two three blocks west of Hampton.

And Garcia did transform Gratiot School into apartments.  So, along with what jbacott mentioned above, there have been projects along this corridor recently. The fast food joints directly on Hampton probably aren't going to be sold anytime soon.

jbacott wrote:There is a mixed use complex about a block east of Hampton.

The Highlands?  Super insular in my opinion...  So much different than being right on Hampton.

Laife Fulk wrote:And Garcia did transform Gratiot School into apartments.  

It's great the school building was saved, it's a cool building, but every time I pass it, I just think that for such a cool building the surroundings suck.  I mean, it's surrounded by a tall chain link fenced surface lot, then fast food, gas station and lots of traffic all right outside of that.

No disagreements here that the surroundings do suck.  I'd love to see this stretch become lined with mixed use, I just don't anticipate it happening anytime soon.

dweebe wrote: ↑

Oct 11, 2021

Would you want to live along an ugly 7 lane, car centric highway?

couldn't one say the same thing about Kingshighway at Oakland? yet...

urban_dilettante wrote: ↑

Oct 11, 2021

dweebe wrote: ↑

Oct 11, 2021

Would you want to live along an ugly 7 lane, car centric highway?

couldn't one say the same thing about Kingshighway at Oakland? yet...

That's a fair point. It'll be interesting to see how that turns out.