urbanSTL

Ebsy wrote:

urban_dilettante wrote:

“Are they going to be particular about who moves in there?” asks an elderly woman near the front of the cafeteria. “We don’t want any riff-raff.”

A caricature of a stereotype. smh

This is The Hill we are talking about.

The people there have been there forever and are justifiably concerned about preserving their neighborhood. I'm not one to give much heed to NIMBYism, but many of the families that call The Hill home have lived there for generations and plan to live there into old age and death. The community is strong and insular, but that is because they have a lot to lose should thing go the way of many other parts of the City. Development needs to be done in consultation with the local community, and though there is never going to be 100% satisfaction with any plan, it is important to take the neighbors' feelings into account.

Yea I'm a 3rd generation Hill resident myself. The NIMBYism probably did help them in the past as the neighborhood seemed to do pretty well during the 70's and 80's but a lot of the newer developments in the area aren't things you would normally see in the Hill so I think many in the community need to broaden their view of what makes the Hill a great place to live. I'm personally in favor of the development but I'm also a lot younger (don't have kids yet either)

dredger wrote:^ Site plan looks underwhelming. Essentially trade a big industrial complex surrounded by residential housing with housing but surrounded by the moat of surface parking that protects everyone from the perceived hazards.

The site plan also doesn't consider the possibility of a future transit corridor using the existing UP RoW/current freight tracks.

My thoughts exactly. However, the site plan is not exactly clear. What historic buildings are they keeping? What parts of the street wall along Daggett will be preserved?

Finally, perhaps someone with more knowledge on this issue can answer this but why not reconnect the street grid by running Wilson and/or Boardman into the site? Maybe Wilson Ave could run through the complex and loop up to connect with Daggett underneath Kingshighway?

billikens&bricks wrote:

dredger wrote:^ Site plan looks underwhelming. Essentially trade a big industrial complex surrounded by residential housing with housing but surrounded by the moat of surface parking that protects everyone from the perceived hazards.

The site plan also doesn't consider the possibility of a future transit corridor using the existing UP RoW/current freight tracks.

My thoughts exactly. However, the site plan is not exactly clear. What historic buildings are they keeping? What parts of the street wall along Daggett will be preserved?

Finally, perhaps someone with more knowledge on this issue can answer this but why not reconnect the street grid by running Wilson and/or Boardman into the site? Maybe Wilson Ave could run through the complex and loop up to connect with Daggett underneath Kingshighway?

Kingshighway I believe will just be a raised road and just a bridge at the tracks instead of how it was before. It would be nice to bring back some some of the grid streets there. We're supposed to hear a follow up from the developer with some revisions here in a couple weeks

The new rendering looks like something from the Chesterfield outlet malls.

Sadly it does

Am I the only one who hates the clock-towers that seem to find their way into far too many City developments (Whole Foods building in CWE, I'm looking at you)? Feels so forced and fake. Trying to re-create the town from Back to the Future?

I'm wondering if more of a street gird should be introduced with an all single residential and townhouse development wouldn't be a better fit at end of day. Looks like very little is going to be saved nor do I really think it is worth saving the old factory/warehouse space. The site plan of frontage home, a moat of parking with the apartment block inside really doesn't come across as a good site plan IMO.
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Another way to look at it, first home option for those looking to move out of a Wash U loft, or CWE or Soulard apartment, etc. but want to still be in the city

Would be great to extend the street grid into the site and build off of that. Apts would make sense next to the train tracks and above commercial on a couple street corners. Would that be sooo hard?

I had a knock on my door sunday. They're collecting petitions to oppose the development. Over 500 signed already in the neighborhood (I didn't sign it). They basically oppose apartments at all costs even if it means no development for another decade. Never seen NIMBYism in person.

Hey, look at the bright side: If they fight it hard enough maybe it will force the developer to come up with something better. What they have now isn't exactly inspired. If they come up with something good enough maybe positive pressure from outside the ward could help to tip things more favorably. (Maybe not, this being the Hill. But . . . you never know.) And they can surely do better.

Neighborhood meeting was last night. Full house for sure (300+ there). We did see some revised drawings but unfortunately I didn't get pictures of all of them. Looks like Alex updated the article on NextSTL with some of them. I could be wrong but it looks like the building they were going to keep on Daggett is no more? Sounds like they're stating 70 townhomes now. The neighborhood association is clearly for it. There some opposite of course but they claimed it's going to have a very Italian feel to it and will release more revised plans later on. The did show a revised topdown view that I was hoping to see again. I was standing in the back so it was hard to see the layout exactly

New designs look very suburban. More appropriate for St. Charles, but then again, as plenty of others have noted, the Hill has no consistent architectural theme and has many newer suburban looking homes, so sadly this might just fit right in.

I was in attendance and took the pictures Alex uploaded. I concur with joelo that the neighborhood association was overwhelming in favor. There was also loud opposition, but they were in the extreme minority. Below are the pictures.
Top-down:


From Wilson & Hereford (St. Ambrose playground), looking east into the development:


From Daggett & Boardman, looking south into the development:

At this point I'm just ready for it to get done. I remember during the Q/A someone asking if they did a study to show if property values wouldn't decline.....like do you really think this development is going to lower your property value compared to an abandoned factory?

It's really really hard to tell from those renderings, but I think the building on Daggett is still in them. This is the snap that andrewarkills took of the site plan from the meeting. I've highlighted an area at the northeast corner on Daggett.



You can see that the treatment around that corner differs from the rest: the lines of the trees and parking lots break as though this is a boundary. If you look at the next image you will see that this corresponds to the location of a portion of the warehouse east of the large gateway; roughly the easternmost eight bays.



It's not an exact match. The interior details are really hazy, and aren't what I would expect . . . but the gross planning roughly matches that outline.

Now . . . look closely at the next image. I've highlighted a part of the view they've labeled as "From Boardman."



In that view, on eastern half, you will see that the building wall breaks. The new vaguely Italianate apartments end. To their east is a rather blank wall with what might be a roll-up door. It's hard to say what it is, but it looks industrial. It has what look like skylights to me. Now, to be fair, they don't match the triangular skylights of the existing building. And the nondescript puce wall looks more like stucco than brick . . . but if it's a rather lazy rendering that is meant to say "here be dragons" at the borders of the explored world then it might well be that beyond them lies an older industrial building . . . very much like what's already there. I think they might well plan to retain a small part of the structure fronting Daggett. It's really hard to tell. I'd surely like to ask more questions. But I would not want to count the renderings as evidence against. Quite the contrary.

^Good catch SP. It runs counter to what the developers insinuated Thursday night when asked if preserving that portion of the warehouse was still on the table.
They also sad the project plan was fluid, so maybe they're still trying to decide?

It's really really hard to tell from the renderings. But hey, what they have now looks a little more urban than what they had before. A little.

Yea he said they were still working on the design for sure so hopefully we'll see more at the next meeting in October

I believe that building in the northeast corner is separate from the Magic Chef redevelopment and is currently in use by AlfaPet.

mmreid wrote:I believe that building in the northeast corner is separate from the Magic Chef redevelopment and is currently in use by AlfaPet.

That would explain a great deal. They still list 4914 Daggett as their address, and they're still a going concern, so . . . yep. I guess it's probably not a part of the development. (Though you never know. If AlfaPet rents, rather than owns . . . ) Maybe they'd originally planned to retain the additional bays to the west that match the AlfaPet portion of the facility. Heck of an intersting old complex. Shame to see so much of it go, but AlfaPet seems to be in the best and most visible part, so that's quite pleasant news.