Second Riverfront Design Forum (from mayorslay.com)
Open Forum:
Plans for 4 different design concepts for a new St. Louis Riverfront between the Eads and Poplar Street bridges will be presented for public feedback at the second in a series of public forums.
The forum will give the public the opportunity to view renderings, maps, and information for each of the four design concepts and talk to consultants one-on-one.
Date/Time/Place:
Tuesday, Oct. 11, in Forest Park at the Dennis & Judith Jones Visitor & Education Center (Lindell Pavillion).
Design Team:
Balmori Associates: The lead designer is Diana Balmori, Principal of Balmori Associates, a New York landscape and urban design firm that works internationally. The firm specializes in collaborating with architects and engineers to create innovative solutions for public spaces that combine a high level of artistic design with a deep respect for environmental principles.
The HOK Planning Group: Part of Hellmuth, Obata + Kassabaum, Inc., is comprised of staff with diverse design backgrounds including landscape architects, planners, architects and urban designers and will provide project management on the Master Plan.
Partners:
Great Rivers Greenway District, the City of St. Louis, the National Park Service Jefferson National Expansion Memorial (Gateway Arch), Downtown Now!, Metro, and the Danforth Foundation.
This should be a pretty interesting meeting on October 11. I bet they'll have some sort of announcement regarding the funding of the lid construction. Here is a more detailed agenda from Great Rivers Greenway.
5:00 - 6:30 p.m. Open House (Arrive at Your Convenience)
I'll be there, so I'll look for you. I'll talk to Matt Drops The H in about 15 minutes, I know he planned on going, so we can all look for each other and sit together.
The St. Louis riverfront could blossom from the land of weathered cobblestones and missed opportunity to a place where, one day, it might be possible to walk on water.
A team of architects, urban designers and engineers charged with making the city's downtown shoreline more than just the space underneath the Gateway Arch will present their plan to the public for the first time tonight.
The meeting tonight was very informative. The plans presented were very out of the box, but in a good way. If we can get this built, I think it will really be a tourist attraction and well used by locals alike. Can't wait to swim in the river.
Here is one of the renderings presented at the meeting:
j/k. I took pics of the renderings, but they didn't turn out great. I am going to work with them tommorrow, and hopefully have some to post.
Last night they presented four plans. The first one involved closing off Leonor K. Sullivan and replacing it with a promenade. While it would be a huge improvement over what's currently there, but it was the plainest of the four. It was the only plan that involved closing the street.
The second one was called the "Serrated Edge" (or something like that) and was somewhat similar to the first, but had edges that jutted out into the river.
The third and fourth renderings were the best. They included the floating islands and were a lot more elaborate than the first two. The fourth rendering featured terraces in the hillside, which could be really cool. It also featured a series of small turbines in the river that could generate power for the riverfront. Both renderings (and I think the second one) featured areas for small cafes, coffee shops, etc. They both also featured an extension of the monument steps, bringing them into the river itself.
The islands look pretty cool - it looked like some would feature native vegetation. They were saying that they envision renting out the islands for weddings, special events, etc.
The designers mentioned including an "extreme sports" park over by the Poplar Street Bridge, and a children's play area closer to the Eads Bridge.
They were big on connectivity. There will be paths that stretch from the Arch grounds diagonally across where the flood walls are now, so people can enjoy a nice walk to the riverfront, instead of having to walk down a huge flight of stairs.
They also mentioned putting an elevator in the Eads Bridge, so that you could enter from Washington and take the elevator to the observation deck at the top. They talked about opening up the Eads' "vaults" to put in retail/restaurants, and showed examples of other bridges where this has been done - could be really cool.
One thing that D. Balmori showed was a project that she worked on in NYC - they took an old barge and have covered it with vegetation - there are trees and shrubs and grass growing on it - very cool!
Forgot to bring my camera - came straight from work. It probably would have been hard to get some good pictures anyway.
MattnSTL wrote:The meeting tonight was very informative. The plans presented were very out of the box, but in a good way. If we can get this built, I think it will really be a tourist attraction and well used by locals alike. Can't wait to swim in the river.
BRILLIANT! If its good enough for Post Office Square, it's good enough for the riverfront. I like your style. Very funny!
St. Louis Front Page has an article about the new riverfront plans that were unveiled earlier this week, as well as shots of some of the renderings. Here's the link...
Thanks for posting that. I think these comments from an architect in attendance make a lot of sense:
Saur added that he was not comfortable with the pedestrian walkways out in the river. "They don't look like they really belong in the river," stated Saur. "They look like they are landforms that have been stuck out there. These real thin pedestrian bridges do not look inviting. They don't look like they would want to pull me out to walk along these great big long thin pedestrian bridges," he observed.
I do kind of like the islands though - since they're floating, they won't flood when the water levels are high.
Option 2 - the serrated edges - actually looks pretty cool, even though it's quite a bit simpler than the others.
I'm surprised Carl Officer isn't yet screamy that the islands are our attempt to block the views towards our eastern neighbor. Still, ESL's Casino Queen and Cargill really add little to the riverfront experience, so I can definitely see such visual change as positive improvement.
Personally, the islands remind me of Mud Island in Memphis. Though a popular destination, Mud Island really has its back turned on the Mississippi, with most of the river education focused on a mini-scaled sculptural water-flowing model.
With these islands, I think we're giving ourselves more so a place to view the Arch from the river or recreate over the river, but to do so, we risk diminishing how powerful, fast and wide the river appears in current form. IOW, if you float islands into Big Muddy, will she still seem Big?
I don't think two pedestrian Islands and four decorative turbine islands are going to diminish the power and enormity of the river. Actually, I think that when you get out there it will be an awesome exposure, with the water on all sides, and the high speed current carrying by you. I think when taken away from the shoreline you will have GREATER appreciation and understanding of the Mighty Mississippi. And you won't have to get onto the Queen for a great Skyline view, either.
doesn't anybody think that a narrow walkway extending out into the river is a bit dangerous? Wouldnt they need railings? I sure wouldn't want to fall off of one of those things.
