urbanSTL

dweebe wrote: ↑

Mar 04, 2023

What should be done to the people who author false hope articles and online posts? How can we make sure that only neutral or tempered somewhat negative "this won't fix anything" expectations are expressed?

But I think we're safe from these articles going forward. The NFL isn't coming back, the Cardinals are fine at Busch III and the Blues just renovated Enterprise with some state money.

"what should be done"????  LOL.  Hell, I don't know, man.  This is just a web-forum convo between two dorks on a STL City booster website.  

And, it's a just soccer stadium. That's it. It will "UNITE THE CITY" (directly around the stadium) like 22 days a year. It's fun for those who like soccer.

CityPark stadium was going to be built somewhere in the region.  I think the location they picked was perfect. It may not be a game changer for what is wrong with STL but I think it makes an incremntal difference towards the positive.

What makes streets department choose needlessly complicated stoplights?

All of the new ones around the stadium have turn-only cycles which would only seem to be remotely useful for a small minority of hours. They also seem to only display walk signals if you press the beg button. Again, doesn't this add complexity and cost? And what's the benefit other than making pedestrians never bother to wait for signals?

And at night, when you're waiting at a red because oncoming traffic has a turn arrow, it only encourages people to disregard lights.

soulardx wrote: ↑

Mar 04, 2023

dweebe wrote: ↑

Mar 04, 2023

What should be done to the people who author false hope articles and online posts? How can we make sure that only neutral or tempered somewhat negative "this won't fix anything" expectations are expressed?

But I think we're safe from these articles going forward. The NFL isn't coming back, the Cardinals are fine at Busch III and the Blues just renovated Enterprise with some state money.

"what should be done"????  LOL.  Hell, I don't know, man.  This is just a web-forum convo between two dorks on a STL City booster website.  

And, it's a just soccer stadium. That's it. It will "UNITE THE CITY" (directly around the stadium) like 22 days a year. It's fun for those who like soccer.

It won't "unite the city" but the stadium will result in follow on development with each development bringing incremental change and taken as a whole the developments will be impactful for the neighborhood and the surrounding area.  

eee123 wrote: ↑

Mar 06, 2023

What makes streets department choose needlessly complicated stoplights?

All of the new ones around the stadium have turn-only cycles which would only seem to be remotely useful for a small minority of hours. They also seem to only display walk signals if you press the beg button. Again, doesn't this add complexity and cost? And what's the benefit other than making pedestrians never bother to wait for signals?

And at night, when you're waiting at a red because oncoming traffic has a turn arrow, it only encourages people to disregard lights.

All of the street related work was by the teams contracted engineers and team paid for it. City had no involvement in design

dbInSouthCity wrote: ↑

Mar 06, 2023

eee123 wrote: ↑

Mar 06, 2023

What makes streets department choose needlessly complicated stoplights?

All of the new ones around the stadium have turn-only cycles which would only seem to be remotely useful for a small minority of hours. They also seem to only display walk signals if you press the beg button. Again, doesn't this add complexity and cost? And what's the benefit other than making pedestrians never bother to wait for signals?

And at night, when you're waiting at a red because oncoming traffic has a turn arrow, it only encourages people to disregard lights.

All of the street related work was by the teams contracted engineers and team paid for it. City had no involvement in design

That sounds crazy. So the people whose only real streets-related concern is a few dozen nights of congestion per year get to make traffic-flow decisions that impact everyone else in the neighborhood far more?

I really don't get turn arrows outside of intersections where it's tough to turn left without one. There are very, very few of those in the city. And the beg buttons anywhere downtown should be banned.

Two things - 1) Absolutely awesome photo and 2) the VIP parking garage wasn't even full lol

dweebe wrote: ↑

Mar 06, 2023

Does MoDOT have any new estimates on when the 22nd Street interchange and other work will be done.

They don't look that close to finishing that 22nd Street connection to Market. From walking down there regularly, progress seems glacial.

If you're heading eastbound on 64, the 22nd Street exit appears open, but does it even go anywhere but back onto the highway?

MODOT isn’t done yet. This week the bridge contractor is back to see why chunks of it are falling off before it’s even open.

jeff707 wrote: ↑

Mar 06, 2023

This is an interesting thread, because 10 years ago the conventional wisdom on this very forum was absolutely that stadiums were bad for downtowns. 

My recollection is that the argument was that public funding for stadiums was a bad investment. Which I suspect is still the consensus around here. I remember a lot of discontent with the plan for the Rams stadium requiring so much demolition for nothing more than surface parking, and a fair few people saying the proposed tech incubator would be a better use of both the space and public money. I doubt anyone would say anything different now. Lots of discontent over the parking component of City Park, but not enough to overcome the many very good things about the project or our general love of sportsball. (Whatever objection we have to a stadium generally disappears on opening day.) Maybe I'm misremembering something, but my recollection is that it was more nuanced than "stadium bad." Or even "go 'burb that thing!"

burb (bərb) v. To ban an unsightly or undesirable land use from an urban core, esp. low density developments. The YIMBYS burbed surface parking with the new form based code.

symphonicpoet wrote: ↑

Mar 07, 2023

jeff707 wrote: ↑

Mar 06, 2023

This is an interesting thread, because 10 years ago the conventional wisdom on this very forum was absolutely that stadiums were bad for downtowns. 

My recollection is that the argument was that public funding for stadiums was a bad investment. Which I suspect is still the consensus around here. I remember a lot of discontent with the plan for the Rams stadium requiring so much demolition for nothing more than surface parking, and a fair few people saying the proposed tech incubator would be a better use of both the space and public money. I doubt anyone would say anything different now. Lots of discontent over the parking component of City Park, but not enough to overcome the many very good things about the project or our general love of sportsball. (Whatever objection we have to a stadium generally disappears on opening day.) Maybe I'm misremembering something, but my recollection is that it was more nuanced than "stadium bad." Or even "go 'burb that thing!"

burb (bərb) v. To ban an unsightly or undesirable land use from an urban core, esp. low density developments. The YIMBYS burbed surface parking with the new form based code.

yep. 

To further immolate the dead horse I've been beating on this forum for 20+ years (check the receipts, they're all here)

Sports stadiums should get no more tax $$ than any other business.  Too often in STL and other city's trying to keep their teams from moving, sports stadiums get excessive tax money.  City Park being privately funded is a huge win for city residents, especially coming on the heels of the failed vote from 2017 that would have had the city provide like $60 million to a soccer stadium.  (Many suburbanites were very mad at that failed vote! I've found too many suburbanites view the city as a playground, not a place in which people actually have day-to-day lives.)

Mostly, sports stadiums bring foot traffic to the areas immediately surrounding the stadium on game day. That's truly it.  They are fun. Stadiums do not provide many impactful non-game day benefits to a city.

For sports teams that have a fan base that doesn't travel and instead have fans that are almost all in that region, sports teams/stadiums bring a very small wider regional economic impact.  For instance, all the folks that were at Maggie O'Brien's saturday?  Those people are likely 100% from the region.  If they weren't spending $$ at MOB, that $$ would have just been spent at something like Bar Napoli in St. Charles.  Same $$ in the region, just being spent in different places.  (Now, in a region like STL in which the city itself has to fight for regional tax $$, this is a win for the city tax coffers.  Region tho? nil)

Despite all of the above, I prefer having the regions sports stadiums in downtown STL. It's good for the region's morale. It's fun.  People are obviously very excited. Enjoy it. 

Anyone else notice that Centene is the sleeve sponsor for Charlotte? Same spot as BJC occupies on the St. Louis City kits.

Yeah, I don't think Centene pays to be the sleeve sponsor in 2022 or 2023. 

soulardx wrote:

symphonicpoet wrote: ↑

Mar 07, 2023

jeff707 wrote: ↑

Mar 06, 2023

This is an interesting thread, because 10 years ago the conventional wisdom on this very forum was absolutely that stadiums were bad for downtowns. 

My recollection is that the argument was that public funding for stadiums was a bad investment. Which I suspect is still the consensus around here. I remember a lot of discontent with the plan for the Rams stadium requiring so much demolition for nothing more than surface parking, and a fair few people saying the proposed tech incubator would be a better use of both the space and public money. I doubt anyone would say anything different now. Lots of discontent over the parking component of City Park, but not enough to overcome the many very good things about the project or our general love of sportsball. (Whatever objection we have to a stadium generally disappears on opening day.) Maybe I'm misremembering something, but my recollection is that it was more nuanced than "stadium bad." Or even "go 'burb that thing!"

burb (bərb) v. To ban an unsightly or undesirable land use from an urban core, esp. low density developments. The YIMBYS burbed surface parking with the new form based code.

yep. 

To further immolate the dead horse I've been beating on this forum for 20+ years (check the receipts, they're all here)

Sports stadiums should get no more tax $$ than any other business.  Too often in STL and other city's trying to keep their teams from moving, sports stadiums get excessive tax money.  City Park being privately funded is a huge win for city residents, especially coming on the heels of the failed vote from 2017 that would have had the city provide like $60 million to a soccer stadium.  (Many suburbanites were very mad at that failed vote! I've found too many suburbanites view the city as a playground, not a place in which people actually have day-to-day lives.)

Mostly, sports stadiums bring foot traffic to the areas immediately surrounding the stadium on game day. That's truly it.  They are fun. Stadiums do not provide many impactful non-game day benefits to a city.

For sports teams that have a fan base that doesn't travel and instead have fans that are almost all in that region, sports teams/stadiums bring a very small wider regional economic impact.  For instance, all the folks that were at Maggie O'Brien's saturday?  Those people are likely 100% from the region.  If they weren't spending $$ at MOB, that $$ would have just been spent at something like Bar Napoli in St. Charles.  Same $$ in the region, just being spent in different places.  (Now, in a region like STL in which the city itself has to fight for regional tax $$, this is a win for the city tax coffers.  Region tho? nil)

Despite all of the above, I prefer having the regions sports stadiums in downtown STL. It's good for the region's morale. It's fun.  People are obviously very excited. Enjoy it. 

Yep. With respect to the once-dreamed new NFL stadium on the North Riverfront, eight years ago Governor Nixon stood there and said,

“I'm not going to handicap this other than to say that if we do nothing, then we're not an NFL city," Nixon said. "If we do nothing, people will stand here 10 years from now and it will look exactly like it looks like right (now).”

Prophetic.


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