Wasn't the 7-11 up for sale in some recent memory? Or am I making things up? That's a prime location for something like this, and throw a DGX in the bottom or something.
If the location's not for sale, that's obviously a problem. But I would love to imagine a world where preservation of street level retail and architecture can co-exist with added density.
Hopefully AHM will go back to the drawing board and do something similar to the Wyomo project that builds around the existing commercial structure. I don't see the need to save the home on the corner.
That’s kind of my thought, too, or at least the general concept of working on a revised project that may be more amenable to the Preservation Board and addresses some of the critiques from the neighborhood (loss of commercial, etc.)
Anyway, AHM has a lot on its plate so if it focuses on other projects for now that’s fine but hopefully something good, and perhaps even better than what’s been proposed, can be worked out before too long for a third Morgan Ford new build.
It didn't seem like the lack of retail was the deal breaker for the Preservation Board though.
It was part of my consideration, certainly, and also brought up by one of the citizens who testified about the loss of the hair salon. Even fellow Commissioner Catherine Hamacher who voted against my motion asked the applicant if that long blank wall could be made better.
The loss of the hair salon or the building that houses the hair salon? I was under the impression that the hair salon was moving into the under construction AHM project at Wyoming and Morganford. Plans could have changed but AHM said as much in early community meetings.
Also, to slightly clarify another comment from earlier, the corner house is vacant and has been for a long time. Only the second house and hair salon building are occupied.
In the initial neighborhood meetings last year, AHM also expressed a willingness (a preference, actually) to include a small retail space in the project if the City and neighborhood relaxed the parking requirements for the site - it was the only way to make it work financially still.
I do not necessarily disagree with the Board's decision, but I'm seeing lots of confusion (or misrepresentation) of the project (as I understand it) here and on Twitter. As far as developers go, AHM seemed way more flexible and willing to work with the immediate neighborhood and City than most. I'm also hoping they come back with some adjustments that satisfies everyone.
It didn't seem like the lack of retail was the deal breaker for the Preservation Board though.
It was part of my consideration, certainly, and also brought up by one of the citizens who testified about the loss of the hair salon. Even fellow Commissioner Catherine Hamacher who voted against my motion asked the applicant if that long blank wall could be made better.
The loss of the hair salon or the building that houses the hair salon? I was under the impression that the hair salon was moving into the under construction AHM project at Wyoming and Morganford. Plans could have changed but AHM said as much in early community meetings.
Also, to slightly clarify another comment from earlier, the corner house is vacant and has been for a long time. Only the second house and hair salon building are occupied.
In the initial neighborhood meetings last year, AHM also expressed a willingness (a preference, actually) to include a small retail space in the project if the City and neighborhood relaxed the parking requirements for the site - it was the only way to make it work financially still.
I do not necessarily disagree with the Board's decision, but I'm seeing lots of confusion (or misrepresentation) of the project (as I understand it) here and on Twitter. As far as developers go, AHM seemed way more flexible and willing to work with the immediate neighborhood and City than most. I'm also hoping they come back with some adjustments that satisfies everyone.
The house is owned by the developer. They are the reason it is vacant.
It was part of my consideration, certainly, and also brought up by one of the citizens who testified about the loss of the hair salon. Even fellow Commissioner Catherine Hamacher who voted against my motion asked the applicant if that long blank wall could be made better.
The loss of the hair salon or the building that houses the hair salon? I was under the impression that the hair salon was moving into the under construction AHM project at Wyoming and Morganford. Plans could have changed but AHM said as much in early community meetings.
Also, to slightly clarify another comment from earlier, the corner house is vacant and has been for a long time. Only the second house and hair salon building are occupied.
In the initial neighborhood meetings last year, AHM also expressed a willingness (a preference, actually) to include a small retail space in the project if the City and neighborhood relaxed the parking requirements for the site - it was the only way to make it work financially still.
I do not necessarily disagree with the Board's decision, but I'm seeing lots of confusion (or misrepresentation) of the project (as I understand it) here and on Twitter. As far as developers go, AHM seemed way more flexible and willing to work with the immediate neighborhood and City than most. I'm also hoping they come back with some adjustments that satisfies everyone.
The house is owned by the developer. They are the reason it is vacant.
Sure. To my understanding, it's been vacant for a long time though - well before the developer owned it.
Feel free to correct - I'm not that up to date on any of it. Edit: Or rather, I went to two early meetings on the project but I'm relatively new to the neighborhood so not sure the recent history here.
It didn't seem like the lack of retail was the deal breaker for the Preservation Board though.
It was part of my consideration, certainly, and also brought up by one of the citizens who testified about the loss of the hair salon. Even fellow Commissioner Catherine Hamacher who voted against my motion asked the applicant if that long blank wall could be made better.
From what I heard... the hair salon moving/expanding into WYMO though? Not really a loss of business as much as a loss of commercial space I guess?
The loss of the hair salon or the building that houses the hair salon? I was under the impression that the hair salon was moving into the under construction AHM project at Wyoming and Morganford. Plans could have changed but AHM said as much in early community meetings.
Also, to slightly clarify another comment from earlier, the corner house is vacant and has been for a long time. Only the second house and hair salon building are occupied.
In the initial neighborhood meetings last year, AHM also expressed a willingness (a preference, actually) to include a small retail space in the project if the City and neighborhood relaxed the parking requirements for the site - it was the only way to make it work financially still.
I do not necessarily disagree with the Board's decision, but I'm seeing lots of confusion (or misrepresentation) of the project (as I understand it) here and on Twitter. As far as developers go, AHM seemed way more flexible and willing to work with the immediate neighborhood and City than most. I'm also hoping they come back with some adjustments that satisfies everyone.
The house is owned by the developer. They are the reason it is vacant.
Sure. To my understanding, it's been vacant for a long time though - well before the developer owned it.
Feel free to correct - I'm not that up to date on any of it. Edit: Or rather, I went to two early meetings on the project but I'm relatively new to the neighborhood so not sure the recent history here.
I'm not sure the history either. However, its pretty obvious that it was purchased as part of a larger assemblage with no intention of ever leasing it out.
The house is owned by the developer. They are the reason it is vacant.
Sure. To my understanding, it's been vacant for a long time though - well before the developer owned it.
Feel free to correct - I'm not that up to date on any of it. Edit: Or rather, I went to two early meetings on the project but I'm relatively new to the neighborhood so not sure the recent history here.
I'm not sure the history either. However, its pretty obvious that it was purchased as part of a larger assemblage with no intention of ever leasing it out.
Fair enough. In one of the meetings, AHM alluded to looking into rehabbing the structure but found it too expensive before pivoting to acquiring the middle property. (Again, giving them the benefit of the doubt here.)
It didn't seem like the lack of retail was the deal breaker for the Preservation Board though.
It was part of my consideration, certainly, and also brought up by one of the citizens who testified about the loss of the hair salon. Even fellow Commissioner Catherine Hamacher who voted against my motion asked the applicant if that long blank wall could be made better.
The loss of the hair salon or the building that houses the hair salon? I was under the impression that the hair salon was moving into the under construction AHM project at Wyoming and Morganford. Plans could have changed but AHM said as much in early community meetings.
Also, to slightly clarify another comment from earlier, the corner house is vacant and has been for a long time. Only the second house and hair salon building are occupied.
In the initial neighborhood meetings last year, AHM also expressed a willingness (a preference, actually) to include a small retail space in the project if the City and neighborhood relaxed the parking requirements for the site - it was the only way to make it work financially still.
I do not necessarily disagree with the Board's decision, but I'm seeing lots of confusion (or misrepresentation) of the project (as I understand it) here and on Twitter. As far as developers go, AHM seemed way more flexible and willing to work with the immediate neighborhood and City than most. I'm also hoping they come back with some adjustments that satisfies everyone.
Am I missing something? Because based upon how I've read things it seems like the tone is more "don't build anything/save the houses/TGS is fine" instead of tweaking a few things.
^The tone where? Here or in the Pres Board? The argument here has gotten a bit heated and I think some "tweak a few things, this isn't really quite there" has been misrepresented as "don't ever do anything, it's just fine." It's a subtle problem, I admit, but I don't think it needs to be "Strong Towns vs. Preservation" or "YIMBY vs. NMBY." It's easy to fall into the "perfect is the enemy of the good" trap, but in reality, there's a line of "good enough" that maybe hasn't quite been met yet. It's close. I'm personally neutral. But I support the Pres Board and what they're doing and I'm not one to second guess them too much. (Though I do sometimes disagree, naturally.)
It's probably not a bad time to take a step back. I don't personally think all three structures are sacred, and they're certainly not all equally valuable. Fine grained development is fantastic and we could really use more of it, but this isn't a monster project that's going to wipe out blocks of good architecture. It's combining a few lots into one large enough for a modest neighborhood apartment building. I don't really have a problem with that. But I do want it to be better than what it's replacing, and that's a whole lot easier to see with vacant lots and surface parking than with handsome, if small structures. This project seems . . . meh. Okay. But not inspiring. It's not adding all that many units, just a handful. It's got a lot of parking. It has no retail. The architecture is dead boring. What it's replacing isn't particularly special, but it's nice enough, and it's in perfectly good condition. It's smaller, but prettier. This makes the math here really hard, and as it goes I don't see a reason to disagree with what the board said. If they come back with something better (with less parking, some retail, and a bit of pretty say) then I'll be entirely in favor of it.
And if they themselves want to do that and just need a concession on the parking minimums then I don't see what's the issue here.
Thank you to those who expressed support for my service on the Preservation Board. In the US, there are prevalent anti-government attitudes across the spectrum -- not just those wanting government to shrink but just generally people liking to hate on agencies, commissions, officials, etc. It's not always unwarranted, but sometimes seems like the knee-jerk and often carries no understanding of what laws are even in play. It's funny to me that our biggest critics want us to be the most arbitrary in enforcing the ordinances we interpret, while accusing us of being arbitrary when they don't like the outcome. The ordinances are established to enact values over time, not in the heat of a moment or under the pressure of paid consultants. Most laws are. And that's a good thing.
As for Morganford, we rejected a proposal on Preliminary Review under the Preservation Ordinance. Preliminary review is a courtesy that allows developers to make a proposal that, if approved, would allow the Preservation Board to direct staff to continue the process, and, if rejected, allow the developer to bring a new proposal back as soon as they wish. The applicant here is free to make another proposal. The excellent staff at the Cultural Resources Office will assist with shaping that proposal. I will point out that recently we rejected Lux Living's proposal for the Engineers Club. Lux Living's architect crafted a new design that addressed our reasons for denying the first design, with specificity, and the second was unanimously approved.
^Hey, that Engineer's proposal was a great example of the system working the way it's supposed to, I think. And maybe the developers here will come back with a better proposal. I was just talking about malls in the UK, which are regularly sandwiched into historic streetscapes in a way you rarely see over here. (From the outside they often don't look like a mall at all, but more like a historic high street.) Imagine a structure that incorporated some or all of the three existing buildings into it, filling the gaps between them, joining them together, building out to the alley. Done correctly it could be a remarkable thing. Everyone was in favor of the project a couple of blocks south at Wyoming. It's been a while since I was through, but I'm assuming that's about done by now, right? Could be a great model for how to make this a better project.
Thank you to those who expressed support for my service on the Preservation Board. In the US, there are prevalent anti-government attitudes across the spectrum -- not just those wanting government to shrink but just generally people liking to hate on agencies, commissions, officials, etc. It's not always unwarranted, but sometimes seems like the knee-jerk and often carries no understanding of what laws are even in play. It's funny to me that our biggest critics want us to be the most arbitrary in enforcing the ordinances we interpret, while accusing us of being arbitrary when they don't like the outcome. The ordinances are established to enact values over time, not in the heat of a moment or under the pressure of paid consultants. Most laws are. And that's a good thing.
As for Morganford, we rejected a proposal on Preliminary Review under the Preservation Ordinance. Preliminary review is a courtesy that allows developers to make a proposal that, if approved, would allow the Preservation Board to direct staff to continue the process, and, if rejected, allow the developer to bring a new proposal back as soon as they wish. The applicant here is free to make another proposal. The excellent staff at the Cultural Resources Office will assist with shaping that proposal. I will point out that recently we rejected Lux Living's proposal for the Engineers Club. Lux Living's architect crafted a new design that addressed our reasons for denying the first design, with specificity, and the second was unanimously approved.
The 7-11 sold for $1.44M in Feb 2020. The Assessor thinks it's worth $155,812 + $19,611.
Couldn’t the city eminent domain it for a fraction of the cost and sell it to a developer at a price that works for a better development? Or are municipalities only permitted to treat black and brown people that way?
^ No. City would have to pay market value which has been established at $1.44MM or higher. The rules are the same for all property owners.
Edit... Adding, They'd also have to show the property is blighted, and if it is selling for well above the city's appraised value, that would be a hard case to make.
I still believe this decision was an idiotic move by the Preservation Board. Just like the denial of the Optimist Club proposal by Lux that Lux, myself, and HOK worked hard on to deliver a design everyone would love. They'll disapprove of those two projects that wouldn't have sought a tax incentive and had overwhelming support from neighbors, yet approve of the demolition of a portion of the Lemp Complex because the owner himself is a joker who doesn't deserve to own that property. What a joke. In my view, no amount of excuses or defenses will make the decision right.
We all know that the City continues to lose population, yet a single board can unilaterally deny the opportunity to add 28+ new residents to a neighborhood that has lost tons of housing units over the past two decades. People can say that the existing buildings are worth keeping, but I think they should go. Loss of a single retail bay aside, the benefits of new residents, higher property taxes generated by the property far outweighs the loss of these three buildings.
If you're an outside developer looking at neighborhoods like Tower Grove South for a project similar in scope to this one or the Fanning School, yet see the gymnastics the Preservation Board and neighbors pull to derail two exceptional projects, you'd be looking elsewhere with the hope you don't face an issue like this. In a time when the economy is wobbly (thanks to persistent inflation, high interest rates, and high material costs with stagnant rental increases that don't justify the increased constructions costs) projects of all kinds should be embraced and approved. Those that don't make it, don't make it, but putting arbitrary red tape up insures no opportunities advance if one particular group, or person, doesn't like a project.
In my opinion, the City of St. Louis is in no position to deny any project that would add residents and increase property tax revenue. It needs everything it can get to finally grow the population. The bigger picture here is the City needs more people and tax revenue, only once the City starts seeing that trend line curve upward, then the people, and City boards, can put up barriers to new projects.
I still believe this decision was an idiotic move by the Preservation Board. Just like the denial of the Optimist Club proposal by Lux that Lux, myself, and HOK worked hard on to deliver a design everyone would love. They'll disapprove of those two projects that wouldn't have sought a tax incentive and had overwhelming support from neighbors, yet approve of the demolition of a portion of the Lemp Complex because the owner himself is a joker who doesn't deserve to own that property. What a joke. In my view, no amount of excuses or defenses will make the decision right.
We all know that the City continues to lose population, yet a single board can unilaterally deny the opportunity to add 28+ new residents to a neighborhood that has lost tons of housing units over the past two decades. People can say that the existing buildings are worth keeping, but I think they should go. Loss of a single retail bay aside, the benefits of new residents, higher property taxes generated by the property far outweighs the loss of these three buildings.
If you're an outside developer looking at neighborhoods like Tower Grove South for a project similar in scope to this one or the Fanning School, yet see the gymnastics the Preservation Board and neighbors pull to derail two exceptional projects, you'd be looking elsewhere with the hope you don't face an issue like this. In a time when the economy is wobbly (thanks to persistent inflation, high interest rates, and high material costs with stagnant rental increases that don't justify the increased constructions costs) projects of all kinds should be embraced and approved. Those that don't make it, don't make it, but putting arbitrary red tape up insures no opportunities advance if one particular group, or person, doesn't like a project.
In my opinion, the City of St. Louis is in no position to deny any project that would add residents and increase property tax revenue. It needs everything it can get to finally grow the population. The bigger picture here is the City needs more people and tax revenue, only once the City starts seeing that trend line curve upward, then the people, and City boards, can put up barriers to new projects.
^ It is is a good project but I think an “exceptional project” for the commercial district would have some commercial space and less parking. And ideally an affordable housing component.
Hopefully AHM continues to work on it after going through preliminary review. And it’s ok if they start work with one of their many other ones before this one. I’d love to see the Benton Park one, already approved by the Preservation Board, get going, e.g.
Honestly, all they have to do is add ground floor retail and basically everyone (on this message board) would approve.
It’s not rocket science. Morgan ford is a commercial district. Include commercial uses in your proposal especially if your proposal involves demoing a handsome, occupied historic commercial building.
I still believe this decision was an idiotic move by the Preservation Board. Just like the denial of the Optimist Club proposal by Lux that Lux, myself, and HOK worked hard on to deliver a design everyone would love. They'll disapprove of those two projects that wouldn't have sought a tax incentive and had overwhelming support from neighbors, yet approve of the demolition of a portion of the Lemp Complex because the owner himself is a joker who doesn't deserve to own that property. What a joke. In my view, no amount of excuses or defenses will make the decision right.
We all know that the City continues to lose population, yet a single board can unilaterally deny the opportunity to add 28+ new residents to a neighborhood that has lost tons of housing units over the past two decades. People can say that the existing buildings are worth keeping, but I think they should go. Loss of a single retail bay aside, the benefits of new residents, higher property taxes generated by the property far outweighs the loss of these three buildings.
If you're an outside developer looking at neighborhoods like Tower Grove South for a project similar in scope to this one or the Fanning School, yet see the gymnastics the Preservation Board and neighbors pull to derail two exceptional projects, you'd be looking elsewhere with the hope you don't face an issue like this. In a time when the economy is wobbly (thanks to persistent inflation, high interest rates, and high material costs with stagnant rental increases that don't justify the increased constructions costs) projects of all kinds should be embraced and approved. Those that don't make it, don't make it, but putting arbitrary red tape up insures no opportunities advance if one particular group, or person, doesn't like a project.
In my opinion, the City of St. Louis is in no position to deny any project that would add residents and increase property tax revenue. It needs everything it can get to finally grow the population. The bigger picture here is the City needs more people and tax revenue, only once the City starts seeing that trend line curve upward, then the people, and City boards, can put up barriers to new projects.
Idiotic, joker, joke. You really like to bring out the broad brush, sir. Unfortunately the preservation ordinance does not allow to define anything by such pointless derogative judgments. Your bad faith is well-known, though.
