Thread for discussion of the MVVA proposal. Link to PDF here: http://urbanstl.com/index.php?option=co ... &Itemid=18

I liked a lot of the ideas in MVAA's narrative, but they could have done so much more had they not handicapped themselves with a windshield perspective. Coming in at p. 32 of a 256 page document, the following statement negatively colored my perspective of the rest of their proposal (emphasis added).

It is unrealistic to expect that within five years the Memorial could become primarily a pedestrian destination. Given that reality, our proposal instead harnesses the power of parking, and spreads it over the entire edge of the site, creating permeable thresholds and activity bridges to the north, south, and west of the Arch grounds. We propose replacing the single Memorial garage with three smaller underground facilities spaced evenly around the border of the site, infusing all three edges of the Arch grounds with the energy and activity that is currently concentrated in the north.

The redistributed parking will accomplish several important things. It will weave city and Memorial grounds together, since it positions visitors on the threshold between them when they emerge from any of the three garages.

Ummm, no it won't. Not one bit.

^Right, I thought the heavy emphasis on parking was interesting. All the other teams just said, "we will put parking somewhere underground" or "It'll be integrated." MVVA actually has parking numbers and diagrams for their garages.

It is also strange that pedestrian/bike access in a loop around the two parks is an after thought in the post-2015 part two hundred and fifty pages into their narrative.

I'm still rather stunned by their modification of the pedestrian access area on top of Eads Bridge. They will widen the curb! That's all. There's a pedestrian bridge detailed in the very back of the narrative, but I'm unclear on where they would put it.

Overall, I think the MVVA narrative is very educational, but overwhelmingly simple. They use a lot of numbers and seem very capable of beginning construction immediately. I guess that's why they pushed the cool stuff back five years.

Good

- supports City to River's boulevard, but the extra real estate is given not to buildings but a '100 ft hard edge' for the park
- the urban ecology program sounds great, like a junior NPS Ranger program.
- the new museum entrance is just as good as what the other teams suggest
- the seating around Luther Ely Smith Square looks welcoming
- the running man stays
- the canopy walk connects to the current HOK structure making it useful for something
- making the east side into a birding mecca and water purifying wetland is great
- passive geothermal using the ponds as heat sinks! Oh yeah!
- river gauges designed mostly for indirect night-time lighting
- street diets all over downtown
- beer garden!
- Cathedral restaurant and 'hard urban space' around the church
- rooftop terrace cafe attached to the westward expansion museum with a view of the park (very cool) I like the idea of the underground museum popping up in parts of the park
- landscaping with an eye towards ecological services and actually having numbers for pesticide use prevented and so on
- good description of why an underpass park is needed, though the success of said park remains to be seen
- environmental conditions in East St. Louis is a priority
- neighborhood park by Eads Bridge appears to be a multi-use space with a lot of programs

Bad

- pedestrian access on eads bridge remains more or less the same
- pedestrian access on the Poplar Street Bright remains the same
- access to the park on the east side from the west is still limited
- fugly HOK handicap ramp to nowhere is still the main view of the arch
- Kiener Plaza redo is essentially making it an empty field with a bathroom
- Washington and Memorial will sit unchanged except for the '100 ft hard edge' coming right up to the bridge.

debaliviere wrote:Not sure what I think of the removal of Washington Ave. along the northern border of the arch

I think I'm actually for it. As they wrote in their narrative, it is an access road to a parking garage only. You can take Lucas Ave if you need it. By removing the road, you make access under the bridge and into the park immediate, but more importantly the intersection with memorial becomes much cleaner. Wash Ave would just go right onto the bridge and people at the corner would be a lot closer to the landing. As it is if you're walking from the corner to the landing (why would you do that?) you've got to cross a lot of distance. If the road is gone, then the intersection takes on a much more human scale (though that elevated highway is still a problem)

In the SOM plan the road is kept in place to give access to buses, but if there's no bus interchange, I don't think the road is that important. It's just an obstacle between the MetroLink and the park.

The MVVA narrative justifies removing the road by saying that the original park boundaries went right up to the bridge... as if there was nothing there before the park. I'd think finding an image of what it looked like when it was actually part of the landing would be a better argument.

debaliviere wrote:

Moorlander wrote:sure is a lot of chatter here on what I believe to be the poorest of the 5 proposals.

I actually think it's one of the better proposals. I didn't at first blush, but I do now.

Yeah, I'm really warming up to it (except for the East side, Eads and future ped bridge at PSB). OK, that's a lot, but I like the north end-south end attractions, the museum is tasteful, the viewing platforms are nice and they're the only one's to put an urban plaza and restaurant next to the Cathedral - how Euro!

Alex Ihnen wrote:

debaliviere wrote:

Moorlander wrote:sure is a lot of chatter here on what I believe to be the poorest of the 5 proposals.

I actually think it's one of the better proposals. I didn't at first blush, but I do now.

Yeah, I'm really warming up to it (except for the East side, Eads and future ped bridge at PSB). OK, that's a lot, but I like the north end-south end attractions, the museum is tasteful, the viewing platforms are nice and they're the only one's to put an urban plaza and restaurant next to the Cathedral - how Euro!

Doing nothing to Eads Bridge is pretty disappointing. Doing virtually nothing in Illinois is also disapointing. Their plan for the arch grounds themselves though is great. Beer garden, rooftop terrace, cathedral plaza, ponds as geothermal heat sinks, ecological overhaul of the lawns, etc.

They shouldn't be in last place Moory.