urbanSTL

Just another short article from St. Louis Front Page, giving a little more description.





Once demolition of the old Century Building at Olive Street and 9th in downtown St. Louis has been completed, crews will be mobilized in February 2005 to begin construction of the $33 million 9th Street Garage.



Alberici will build a 1,065-vehicle, poured-in-place concrete parking structure with retail shops at street-level. Project completion is expected in September 2006.



Alberici recently received the Notice to Proceed from garage owner, Missouri Development Finance Board. Environmental Operations, Inc. is performing demolition of the Century Building over the next four months under a separate contract with the developer.



The garage, which will serve the Old Post Office and neighboring office, residential and retail properties, is designed as a double helix with one-way travel and cross-over access at every other floor, starting at the fifth floor. The vehicle entrance is from Olive Street and the exit is onto Locust. The structure will have two stair/elevator towers, one at the northeast corner of the site and the other at the southeast corner.



The 9th Street Parking Garage was developed by NSG Developers, LLC, which is a made up of affiliates of The DESCO Group and DFC Group, and was designed by architectural firm, Trivers Associates, Inc.

According to Friday's Business section of the P-D, the City of St. Louis has cut its funding for the Landmarks Association of St. Louis. How convenient! Now that pesky agency won't interfere with the city's backwards, dirty and bizarre practices of tearing down landmark buildings for parking garages. Good riddance, Landmarks!



matguy-- I admire and respect your optimism, but there's no way to justify or validate what has happened at 9th & Olive. The Century was a very, very significant building in our city. No garage or new highrise condo building could ever be a deserving replacement for it. I am optimistic about other things happening downtown, but as far as I'm concerned, Old Post Office Square is completely and utterly ruined. It is a disgrace to the OPO, the Paul Brown, the Board of Ed, the Syndicate Trust and the Frisco buildings to be adjacent to that abomination of a structure where a beautiful marble-clad landmark once stood and should have remained. The OPO district may have been dead before, but now there is no chance of it ever realizing the potential it once had.



Call me a whiner, call me a building hugger, call me bitter, I don't care. It is a sick reality when the very people who are supposed to lead our city are the ones to kill it. Parking in no way equals progress in an urban setting.

Does anybody know what progress has been made on the new parking garage by the Old Post Office that will be built on the grounds of the Century? Any renderings?

I have pics, and a pic of the rendering that I will post tommorrow. Obviously, it is no replacement for the Century, but I am cautiosly optomistic that the garage may actually look pretty good. As far as actual progress (That's an ironic term to use here), a tower crane has been erected and the piers are being drilled and poured.

Thanks, Matt.



Although the Century is certainly irreplaceable, it is some consolation that the parking garage will look almost elegant compared to the parking garages elsewhere downtown.

Rendering-











5-17































































5-23

"The Shoppes on Ninth"?!



Why not also "The Villas of Paul Brown" and "Arcade Estates"? At least, it's not being called "Ninth Street Commons."

I have said it before and I will say it again. Sure it was sad that the century was torn down, but wow. the views created with the open lot where the building once stood are beautiful. Downtown Now swap locations for the park and the garage, because where the century once stood would make a really beautiful open space with its great views of at least 5 beautiful expamples of early 20th century office buildings.

The way to make the garage obsolete is to tell the people who are going to work at the old post office building and the residents who are going to live in the buildings surrounding the garage to give up their cars. The garage is there because businesses demanded it. Metrolink doesnt work for most people (hopefully that will change) but St. Louis is a car town - even downtown. It will take a while for this to change.

The upper classes like CEO's and upper management will always drive cars and car congestion is not just a midwest downtown problem. Mass transit in such pedestrian oriented cities like New York City or San Francisco is still not applicable to all people especially business owners and upper management. The streets are packed in even the core of these pedestrian and mass tranist friendly cities with cars! Of course, the sidewalks are full too, but cars line any street they can;people like to drive even in these places. So, every town is a car town in America unless we overhaul the system. Car economics dominate. I am not trying to downplay the previous statement or such amazing cities like NY or SF but am responding to general ignorance about transportation in this country that to change from cars must include every socioeconomic level and will mean millions will be out of work from factories, dealerships, gas stations, to where stores are located. We will need to radically transform our environment to change from a national car culture to whatever.

Where will that money come from? Sounds like a major depression or great upheaval is looming!

SMSPlanstu wrote: Sounds like a major depression or great upheaval is looming!

http://kunstler.com/



http://endofsuburbia.com/

You are right, we're not going to get everyone to use mass transit. What St. Louis needs to do is make it a realistic option for people. It only takes a small percentage of people switching to mass transit to make a difference in highway congestion and the need for new parking lots. As you build fewer parking lots (make this a municipal priority) mass transit becomes more appealing because there will be no time lost looking for a parking spot. St. Louis City and County are designed for cars. If we focus on making downtown and midtown into places where mass transit works, that will be a great start. But you have to understand, by and large, developers don't think big or long term. If the tenant they need in their building wants a garage (and in STL the tenant holds all the cards), they will build them a garage if the city lets them, because getting the tenant gets the developer the profit he needs. I will quit rambling now..

What about creating an overall parking strategy? Parking garages and lots could be located in and around the periphery of downtown with a system of shuttles (or preferably trolleys) that could take workers and shoppers from their cars to their destinations, helping keep the core of downtown dense.

DoobieDoo wrote:St. Louis City and County are designed for cars

Sorry, I have to disagree. St. Louis City was not designed for cars. Much of the city was built before cars came along. And much of what was built after the car era began was built for street cars. St. Louis is one giant transit oriented development. However, much of St. Louis City has been adapted for cars. Much of that adaptation was done poorly in the form of surface parking lots and relocation of business to the suburbs, etc. It is true that many people have cars and expect to drive them everywhere. It is a factor that must be considered. Even in cities with the best subway systems, the streets are clogged with cars. Having convenient, attractive garages downtown is a plus, not a minus. However, St. Louis is returning to its transiet oriented roots and as Metrolink expands, more people will find it to be the easiest way to get downtown and other points. The North/South alignments are going to make a big difference in how people see and use transit.

My point is that the City and County we know today, as a whole, is based around the car. What we need to do is build out from the center. To me that means first creating a vibrant downtown and then connecting it to midtown. I don't think we should ring downtown with more garages (not until underground garages become economically viable). If visitors from the suburbs want to use downtown they should be able to use metrolink or deal with the issues of a limited supply of parking.

I just don't want any more parts of downtown to look like Pine Street - one continuous string of parking garages. It seems that garages pop up in this city with very little consideration to where they're located - like the garages facing Kiener Plaza, our supposed main meeting place, and the Century garage.

I think we are all in agreement about garages and transit use!

I concur



My main point is that the economy will radically change when cars do not dominate transportation. Millions unemployed, maybe a quarter of the nation or more! Big box stores, gas stations, highway motels, strip malls, dealerships, drive-through restaurants, malls and more will fire the majority of their people. Their goes a service economy oriented around th car. I need to read more Kunstler as to how to survive those looming times.

A few new pics from today. The first peice of the skin is in place. Kind of looks like granite at the bottom, but I couldn't really tell. The top is basically textured concrete. Not quite Georgia Marble, but it looks OK (Just OK) from a little bit of a distance. Don't know how well it will look up close.

Since I am living through you guys, I really appreciate these pics. Under the circumstances, everyone will hate this garage, no matter how elegant it might be. They could soften the grudge by opening a Virgin Records on the ground floor.

No, Expat...Virgin needs to be a multilevel facility. Huge, i tell you...absolutely huge.

I just posted this news:



http://ecoabsence.blogspot.com/2005/11/bad-piers.html