urbanSTL

please no autocentric design

^ its going to be fascinating to see how the Tucker corridor develops. There are some great cleared parcels by Cass to do some nice anchoring on the northern end (god help us if it becomes a QT), but there certainly are some challenges with less than ideal current uses approaching downtown like the freight operations and McDonald's.

And for downtown, boy is there a lot of opportunity.... I'd love to see the Globe-Democrat get a façade upgrade and better ground floor retail tenants and mid-rise infill on the surface parking lots across from the St. Patrick's and Post-Dispatch buildings (although that nifty historic home across from the P-D needs to stay). I'd also be more than happy to see the Shell station bought out and maybe even the older one-story buildings just north of The Bogen to make way for more density.

Gross. Is all that parking new or are they tearing down?

roger wyoming II wrote:^ here it is.... don't know why it wasn't allowing me to post it with Chrome



Again not sure how old this is but I'm not at all surprised to see the auto-orientation for Tucker frontage.... the Kaldi's location is actualy the Cass Bank building poised for te Veteran's Landing project, so either it is planned to be part of the project or else predates the newer plan.

From your veteran's landing link a couple of posts above it appears to be part of the project:



-RBB

roger wyoming II wrote:^ here it is.... don't know why it wasn't allowing me to post it with Chrome



Again not sure how old this is but I'm not at all surprised to see the auto-orientation for Tucker frontage.... the Kaldi's location is actualy the Cass Bank building poised for te Veteran's Landing project, so either it is planned to be part of the project or else predates the newer plan.

Here's a same-scale comparison with what's there today (or at least when the last Google satellite image was taken):



It's kinda interesting, though were I a wagering man I'd bet the buildings not labeled on here are more likely someone's fanciful imagination than some sort of concrete plan. 13th street actually seems to be set up in an urban-ish manner. The old Cass Bank is certainly urban in scale, and the blank buildings on the rendering are shown built at the same setback from the street. It's even showing the recently-built Crown Mart gas station/strip mall catty-corner from the old Cass Bank replaced with buildings that are street oriented.

I'm just guessing, but it looks like they're keeping Tucker Street retail oriented at the cars coming off of the bridge; I'm guessing why this has the area gas station being relocated from 13th to {Edit: Tucker, not 14th}. I can kinda understand the thinking behind that, though I think it's not considering the surroundings well. Perhaps if they bunch that stuff at the north end of Tucker and introduce increasingly more urban buildings to the south it'd make a nicer transition into the dense, urban downtown area. Not holding my breath, however. And there's still an awful lot of surface parking shown there. I'm kinda surprised/disappointed there's not more public transportation options inferred.

-RBB

roger wyoming II wrote:
As a whole, the area today is marked by a lot of inappropriate land uses and while I can't say that I'm happy to see a traditional gas station and fast food site plan, some of the other stuff could be quite an improvement over existing conditions.

If the Shop'n Save (or other quality grocer) is a reality, then I'm a hell of a lot more inclined to look the other way on proper urban form. Bringing access to proper nutrition in a food desert should be a big priority and if takes a mediocre site plan, big ass parking lot and suburban outlots to attract Shop'n Save today, then so be it.

That site plan doesn't seem that bad at all. At lot of the parking is hidden behind buildings, etc.

I just want them to start putting stuff up. Neighborhoods as desperate as the North Side don't have the leverage to start extracting all kinds of demands on developers...they just don't. In-demand neighborhoods like the CWE do, because it's less risky to develop there as demand for services isn't contingent on other stuff being built later.

You really just have to get the ball rolling on Northside, and let that urban development feedback loop start to snowball. Just having residents there or businesses occupying the land will make it easier for the next round of development. When the land is 80% occupied, then you get more leverage to demand a more urban form.

Plus, the suburban-style developments are mostly sh*tty, stapled-together particle board boxes only meant to last a few decades. You can just tear those down when the entire area is more densely populated and in-demand. It's not like that Heart Association building on Euclid and Lindell was built to last a century. It's about as suburban as it comes, and now it's easily replaced and no one will miss it.

Here's the same area on McKee's wall in the Saving St. Louis video. North is tot he right

http://www.stltoday.com/business/local/ ... d8efa.html

A creditor holding multiple loans made to Paul McKee's NorthSide regeneration project is suing the developer and asking a judge to put the project into a receivership.

Report on Northside project and not paying taxes. Map seems to show Busch Stadium behind on taxes, as well as half the property at new Rams stadium site.

http://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/nor ... xes-unpaid

roger wyoming II wrote:^ I don't know about the financials, but this whole thing is completely frustrating. Neighborhoods are worse off than before McKee started his phantom buying and a decade later there appears to be no real progress in store.

So true. McKee is allowed to go on because no one else with money cares about the northside. Someone else needs to care. He needs competition.

http://www.stltoday.com/business/local/ ... 428fe.html

The latest suit, filed April 30 in U.S. District Court in East St. Louis, alleges McKee and several of his business entities defaulted on loans made for his Three Springs mixed-use project in Shiloh. The project, on 193 acres on North Green Mount Road, has yet to get underway.

The great McKee empire unraveling continues with latest from Post Dispatch. While it is very frustrating, I have to agree with this move by the city to protect its ability to provide NGA a site. The Feds are going to make a decision on a 1.6 billion dollar investment in the region that involves 3,000 jobs that could be easily be expanding as intelligence and mapping are not going away anytime soon. Maybe even puts the city in a position to go someone like McCormack Baron to utilize New Market Tax credits if all else fails.

Unfortunately for people on this blog and tea partiers alike, offering the ATT One center is not on their list no matter how hard anyone wishes it was. Offering ATT one center would make way too much sense, be great for the region, urban density and the re-use of space that has transit in place, a fiber network in place and a rebuilt & upgraded Ameren/electric gird in downtown Plus, for tea partiers it would save American taxpayers probably a billion dollars easily in this boondoggle of NGA plan.

http://www.stltoday.com/business/local/ ... 0b47b.html

It is interesting to note the major moves to foreclose on McKee's properties have taken place in the last couple of weeks

1) Hazelwood Logistics near Lambert. Supposedly the new owners intend or least talking of more space to built out for warehouse, light industrial which will be a plus for North St. Louis county

2) Shilo Development over on the Illinois Side. With movement again in housing it seems the creditors want McKee out. I guess you can't blame them.

3) Now properties for the Cities proposed NGA site.

I wonder when his share of Bottlework site and any West Downtown properties will be sought after. Outside of that, It is tough to see creditors doing much at all except wait it out. I certainly don't see creditors coming to the rescue.

"Northside" at least the residential portion is no longer being pursued by McKee. The "Northside" as we know it is DEAD. Urban Strategies and McCormick Baron are moving forward on a choice neighborhood grants for the near northside. I wonder since these TIF is already in place, will that help development of this area as a mixed-use and mixed income area. Choice neighborhoods have been very successful in other neighborhoods at bringing in retail, groceries, services and decentralizing poverty in areas that used to be high crime and dis-invested like the near northside. All of them also implement 100% urban plans, non of that tacky stuff we've been seeing. North Sarah will give you a pretty good idea of what McCormick is planning, only on a larger scale.

www.nearnorthsidestl.com

Roger, my first thoughts on the Veterans plan, I believe along Tucker on near northside, had the makings of some good development that was viable for the near future. I think this would be a great McCormick Baron project if they were able to get ahold of the reigns. My other thought, 22nd street interchange/bookend office development for Gateway mall in West Downtown.

My understandings of the Bottleworks project is that McKee was able to get it within the Northside Regeneration TIF, etc. However, he is only one of a couple partners. Believe is Clayco part of the Bottleworks group and they would certainly be smart and financially sound enough to keep up with the creditors. For all know, Clayco might have the controlling or equity stake in the property outright.