Aldi's has joined this project. They'll be on Olive adjacent to the apartment building. Not sure what this may mean for the existing Aldi a couple miles east in U City.
I live near here, and to the extent that it pulls existing Aldi customers it'll likely pull pretty evenly from the UCity Aldi and the Aldi a few miles west in Creve Coeur. I suspect though that the goal is to pull new customers who currently shop at Schnucks, since there are 3 closer to this site than either existing Aldi: Olive& Lindbergh, Page&170, and Ladue&170
- 502
Could this have been better? Absolutely. But it beats the mess on the other side of 170.
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- 919
Olivette, northwest U City and Overland have urban potential and are the center point for an oft studied metrolink extension. This is good density so not too bad of a development and it at least tucks the garage parking. Did the Aldi build to the corner? It seemed at least part of it did but still a surface lot to the street?
I really don’t understand why can’t just build to the street with the parking in the back in this area. Olive has lots of stuff along it but you can’t walk anywhere with the stroad design of lanes and fronting parking lots.
Just put the parking in the back for crying out loud. It’s the same amount of land but makes the experience so much better and the stores more inviting.
I really don’t understand why can’t just build to the street with the parking in the back in this area. Olive has lots of stuff along it but you can’t walk anywhere with the stroad design of lanes and fronting parking lots.
Just put the parking in the back for crying out loud. It’s the same amount of land but makes the experience so much better and the stores more inviting.
I actually think St. Louis gets a bad rap in general when it comes to being overwhelmed with "stroads". When I compare St. Louis' main streets to most of sunbelt, St. Louis actually has much narrow roads and great potential to be a walkable metropolitan area again.delmar2debaliviere2downtown wrote: ↑Feb 06, 2025Olivette, northwest U City and Overland have urban potential and are the center point for an oft studied metrolink extension. This is good density so not too bad of a development and it at least tucks the garage parking. Did the Aldi build to the corner? It seemed at least part of it did but still a surface lot to the street?
I really don’t understand why can’t just build to the street with the parking in the back in this area. Olive has lots of stuff along it but you can’t walk anywhere with the stroad design of lanes and fronting parking lots.
Just put the parking in the back for crying out loud. It’s the same amount of land but makes the experience so much better and the stores more inviting.
- 919
I agreegoat314 wrote: ↑Feb 06, 2025I actually think St. Louis gets a bad rap in general when it comes to being overwhelmed with "stroads". When I compare St. Louis' main streets to most of sunbelt, St. Louis actually has much narrow roads and great potential to be a walkable metropolitan area again.delmar2debaliviere2downtown wrote: ↑Feb 06, 2025Olivette, northwest U City and Overland have urban potential and are the center point for an oft studied metrolink extension. This is good density so not too bad of a development and it at least tucks the garage parking. Did the Aldi build to the corner? It seemed at least part of it did but still a surface lot to the street?
I really don’t understand why can’t just build to the street with the parking in the back in this area. Olive has lots of stuff along it but you can’t walk anywhere with the stroad design of lanes and fronting parking lots.
Just put the parking in the back for crying out loud. It’s the same amount of land but makes the experience so much better and the stores more inviting.
I don’t think in general we have more stroads than other metros. We do have narrower streets than many midwest, west and sun belt metros.
But Olive Blvd is one of our worst transgressors (even its twin Olive St is probably one of the worst in the city, especially though midtown). And we had a clean slate to make it better in an era where we have the research and history that shows us to develop different, yet we just re-stroaded it.
Indianapolis is so much worse than STLgoat314 wrote: ↑Feb 06, 2025I actually think St. Louis gets a bad rap in general when it comes to being overwhelmed with "stroads". When I compare St. Louis' main streets to most of sunbelt, St. Louis actually has much narrow roads and great potential to be a walkable metropolitan area again.delmar2debaliviere2downtown wrote: ↑Feb 06, 2025Olivette, northwest U City and Overland have urban potential and are the center point for an oft studied metrolink extension. This is good density so not too bad of a development and it at least tucks the garage parking. Did the Aldi build to the corner? It seemed at least part of it did but still a surface lot to the street?
I really don’t understand why can’t just build to the street with the parking in the back in this area. Olive has lots of stuff along it but you can’t walk anywhere with the stroad design of lanes and fronting parking lots.
Just put the parking in the back for crying out loud. It’s the same amount of land but makes the experience so much better and the stores more inviting.
- 919
KC, Cincinnati, Columbus all have more wide roads than us as midwest peers too, but comparing ourselves isn’t real helpful, because we all could use some improving. I’ve even found Chicago to have unbelievably wide roads - River North, Loop, Streeterville, West Loop be having 60 foot wide one ways plus all those insane diagonal intersections. We might be the second worst sinner for bad interstate development though, only behind KC, so we have to be diligent.Auggie wrote: ↑Feb 07, 2025Indianapolis is so much worse than STLgoat314 wrote: ↑Feb 06, 2025I actually think St. Louis gets a bad rap in general when it comes to being overwhelmed with "stroads". When I compare St. Louis' main streets to most of sunbelt, St. Louis actually has much narrow roads and great potential to be a walkable metropolitan area again.delmar2debaliviere2downtown wrote: ↑Feb 06, 2025Olivette, northwest U City and Overland have urban potential and are the center point for an oft studied metrolink extension. This is good density so not too bad of a development and it at least tucks the garage parking. Did the Aldi build to the corner? It seemed at least part of it did but still a surface lot to the street?
I really don’t understand why can’t just build to the street with the parking in the back in this area. Olive has lots of stuff along it but you can’t walk anywhere with the stroad design of lanes and fronting parking lots.
Just put the parking in the back for crying out loud. It’s the same amount of land but makes the experience so much better and the stores more inviting.
But my point is that the bad development patterns of the 80s and 90s along Olive could have been redone, but we made it more like Brentwood Blvd down the road.
It’s actually depressing looking at the bus stops on Olive, which was at one time one of the most ridden routes in the county. It’s poles at the side of a road with traffic moving 55 mph by.
Within the inner ring/city, we should be trying to urbanize streets like
1 - Olive
2 - Watson/Chippewa
3 - Gravois
4 - Rock Road/MLK
5 - Hampton
6 - Kingshighway
Probably would all be good candidates for some dedicated bus lanes in parts since they all have well ridden bus routes and a disposable lane.
The frustration thing is that U City hired a guy to help plan new developments several years ago (forget his name and title). He had all the current Urban cred, but never seemed to make any impact. I have no idea if he's still there or how long he lasted.
- 1,607
Not to derail the massive stroad comparison convo here, but I drove by the "clover" in the last two days and it is way uglier than Chris' pictures would have you believe. From Olive and the highway it was so ugly I noticed and said to myself, "Damn, that turned out really bad. And in this location? Wild."
- 919
^Yea, I mean we know that these 5 over 1s made with a random mix of cheap materials don’t look good now and certainly won’t age well. But that’s about all developers want to build
cheap to build + charge premium for the “newness” = lots of profit
Im actually glad our downtown has been spared of these, while they have sprouted up everywhere in the downtowns of our peers. I’d take a few north of downtown and in the valley though
cheap to build + charge premium for the “newness” = lots of profit
Im actually glad our downtown has been spared of these, while they have sprouted up everywhere in the downtowns of our peers. I’d take a few north of downtown and in the valley though
1 bedroom apartments for 1700 in this location you gotta be kidding me.
- 1,607
Its a turd. All of the Lux building LOOK better, and the Avenir at Delmar is way more finished. It really couldn't have cost that much more to put a cornice or some top hat on this thing. It doesn't look modern, it looks like The Standard with better windows. I've seen these all over the country in my travels and this one pops like a eastern European prison with window dressings.
I guess it has a few nice amenities (pool, spa, gym, coworking spaces) but the advertised dog parks look like total jokes. Still you can just join the Y or whatever and live somewhere that costs half as much in an actual neighborhood.
- 919
I also don’t understand why they didn’t just build the apartment building all the way out to the edge of the garage. They half hid it, then let that ugly thing be prominent and it peeks out so horribly
You’d be surprised by the amount of people who will want to live here just because of the costco across the street though. Most loyal fan base out there
The amount of quarter mile car trips will be unprecedented from these residents
You’d be surprised by the amount of people who will want to live here just because of the costco across the street though. Most loyal fan base out there
The amount of quarter mile car trips will be unprecedented from these residents
- 1,290
Ha! I thought the same thing. I saw the pictures and had to double check that it was the right building since it looks godawful from 170.TheWayoftheArch_V2.0 wrote: ↑Feb 07, 2025Not to derail the massive stroad comparison convo here, but I drove by the "clover" in the last two days and it is way uglier than Chris' pictures would have you believe. From Olive and the highway it was so ugly I noticed and said to myself, "Damn, that turned out really bad. And in this location? Wild."
Keep in mind that there are a couple more buildings planned on the eastern portion of the site; a hotel and an office building.
- 1,607
^My gut reaction too. Think the hotel would do well.
