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Junior MemberJunior Member
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Feb 27, 2023#176

Chesterfield city government has responded to the Dillard's claim. Calls it "farcical": https://www.kmov.com/2023/02/25/chester ... t-lawsuit/

sc4mayor
sc4mayor

May 23, 2023#177

Rezoning request for the Chesterfield Mall redevelopment is in front of the city.  Interestingly, the land owned by Dillards is no longer included.
https://www.chesterfield.mo.us/active-d ... pid=133386


Appears there is a public hearing tonight.

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12K

May 23, 2023#178

Looks like a redistricting map. 

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May 26, 2023#179

I love a good spoiler.  The Dillard's debacle is hilarious.

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320

Jul 20, 2023#180

Concerns mount over ‘Downtown Chesterfield’ development proposal
The group, Preserve Chesterfield, is urging the City Council to reject a proposal from the developer to build more housing units than in its original "Downtown Chesterfield" plan. The residents say they have long been opposed to the amount of housing proposed. 
"We do favor redevelopment of this area," said Kelli Unnerstall, a leader of Preserve Chesterfield. "We just want it to be done in a responsible manner."

The Staenberg Group, based in Overland, plans to demolish the mall, at Clarkson Road and Interstate 64, and replace it with a downtown concept: nearly 3,000 housing units and thousands of square feet of commercial space. Together with a neighboring development called Wildhorse Village, the two projects represent over $2 billion of new development. 
https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/business/concerns-mount-over-downtown-chesterfield-development-proposal/article_7e6a04e0-24d7-11ee-a0fa-5766a9b131df.html#tracking-source=home-the-latest

Aug 21, 2023#181

Hopefully this project can get back on track. 

'Downtown Chesterfield' project paused over city's proposed restriction
 A major project to replace the Chesterfield Mall with apartments, shops and office space has been paused for a second time amid a planning disagreement between the developer and some City Council members.
The Staenberg Group, based in Overland, plans to demolish the mall, at Clarkson Road and Interstate 64, and replace it with a downtown concept including more than 2,500 housing units and thousands of square feet of commercial space, pedestrian walkways, a park and other amenities.
But the council’s planning committee on Aug. 10 recommended an additional restriction on the amount of ground floor space the project can use for residential development, following weeks of negotiations between developers and a citizen group that raised concerns that the project included too much housing.

The development group opposed the committee’s surprise recommendation, which was set to go before the entire City Council on Monday. On Aug. 11, the development group sent the city a letter asking it to pause the project indefinitely while the group “reevaluates” the project.

The delay means the council isn’t expected to vote on the project until Sept. 5 at the earliest.
The letter is the latest snafu in a project that, along with a separate, neighboring housing and retail development called Wildhorse Village, represents more than $2 billion of new development that stands to remake some of the few remaining parcels of developable land in the city. The City Council in December approved $353 million in controversial tax increment financing for the redevelopments.

The council had been expected to vote Monday to approve rezoning for the mall development, but Chesterfield City Administrator Mike Geisel said Friday that the developer described the proposed restriction as a “serious concern.”
https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/government-politics/downtown-chesterfield-project-paused-over-citys-proposed-restriction/article_626f4f0a-3de3-11ee-870a-c352c3bdcae4.html#tracking-source=mp-homepage

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Super MemberSuper Member
991

Aug 22, 2023#182

Looks like they figured it out quickly: Chesterfield advances 'downtown' project, nixes housing restriction opposed by developer
The council voted 7-1 during its meeting to give first-round approval to a plan by The Staenberg Group to demolish the mall, at Clarkson Road and Interstate 64, and replace it with a downtown concept that includes more than 2,500 housing units and thousands of square feet of commercial space, pedestrian walkways, a park and other amenities. 

The plan limits building height to no more than 200 feet and require first-floor space that faces the park and main streets be used for commercial development, not residential, among other changes. The provisions were negotiated by the council and TSG following weeks of talks between the developer and a citizen group that raised concerns that the project included too much housing to follow through on the original mixed-use concept.

But the council voted 5-4 to reject an additional amendment that would have capped the amount of ground floor space apartments could take up to 1.35 million square feet — about 60% of the 55 buildable acres on the total 96-acre site.
So it appears to be moving forward again, and the developer already agreed to reduce the number of apartments from 2,880 to 2,538.

sc4mayor
sc4mayor

Aug 22, 2023#183

The developer and the citizen group had previously come to an agreement and then this week a Chesterfield council person out of the blue added the ground floor residential restriction.

No one asked for it and even the citizen group was opposed to it. Pointless.

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12K

Aug 22, 2023#184

Those are good looking buildings. I wish we could get more like that in the City. 

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582

Aug 22, 2023#185

This is dumb.  The only question is which municipality are they going to fleece people from.  Far suburbs don't need fake urban developments.  They are suburbs for a reason.  

Thriving regions feed off density, not this type of crap planning.  Maybe they'll name the building something urban cool, like the Factory... Like something they would never actually allow to be developed in their backyard. 

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Aug 22, 2023#186

I’m not the biggest fan of faux suburban urban developments but these areas are created because of a true urban void. And our urban void in the city of STL is due to ……………

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2,254

Aug 22, 2023#187

To be fair, this project makes a lot of sense from the POV of Chesterfield. As a giant suburb, the clock is ticking on the town's infrastructure. This will provide Chesterfield with a dense node of taxes and culture, two things it lacked as a decentralized suburb. 

I would also argue that Chesterfield is a parasite that directly hurts the region as a whole, this project would just contribute to that. So personally, I am fine if it dies.

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3,392

Aug 22, 2023#188

This development is good for the region. I don't know why people are so against developments like this. Chesterfield and most of St. Louis County is already built out. It has to be denser in order to grow or it will start to decline. I must admit that I would prefer this development to be located in the inner ring burbs, but either way it seems like it will be a regional attraction and help retain young people in the region. Although we hate to admit it, the city is not for everybody. Successful regions build projects like this all the time for niche demographics. Clayton is trying to get denser and Brentwood is planning a massive mixed use development on Manchester. Unfortunately, University City chose to go the big box route on Olive which I think was a horrible mistake. 

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Junior MemberJunior Member
115

Aug 22, 2023#189

Downtown St. Louis, Downtown Clayton, now Downtown Chesterfield. Just spreading the region thinner and thinner.

Will be another one of these no doubt proposed out somewhere in St. Charles before the decade is out.

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3,392

Aug 22, 2023#190

Suburban Sprawl wrote:
Aug 22, 2023
Downtown St. Louis, Downtown Clayton, now Downtown Chesterfield. Just spreading the region thinner and thinner.

Will be another one of these no doubt proposed out somewhere in St. Charles before the decade is out.
St. Charles already has a large development proposed for its riverfront. With that said, we should be more upset at the inaction on the St. Louis riverfront than this. Getting mad that suburban areas are reinventing themselves is not productive at all. We also cannot assume that building mixed use developments in the suburbs is a zero sum game. I think developments like this makes the entire region more attractive and without them we could possibly be losing even more young professionals to places like Dallas, Nashville, Denver, Atlanta, DC, and a host of other cities that regularly build these type of new urbanist developments. It's like when people argue we shouldn't build more metrolink because it's full of crime and nobody uses it, yet other peer cities are scrambling on ways to build half the system we have. Metropolitan areas are complex regions that should offer many different lifestyle options. Some people may want to live in Chesterfield to be close to family or maybe they work in West County. A smart regional strategy is developing mini downtowns all over the region in my opinion. The people that want to live in the city will continue to do so and the people that want to live in Downtown Chesterfield will do the same. If I were a betting man, I would say this will be a highly successful development and lead to even more similar redevelopments in other parts of the region. I think Webster Groves was stupid for rejecting a similar Downtown redevelop plan and it looks like Chesterfield and now Brentwood are capitalizing on that failure.

sc4mayor
sc4mayor

Aug 22, 2023#191

^ Agreed.

^^ They’re called Streets of St. Charles and Riverpoint and they’re both under construction. Creve Coeur has plans for two, Brentwood another. These things are popular across the country, might as well get used to it.

The real problem locally is population and economic growth.  Instead of working to repair the fragmentation and parochialism that actually hampers this region…some of us would rather call Chesterfield and other communities “parasites” because they want to build a couple thousand apartments and some retail space over the next decade.  Honestly, right on brand.

Turn around the region’s very real problems with growth and there might be enough to go around for everyone.  I’m not optimistic though. I think it’s easier to complain about how Chesterfield or Clayton is eating your lunch instead of fixing what’s truly wrong and working to compete with our actual peers.

Until that happens, expect our hundreds of isolated little islands to continue to look after themselves.

3,392
Life MemberLife Member
3,392

Aug 22, 2023#192

sc4mayor wrote:
Aug 22, 2023
^ Agreed.

^^ They’re called Streets of St. Charles and Riverpoint and they’re both under construction.  Creve Coeur has plans for two, Brentwood another.  These things are popular across the country, might as well get used to it.

The real problem locally is population and economic growth.  Instead of working to repair the fragmentation and parochialism that actually hampers this region…some of us would rather call Chesterfield and other communities “parasites” because they want to build a couple thousand apartments and some retail space in over the next decade.  Honestly, right on brand.

Turn around the region’s very real problems with growth and there might be enough to go around for everyone.  I’m not optimistic though. I think it’s easier to complain about how Chesterfield or Clayton is eating your lunch instead of fixing what’s truly wrong and working to compete with our actual peers.

Until that happens, expect our hundreds of isolated little islands to continue to look after themselves.
I agree, St. Louis should work towards fixing fragmentation but just because local government is dysfunctional doesn't mean that St. Louis won't continue to change. In most other regions, Chesterfield would be an inner ring suburb or maybe even the furthest western neighborhood and St. Louis would be a city of 1.3 million. The reality is even cities like Dallas, Houston, Charlotte, etc. have absolutely rundown, ghetto neighborhoods in their respective inner cities. The difference is that in St. Louis we are so fragmented that the most of regions worst neighborhoods are just known as St. Louis City. We don't have the luxury of having Ladue, Webster Groves, or Chesterfield contributing to the tax base, which would have possibly mitigated some of our worst problems. With that said, I don't see how this development takes away from the region. How do you figure that this will cannibalize Downtown when it's 25 miles away and serves a totally different demographic?

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Aug 22, 2023#193

My only issue with it is that I don't see a plan to connect this project to the region as a whole. While I love mixed-use walkable neighborhoods and support developments going that direction, I think the effect is stunted by still only connecting to the rest of the region by getting in a car and driving on the highway. I would love if there was a plan to link these new walkable areas either through metrolink expansion or some other rail service (which I know would still be years/decades away) just to show that it's something they're thinking about rather than building a smattering of isolated islands.

sc4mayor
sc4mayor

Aug 22, 2023#194

^ Instead of rail, I’d sub in the formerly proposed West County BRT line that would have ran along 40. A “terminal” could be built in the development where other local West County routes could spoke out from.

40 is roughly 8 lanes between Clarkson and 170. Add some diamond lanes (with included carpool restrictions) with stops located somewhere near Maryville University and the corporate campus, Mercy and MoBap, Clayton, CWE, and points further east until the terminal at Civic Center.  Transfers with the transit centers at Ballas, Clayton, CWE, etc. would provide access to additional bus routes and light rail stations.

Be a lot cheaper and probably a little more politically palatable as well.

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Aug 23, 2023#195

We need more of this and not less. Just because you don't like chesterfield does not mean it is bad for the region. Who do you think made the vaccine when the world was shut down? Pfizer of Chesterfield. There is also Bunge and RGA among many others. Do you think their employees are actually going to live in the city? No. They are going to want something walkable and livable and close to where they work. This is the perfect answer. 

Many people don't know this, but Pfizer was actually going to move to Boston. However, employees were instrumental in keeping it in St. Louis because they liked St. Louis. They wanted to build the new site in Cortex but found the site to be unfeasible for what they needed, so they chose Chesterfield. Not because they wanted to suburbanize the region or wanted to be a parasite, but because they had different needs than what Cortex could provide. Now people around the world are applying to work in St. Louis on the vaccines team. I just met a few guys from India that had just moved to Chesterfield with a new Pfizer job. These sorts of projects that make the area better will ensure that employees will continue to fight to keep offices in St. Louis next time big wigs try to move them out. 

Other cities don't do this stupidity. When LA got the world cup for 2026 but it announced it would be played in Inglewood, you didn't have people saying Inglewood is a gentrified parasite that is decentralizing LA. No, people were thrilled it would be played in LA County 

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109

Aug 23, 2023#196

https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/gov ... um=twitter

What a strange story. One council person proposes another restriction and is overwhelmingly voted down. Now Staenberg's lawyer is acting like their feelings are hurt and they may pull the plug on the whole thing:

"But Michael Doster, an attorney for TSG, said at Monday’s meeting that the proposed restriction has prompted the company to consider “what this whole process to this point forecasts for what we’ll be facing in the future.”"

I wonder if they are trying to back out and save some face? Interest rates are a whole lot different now than when this process began in 2020. Or is it just some passive-aggressive "don't question me again."

Sent from my Pixel 6a using Tapatalk


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Totally AddictedTotally Addicted
1,533

Aug 23, 2023#197

sc4mayor wrote:
Aug 22, 2023
^ Agreed.

^^ They’re called Streets of St. Charles and Riverpoint and they’re both under construction. Creve Coeur has plans for two, Brentwood another. These things are popular across the country, might as well get used to it.

The real problem locally is population and economic growth.  Instead of working to repair the fragmentation and parochialism that actually hampers this region…some of us would rather call Chesterfield and other communities “parasites” because they want to build a couple thousand apartments and some retail space over the next decade.  Honestly, right on brand.

Turn around the region’s very real problems with growth and there might be enough to go around for everyone.  I’m not optimistic though. I think it’s easier to complain about how Chesterfield or Clayton is eating your lunch instead of fixing what’s truly wrong and working to compete with our actual peers.

Until that happens, expect our hundreds of isolated little islands to continue to look after themselves.
Well said.

I also contend that connectivity and cohesion and collaboration should be the driving force for our muni's.  But, there would have to be some hand-wringing.  Forced collaboration is always fun.

Zero sum game.  It always has been.  It's just another amenity for hyperlocalism.  And I guess that's fine but would hope our region could work together better.

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Aug 23, 2023#198

If I were a developer and a municipality decided to be so frivolous and contentious about such small details -- 2,500 v. 2,800 apartments, etc. -- I think I'd be worried about how the entirety of the process would play out as well. 

I personally am rooting for this project to be a success. St. Louis needs wins as a region, and I hope that we can see them all over the metro in the coming years. Likewise, I'm hoping the downtown revitalization efforts in Alton, IL are met with great success. I hope Jefferson County gains a bunch from having a massive shipping container port that will perhaps come online as soon as fall of next year. And, obviously, I want to see the Gateway South plans and other St. Louis city plans work out as well. That's where my heart is most. 

But I'm even rooting for St. Charles city and County to see some success. Perhaps, with some success, that area of the region will become more amenable to public transit and building a stronger and better connection St. Louis city and County. I think it's awesome that Jefferson County is going to be getting an Amtrak stop in De Soto. 

582
Senior MemberSenior Member
582

Aug 23, 2023#199

goat314 wrote:
Aug 22, 2023
sc4mayor wrote:
Aug 22, 2023
^ Agreed.

^^ They’re called Streets of St. Charles and Riverpoint and they’re both under construction.  Creve Coeur has plans for two, Brentwood another.  These things are popular across the country, might as well get used to it.

The real problem locally is population and economic growth.  Instead of working to repair the fragmentation and parochialism that actually hampers this region…some of us would rather call Chesterfield and other communities “parasites” because they want to build a couple thousand apartments and some retail space in over the next decade.  Honestly, right on brand.

Turn around the region’s very real problems with growth and there might be enough to go around for everyone.  I’m not optimistic though. I think it’s easier to complain about how Chesterfield or Clayton is eating your lunch instead of fixing what’s truly wrong and working to compete with our actual peers.

Until that happens, expect our hundreds of isolated little islands to continue to look after themselves.
I agree, St. Louis should work towards fixing fragmentation but just because local government is dysfunctional doesn't mean that St. Louis won't continue to change. In most other regions, Chesterfield would be an inner ring suburb or maybe even the furthest western neighborhood and St. Louis would be a city of 1.3 million. The reality is even cities like Dallas, Houston, Charlotte, etc. have absolutely rundown, ghetto neighborhoods in their respective inner cities. The difference is that in St. Louis we are so fragmented that the most of regions worst neighborhoods are just known as St. Louis City. We don't have the luxury of having Ladue, Webster Groves, or Chesterfield contributing to the tax base, which would have possibly mitigated some of our worst problems. With that said, I don't see how this development takes away from the region. How do you figure that this will cannibalize Downtown when it's 25 miles away and serves a totally different demographic?
I agree and the real issue is the fragmentation that other regions don't have or have course corrected over time.  That said, in the current fragmented model where does it end? How far out is too far to spread a stagnant population?  Do you want this type of development in Wentzville? Where next, Warrenton?

No matter how you slice it, the fragmentation drives poor planning for the region and greatly contributes to our inability to stay competitive with other regions.  With this fragmentation and stagnant population, most municipal wins are a loss for the St. Louis metropolitan area.

Aug 23, 2023#200

stl07 wrote:
Aug 23, 2023
We need more of this and not less. Just because you don't like chesterfield does not mean it is bad for the region. Who do you think made the vaccine when the world was shut down? Pfizer of Chesterfield. There is also Bunge and RGA among many others. Do you think their employees are actually going to live in the city? No. They are going to want something walkable and livable and close to where they work. This is the perfect answer. 

Many people don't know this, but Pfizer was actually going to move to Boston. However, employees were instrumental in keeping it in St. Louis because they liked St. Louis. They wanted to build the new site in Cortex but found the site to be unfeasible for what they needed, so they chose Chesterfield. Not because they wanted to suburbanize the region or wanted to be a parasite, but because they had different needs than what Cortex could provide. Now people around the world are applying to work in St. Louis on the vaccines team. I just met a few guys from India that had just moved to Chesterfield with a new Pfizer job. These sorts of projects that make the area better will ensure that employees will continue to fight to keep offices in St. Louis next time big wigs try to move them out. 

Other cities don't do this stupidity. When LA got the world cup for 2026 but it announced it would be played in Inglewood, you didn't have people saying Inglewood is a gentrified parasite that is decentralizing LA. No, people were thrilled it would be played in LA County 
Most, if not all, of these major companies should be located in a primary CBD or a tech driven area like Cortex. Instead they are spread out and we are diluting everything, including our infrastructure.  Now we arguing that we need to build more dilution to support the problems caused by the fragmentation?  This is not working, we are not growing and many of these municipality are very viable and fight for dollars from other means/munis to stay solvent.

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