I think this was the plan years ago when the buildings at the SW cornered were demo'd. I think Crown was interested at the time.

How do we protest?

downtown2007 wrote:I think this was the plan years ago when the buildings at the SW cornered were demo'd. I think Crown was interested at the time.

How do we protest?

write to ward 6 aldermen

It's stuff like this that is no doubt a factor in limiting neighborhood growth I alluded to in the South Grand thread. Our neighborhoods get chipped away at on the fringes with limiting style development instead of expanding and connecting with strong development.

I think in some instances you can point to the overall market demographics/market conditions specific to the St. Louis region as to why better development doesn't happen in the urban core (new downtown high rises for example), but really, an overall lack of strong regional leadership is a root cause IMO. And the symptoms are neighborhood limiting auto centric developments like this one.

Isn't there a massive empty lot next to those buildings? Why can't it just go there?

^ supposedly there's a plan in the works for residential on the Praxair site.

at least a few people (including, supposedly, the owner of the corner building) think they make the intersection more dangerous by creating a blind intersection. yeah, it's not the 5 lanes of speeding traffic headed to and from the highway; it's the buildings. my guess is he'll say whatever he needs to say to get a bunch of money from QT. what we really need here are traffic calming measures a la S. Grand.

The more I think about it, the more this gets frustrating. Most of us on this forum live in the city because we like city things. It gets tiring to always fight the established & entrenched "leadership" on developments that are anti city. We like density, history and historic buildings, walkability, diversity, good public transit and wish there were more of it, neat parks, unique businesses, the energy a city brings.

So whether it's a big project like the stadium or a small project like this one, and everything in between, it seems to be a never ending fight against the "leadership" to keep the city a CITY. Instead of just getting to relax and enjoy the things we like about living in a city, we spend a ton of time and energy fighting with "leadership" and even each other sometimes just to keep what's left of the city we have.

As much as anything....THAT prevents good growth.

^ it's as much the fault of city residents. the attitude of the average St. Louisan when it comes to urbanism is infinitely frustrating. many couldn't care less about historic buildings as long as they can find convenient parking everywhere and get gas at every intersection, which probably stems, in part, from St. Louis' insularity. that is, many St. Louisans have no concept of what it's like to live in a dense, walkable, healthy city. Certainly Ingrassia is being spineless about this, but she claims that her constituents are in support of the plan. If safety really is a concern at this intersection, I would like to see her redirect the conversation from demolition to street calming measures.

For the most part the city needs a whole new Board of Aldermen people that are younger, smarter and urban minded. I feel the current leadership in the city fells the city's problems come from the fact that St Louis is a city and feels the city needs to be more like chesterfield to grow and become better. Also STL leadership mind set is avoid risk and keeps things how they are. Imagine if we built a rail systems in 70s 80s and also keep building onto it into the 2000s. I bet downtown would be the center of the region right now with a region that as a faster growing and younger population. Now our leadership believes the rams and a dome will save the day. They ether live in a fantasy world or just out of ideas.

urban_dilettante wrote:^ it's as much the fault of city residents. the attitude of the average St. Louisan when it comes to urbanism is infinitely frustrating. many couldn't care less about historic buildings as long as they can find convenient parking everywhere and get gas at every intersection, which probably stems, in part, from St. Louis' insularity. that is, many St. Louisans have no concept of what it's like to live in a dense, walkable, healthy city. Certainly Ingrassia is being spineless about this, but she claims that her constituents are in support of the plan. If safety really is a concern at this intersection, I would like to see her redirect the conversation from demolition to street calming measures.

I guess you can throw half the blame as the average resident. That said, I think I am personally pretty engaged with city living, I try to vote with my dollars in city neighborhoods at local businesses more often than not, I choose to live in a very walkable neighborhood, promote transit when I can, I'm even investing my future retirement in buildings in up and coming city neighborhoods. And I think a lot of other city residents do many of these things as well, for the most part.

But I also have limited time and energy to go beyond my daily activities to challenge every bad decision that comes down from City Hall and/or the BOA. Mostly I think we just want to enjoy the city life we have chosen, and have a reasonable expectation that it improves like virtually every other major metro area is doing these days. Not HAVE to fight tooth and nail just to keep the status quo. That's why I mainly feel like we have to first blame, then change this insular "leadership". The discussion thread about the concert series downtown nails it well too I think.

^ citizen, for the most part i wouldn't characterize people on this forum as "average st. louisans", in the sense that they're more engaged, i think, than the average. i'm also not suggesting that everybody has time to fight the seemingly never-ending onslaught of sh*tty, auto-centric development. in this case, however, rather than not being engaged, residents of Ingrassia's ward are apparently putting forth effort to voice support for this sh*tty plan. these people, i think, likely have no concept of how much better things could be. and in this type of situation Ingrassia is put in the position of opposing the demolition and pissing off her constituents, or obliging them.

So where does this stand right now? Has there been any updates? Are there even any hurdles for them to clear?

urban_dilettante wrote:^ citizen, for the most part i wouldn't characterize people on this forum as "average st. louisans", in the sense that they're more engaged, i think, than the average. i'm also not suggesting that everybody has time to fight the seemingly never-ending onslaught of sh*tty, auto-centric development. in this case, however, rather than not being engaged, residents of Ingrassia's ward are apparently putting forth effort to voice support for this sh*tty plan. these people, i think, likely have no concept of how much better things could be. and in this type of situation Ingrassia is put in the position of opposing the demolition and pissing off her constituents, or obliging them.

Wow, I didn't know it had strong & vocal public support from Ward 6. That's pretty surprising...

I heard that the Grove new QT is doing very large volumes of sales...future stores in urban areas like Chouteau/Manchester and 44/Kingshighway will be the result of the success of that QT.

I'm definitely not anti-Quick Trip, I probably stop into one regularly, heck, almost once a day some weeks.

However I am also for good urban form & design and businesses that enhance the overall city experience, not just do great for themselves. It would be great if those two viewpoints can converge. Perhaps that's where city leadership, along with citizen input needs to focus. City leadership especially.

americancitizen wrote:I'm definitely not anti-Quick Trip, I probably stop into one regularly, heck, almost once a day some weeks.

However I am also for good urban form & design and businesses that enhance the overall city experience, not just do great for themselves. It would be great if those two viewpoints can converge. Perhaps that's where city leadership, along with citizen input needs to focus. City leadership especially.

Hey, hey, pipe down with all that crazy talk. What? Do you want them to charge us 12% taxes on their hot dogs for some artsy fartsy fancy schmancy collages on the walls?

From what I understand, this project was already in flight prior to Christine Ingrassia's election to fill Kacie Starr Triplett's unexpired term. Additionally, residents of the Gate District (where this project would be located) are -- apparently -- very much in favor of it.

Personally, I think it is a disgrace.

gregl wrote:Additionally, residents of the Gate District (where this project would be located) are -- apparently -- very much in favor of it.

yep, and this is a big reason why St. Louis can't get ahead. who the f*ck are these people? in what other cities would residents be fighting to demolish well-maintained, occupied, historic buildings for another gas station? KC has like 4 new towers planned for their downtown. meanwhile our residents are fighting to replace urban buildings with gas stations. it just boggles my f*cking mind and makes me feel extremely hopeless in terms of St. Louis ever catching up. every step forward in this city is met with two or three steps back.

The QT on Gravois pays $14k property taxes/acre. The buildings at Jefferson and Chouteau pay $42k/acre. We can't afford to build that way.

quincunx wrote:The QT on Gravois pays $14k property taxes/acre. The buildings at Jefferson and Chouteau pay $42k/acre. We can't afford to build that way.

This is the key point right here. This type of low density, auto-oriented development costs the city money. Who knows where these business owners will relocate? Furthermore, gas stations are not the types of structures that will retain their value. How much revenue will that site generate in 20 years?

Not forgetting. Just that you can't look up what sales and earnings taxes a parcel of land is producing like you can with property taxes. Does anyone know a way to find out?

In similar analyses that include sales taxes it's still no contest.

http://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2014 ... ntown.html

The other thing to keep in mind is where each tax goes. Seems the SLPS is the biggest loser in such a trade.