urbanSTL

Great!

On the LCRA agenda. Recommended 10 year, 90% tax abatement. 

$300k building permit application submitted for interior selective demo
$0 zoning-only building permit application submitted for int/ext renovations

^Agreed. 

Demolishing a single house for 120+ new units isn’t a bad thing at all. The community isn’t losing anything with the loss of that single house. Its gaining a ton.

imran wrote: ↑

Oct 27, 2022

chriss752 wrote: ↑

Oct 27, 2022

Demolishing a single house for 120+ new units isn’t a bad thing at all. The community isn’t losing anything with the loss of that single house. Its gaining a ton.

Think of a building you love. Then think of a tower that could replace  it with 100 more housing units. If you’re okay with that just on the basis of math, our values are different. Using your logic it would make logical sense for the entire city be erased if only someone came along abd proposed a shinier, bigger replacement (with curb cuts and garage parking of course)  I’ll be happy being the only one who has a problem with this line of thinking.

To focus back to what I posted though, don’t give away tax incentives when you’re already giving away history, identity, sidewalk activation, street trees and street parking.

The building(s) I love and a single house are two entirely different things and don’t even compare in the slightest. If a new building is done right, I’m fine with wrecking houses and smaller buildings while subsidizing new construction (if warranted on the basis of financial analysis). In neighborhood like the CWE, where open land is slowly becoming less common to come by, there will be more scenarios like this one in the future. It is irresponsible to deny a project on the basis of preserving a house.

I don’t disagree with you on the incentive thing, but this project will do more for activation than the current two properties currently do. For some projects, parking is a necessity while others, not so much. We’re never going to have a non-auto oriented city again, but we can work towards areas where cars are not needed. The CWE is one of these but you know that if a project like this was proposed with little to no parking on site, NIMBYs would’ve gone crazy and killed the project. Until the NIMBYs who push for parking are silenced, we’ll have to continue building parking garages and, as such, continue building for cars. That ties in with lack of fast and frequent transit access. Why should I stand and wait for a bus for 20-30 minutes when I can drive to where I want to go during that time?

I was just in Boston and this was a problem on Route 110. After the afternoon rush hour, frequency dropped to twice an hour for the bus route and it was faster for me to walk the 1.5 miles to my hotel from Wellington Station than to sit there and wait for the bus and ride it over. I imagine the situation is similar in St. Louis. What I’m saying is that if I lived in Everett/Boston and was in downtown and wanted to get back to my house using transit in the evening, I’d be better off driving and parking at Wellington and taking the train than waiting for the bus. That’s the same case in St. Louis and the Central West End. The metrolink is fast and frequent, but the bus isn’t all the time.

Build transit that people can rely on and then maybe, just maybe, we can convince NIMBYs that parking isn’t much of a necessity.

I’ll proudly continue doing what I do with zero shame. My version of urbanism is far different from other people’s, and that’s ok but my stances on things like this come from being on the inside for close to a year (a year where I have regrets). I want more people and low density usages replaced with high density using any means necessary. At the same time, design needs to be great and not look like that project on the west end of the Grove or the Lux projects.

Demo permit application submitted for partial demolition to facilitate the new construction.

This will be an intensive demolition. Only the facades are to be retained. The original plans called for the entire structure to be saved, but plans changed. As a result, more parking and more units can be had.

Walked by this the other day and wondered how things were progressing.

An updated evening rendering from the Arcturis website. Looks like a few things changed. 

It really makes me mad they torn down that house but that there's no other signs of construction on the site, I thought we were at least done with that type of development in St. Louis.

PeterXCV wrote: ↑

Aug 27, 2023

It really makes me mad they torn down that house but that there's no other signs of construction on the site, I thought we were at least done with that type of development in St. Louis.

That house had 6 units and 1 law office. It was squalor by its end. It was so run down spire refused to turn on the gas. It was 100% not worth saving and it was on an island. Why would you get mad they tore it down? 

Here are some shots the abatement crew sent over as they were in disbelief.  People were living in these spaces until they were evicted. No one should live like this.