urbanSTL

Lyda Krewson, 28th Ward aldermen, said she is ambivalent about the proposal. “I don’t have any real affection for the building,” she said. “Similarly, I don’t think a parking lot is the highest and best use for that land.”

Stating the obvious to most readers of this board:

Parking is the lowest use of land, always. Parking is sometimes necessary to enable higher uses of land nearby. I doubt the cathedral needs this proposed parking lot.

^ What if they use it as a crypt, or bunker, that would be lower than a parking lot

Matt Drops The H wrote:What's wrong with the parking in the San Luis building, especially as a temporary solution while other options are explored?

Do you mean using the building as a parking structure? If that is the case, I can guarantee that the building is not designed for such loads. It is next to impossible to retrofit an existing building as a parking garage short of demoing everything but the facade and rebuilding it. Also, I have not seen the building in question for quite some time, but I would assume that the dimensions of the existing building are not condusive to an efficient parking layout.

I think he means the existing parking structure. The reason we were given at the meeting was that the parking spaces were too small. Apparently everyone at Rosati drives a Hummer.

For reference, the parking structure in question:



Link



[EDIT, cause I'm an idiot. Fixed and prettied-up link]



-RBB

STLgasm wrote:Someone needs to make a rendering of a restored San Luis, complete with lighting, a paint job, and landscaping. It could be drop-dead gorgeous.

Or at least, could someone find some old photos from when the hotel first opened? Bonwich, anything in the PD vault?



In the meantime, everyone go back to page 4 of this thread, and check out Gasm's photos of the place.



Now picture a parking lot.

I found a photo of guests at the swimming pool of the DeVille Motor Hotel in 1963. This was in the Globe Democrat collection:



http://digital.library.umsystem.edu/cgi ... 1;resnum=8

Cool photo! I remember eating breakfast there in the early 70's while visiting my older brother who attended SLU. That building would be a great location for a "W" Hotel! It's perfectly suited to their style, and I think it would/could do *very* well in CWE.

So, even though I like the building, I won't shed a tear if it gets torn down. But for a parking lot? I don't think so. There's actually a really big parking lot right next to Rosati-kain, for the Engineer's club. Why not just pay them to allow faculty and students to park there? Or, tear down the San Luis, build a sweet new building for the Engineer's club, and let rosati-Kain go to town on the Engineer's club land. The one thing we can all agree on is that using this prime corner for a surface parking lot is absurd.

That's pretty much my argument, although if the architectural merit argument works, I'm just fine with that.

DrDrew wrote: Or, tear down the San Luis, build a sweet new building for the Engineer's club, and let rosati-Kain go to town on the Engineer's club land.

So, we tear down an existing retro-cool Mid-Century highrise, along with the existing Engineer's club building (also very cool, by the way), and replace them with a single lowrise office building and an even bigger surface parking lot down the block? Uh, no thanks.

I stipulate that the replacement building would have to be sweet

Today's issue of the <i>West End Word</i> has a short follow-up article about the San Luis Apartments on page 4, quoting Landmarks Association's argument for preservation. They make the interesting point that the apartments should not just be considered in isolation, but as part of "a complementary collection of modern buildings around the intersection of Lindell and Taylor, including Lindell Terrace to the west, the Archdiocesan Chancery to the east and the Optimists' Club building to the south."

DrDrew wrote:I stipulate that the replacement building would have to be sweet

Opus buys the land from the archdiocese with an agreement for permanent parking use of ~2 floors of parking. Designs a new tower to replace the shitshow that ripped a good-fairly great proposal from us that was Lindel Tower. Builds new tower here where the historical zoning restriction (I believe) is not present. Tada!

A little while ago, the Vatican issued a new set of 12 deadly sins which had been updated (from the 7 deadly sins) for the 21st century. Among them were environmental pollution and excessive wealth. So, once again. The St. Louis Archdiocese is planning to ignore the environmental costs already incurred by extracting, processing and assembling the San Luis in the first place, along with the environmental costs of demolition, removal, and disposal. Sin #1--check. They propose to carry out this plan to build a parking lot that has FEWER PARKING SPACES than already exists on the site, because IN THE WORDS OF THE ARCHITECT the parking spaces currently at the San Luis are not big enough to accommodate the cars of the little girls that drive to Rosati. Um........translation; We need more parking space for teenage girls who drive single occupancy SUV's in from the county. Sin #2 AND sin #1 simultaneously--check.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised by the hypocrisy, but seriously folks.

Hugh Ferriss wrote:Today's issue of the <i>West End Word</i> has a short follow-up article about the San Luis Apartments on page 4, quoting Landmarks Association's argument for preservation. They make the interesting point that the apartments should not just be considered in isolation, but as part of "a complementary collection of modern buildings around the intersection of Lindell and Taylor, including Lindell Terrace to the west, the Archdiocesan Chancery to the east and the Optimists' Club building to the south."

Don't tell that to the Archdiocese. They'll just buy and demolish them all!

ecoabsense, caught your commentary on KWMU this morning. Excellent job, man! Great to hear this being brought up in the media.



For those who haven't or won't get to hear it, you can read it here.



-RBB

RBB wrote:ecoabsense, caught your commentary on KWMU this morning. Excellent job, man! Great to hear this being brought up in the media.

I heard it too - great work!