From today's West End Word:
Plans for surface parking lot in heart of CWE stirs opposition
(by Tim Woodcock - April 09, 2008)
The Archdiocese of St. Louis is pressing forward with plans to pull down the San Luis Apartments building on Lindell Boulevard and put a surface parking lot in its place. However, the proposal is receiving strong opposition from several groups in the neighborhood.
The building was the subject of a March 29 forum hosted by the Central West End Association Planning and Development Committee, where most, but not all, contributors from the neighborhood argued against the idea.
The150-space parking lot would serve what the archdiocese has recently begun referring to as the Cathedral Campus, meaning primarily the Cathedral Basilica itself, Rosati-Kain High School and the Catholic Center, a complex of administrative offices.
The San Luis apartment building, originally the de Ville Motor Hotel, was most recently used for federally subsidized senior living and has been vacant since last spring. However, a formal application to demolish the building has yet to be made.
If the project gets the go-ahead it will be another “ill-conceived planning blunder” in the city of St. Louis, said Randy Vines, a founder of St. Louisans for Urban Progress. “It’s against all urban sensibilities.”
“Nothing has ever been saved by a surface lot,” Vines said, and designs that address environmental concerns about water runoff are of no comfort. “A ‘green parking lot’ — I mean, come on!”
Although the San Luis apartment building is not one that most would cite as representing the best of the Central West End’s architectural heritage, the St. Louis chapter of the American Institute of Architects and the city preservation group Landmarks Association have both argued for saving the building on the basis of its architectural merits.
A statement issued by Landmarks’ Board of Directors argued that, “Through curvilinear forms and differentiation of wall materials, the hotel possesses a striking geometric presence. With covered parking placed in the rear away from Lindell Boulevard, the Hotel de Ville promotes the pedestrian-friendly quality of the Lindell streetscape.
“Additionally, the building is a complementary member of a 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.”
Designed by Colbert, Lowery, Hess & Bouderaux — a firm well known in New Orleans, although not in the Midwest — the building opened in 1963 as an independently owned motel but soon was operating as part of the Holiday Inn chain.
Dan Jay, an architect with Christner Inc. who has been working with the archdiocese on the project, said there is no economically feasible way of renovating the building, although this has been investigated.
The U-shaped building is divided up in such a way that the rooms are too small for contemporary tastes, but knocking two rooms into one throughout the building doesn’t quite work either, he said.
Rents need to stay low because the building is not attractive enough to become an upscale residence and if one increases the room sizes “the math gets even worse,” he said. The window patterns are a limiting factor in how the building could be reconfigured in other ways. This leaves architects who are considering ways to renovate the building “between a rock and a hard place,” he said.
Two other architecture firms, a mechanical engineer and representatives of Drury Hotels have looked at it and come to similar conclusions, he said.
Jay said he sympathizes with those who, like Vines, want to see greater density in the neighborhood.
“The principle is valid, but in this particular application the [parking] needs are just too important for the neighborhood,” he said. Currently there is on-street parking around the cathedral at 45 degrees on Sunday, and Lindell is too busy a thoroughfare for that to continue safely, Jay said. When there are special events, such as holiday services and concerts, parking spills over onto residential streets. But more central to this proposal is the day-to-day parking needs of the Rosati-Kain High School, which has about 400 students.
In recent years, the Central West End has seen several infill projects that increase the neighborhood’s level of density and street life — although others see these projects as crowding out some of the charms of the neighborhood. Perhaps the most prominent of these projects is Park East Tower at Laclede and Euclid avenues, which only three short years ago was a surface lot.
Asked if the proposal on Lindell Boulevard is an example of the Central West End going backward, Thomas Richter, the archdiocese’s director of buildings and real estate, said, “We don’t think it is a step backward.”
The proposed parking lot “represents an investment in the Central West End” because it shows that Rosati-Kain intends to be in the CWE for the long haul, he said.
At the March 29 meeting, representatives of the CWEA Planning and Development Committee asked the archdiocese to conduct a traffic study to justify the need for extra parking, said Jim Dwyer, a member of the committee. Dwyer said he would like to see if the archdiocese could come to an arrangement with the Engineers’ Club immediately to the east to use its parking lots.
Richter said the archdiocese is still committed to its original plan but he is unsure how quickly the project will move from here. In discussing the future of the site publicly, “we got ahead of ourselves,” he said.
Having first agreed to take part in the March 29 CWEA forum, the archdiocese later wanted to withdraw but was persuaded to take part because the meeting had already been publicized.
The largest complicating factor is the terms of the archdiocese’s contract with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. The archdiocese has opted out early from a long-term contract to house seniors and the two parties are still working out the terms of this. Additionally the original conversion of the motel into a senior-living facility was done with financial assistance from HUD and this will effect how much money the archdiocese owes the federal government.
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.”
Krewson said she would have “some input” into what happens next, but she’s not in a position to make or break the proposal, given that the archdiocese already owns the building.
It might be desirable to have a new building constructed that also meets the archdiocese’s parking requirements, but one cannot make a property owner build something, she said.
Krewson pointed to surface parking lots at the northwest corner of Lindell Boulevard and Euclid Avenue, and said one might wish for something better there, but one has to respect private property rights, she said.
Krewson’s influence is not negligible, however. If the archdiocese does move ahead it with its plans, it will have to apply for a demolition permit, something that traditionally is dependent on support from the ward’s alderman.
