I don't know what the status is, but one of the other threads does mention a garage as the intended use.
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MattnSTL wrote:I don't know what the status is, but one of the other threads does mention a garage as the intended use.
Yeah, it was mentioned that Spinnaker was considering converting it to a garage in a Business Journal article back in April.
I would prefer this:
Wow... what is it with parking in this city? Is it just the easiest way to make money or are people really this shortsighted?
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brody wrote:Wow... what is it with parking in this city? Is it just the easiest way to make money or are people really this shortsighted?
I'd say both.
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brody wrote:Wow... what is it with parking in this city? Is it just the easiest way to make money or are people really this shortsighted?
There are a lot of fat, lazy people who don't want to walk more than 1/2 a block.
And were all going to just sit around and let this happen?
You know what used to stand at this site?
Why are we not writing our aldermen about this?
Why are we not standing outside City Centre protesting the idea of more parking?
Is our City just temporary storage for automobiles?
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You know what used to stand at this site?
Why are we not writing our aldermen about this?
Why are we not standing outside City Centre protesting the idea of more parking?
Is our City just temporary storage for automobiles?
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I just wish I felt like St. Louis had a responsive government that actually considered its citizens' input when it comes to urban design, planning, and preservation. The government is Progressive Era bullsh*t though and therefore seeks to exclude us commoners. 
A Planning Agency with teeth--not some advisory crap--could really turn this city around. Mayor Slay called for young city staffers in his speech not long ago. When might this be realized?
In an ideal city, a garage proposal would be evaluated with a parking needs/feasibility study, which would have to confirm that this is a grossly inefficient use of the site. Then a public hearing would bring out several concerned groups who would express the same. The decision to block the garage would then be final, given both professional planning and citizen input.
Cities that tirelessly provide adjacent parking will always appear dead and uninviting on their sidewalks, with no storefront retail filled. Washington Avenue provides no off-street parking for patrons of retail/restaurants (to my knowledge), and it's the shining star of downtown. Why can't our officials make the connections?
A Planning Agency with teeth--not some advisory crap--could really turn this city around. Mayor Slay called for young city staffers in his speech not long ago. When might this be realized?
In an ideal city, a garage proposal would be evaluated with a parking needs/feasibility study, which would have to confirm that this is a grossly inefficient use of the site. Then a public hearing would bring out several concerned groups who would express the same. The decision to block the garage would then be final, given both professional planning and citizen input.
Cities that tirelessly provide adjacent parking will always appear dead and uninviting on their sidewalks, with no storefront retail filled. Washington Avenue provides no off-street parking for patrons of retail/restaurants (to my knowledge), and it's the shining star of downtown. Why can't our officials make the connections?
This project will be presented to the Downtown Residence Association Board Meeting this Thursday at the Old Post Office around 6:45 p.m. I will be there and will be happy to voice anyone's displeasure with the project.
Matt Drops The H wrote:In an ideal city, a garage proposal would be evaluated with a parking needs/feasibility study, which would have to confirm that this is a grossly inefficient use of the site.
Is it a grossly inefficient use of the site? If it truely were, there would be developers all over it to either tear it down for high-rise use or to re-develop it for retail,residential, or office use.
As much as I detest parking, I could see it making sense IF it provided parking for both the Laurel project AND didn't get another parking garage built for Thompson Coburn. If the alternative is letting this eyesore continue to sit unused for years and building yet another new parking garage, I would rather see this reused as parking, provided ground floor retail is added. This would keep the US Bank plaza open for possible redevelopment. Perhaps providing the opportunity for development on the plaza could be worked out in the deal?
Maybe I'm selling out, but at this point I'd rather see it developed so long as it is has street-level retail, rather than continuing to sit vacant as a complete eyesore to downtown and conventioneers. Maybe we can make it the world's greenest garage, with the entire roof being a green roof, and all of the sides with vertical greening and flowers.
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aj2cb2000 wrote:This project will be presented to the Downtown Residence Association Board Meeting this Thursday at the Old Post Office around 6:45 p.m. I will be there and will be happy to voice anyone's displeasure with the project.
i think there are many people incredibly displeased. we need to focus less on making downtown a commuter destination.
the people who keep encouraging parking developments are the same ones who come downtown for work then leave immediately, which thus encourages business to stay open only until they leave. they believe the money goes west after lunchtime. we need to prove them different.
and, on top of that, i realize part of it is that downtown residents need to be more active, which i will admit is a problem for all of us. as a resident, how can i be more active in these issues?
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metzgda wrote:
Maybe I'm selling out, but at this point I'd rather see it developed so long as it is has street-level retail, rather than continuing to sit vacant as a complete eyesore to downtown and conventioneers. Maybe we can make it the world's greenest garage, with the entire roof being a green roof, and all of the sides with vertical greening and flowers.
In urbanistic theory, a garage with streetfront retail is preferable. However, this is a clearly inefficient use of this land. The problem is that many garages are privately owned. If there were a single, concentrated parking authority, it would be easier to say, "No, you can't construct a garage here. Your nearest parking opportunity is the garage at X and X Streets, 3 blocks away. There are X number of spaces available. How many would you like to lease?" There's not, though, so each new development requires its own off-street parking cache, and on the whole, there is a massive parking oversupply.
I would rather see it as a vacant building for a while because we've seen better proposals for this site that involve residential and retail. When the market improves, one could easily see this site as residential once more. There is a parking garage across the street. This is a uniformly bad, bad idea.
The city needs to offer a wider interpretation of urbanism and start master planning the parking situation downtown. No more parking garages for each new development.
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we might as well sit on it a little longer or tear the blasted thing down for something more inspiring than another parking garage.
For an informed discussion you should consider that the St. Louis Centre structure directly supports adjacent properties under separate ownership.
We are all aware of the skybridge, half was part of St. Louis Centre and half part of the Dillard's building. So until Pyramid brought both under the same ownership (one plan) it was going to be difficult to knock it down. You can't knock down half a sky bridge.
The 25-story One City Centre office building is part of the St. Louis Centre structure, but under different ownership. You pretty much can't take down one without taking down the other.
Finally, Macy's shipping and receiving and some utilities are located in St. Louis Centre structure and would be very difficult or impossible to move. I'm sure there are ownership or lease issues involved here as well.
So you can't simply tear down St. Louis Centre to create a development site, even if you chose to ignore the cost of demolition to create an empty site.
If the city could somehow work out a deal with the tenants/owners of Gateway one to move into the almost empty One City Center tower I would be fine with adding more parking.
We could then implode Gateway One but leave the underground three-level parking garage for visitors/workers at the Gateway Mall.
By freeing up these +/- 500 spaces we could now start thinking about tearing down the ugly Kiener Plaza garages and replace them with retail and residential.
I know, I know.
We could then implode Gateway One but leave the underground three-level parking garage for visitors/workers at the Gateway Mall.
By freeing up these +/- 500 spaces we could now start thinking about tearing down the ugly Kiener Plaza garages and replace them with retail and residential.
I know, I know.
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When I go to other cities, I don't see nearly as many parking garages as we have here. I can't think of any cities that have anything like Stadium East/West, Kiener East/West, and Pine Street, which just feels like a continuous string of parking garages. And of course, the periphery of downtown is surrounded by surface lots.
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MattonArsenal wrote:For an informed discussion you should consider that the St. Louis Centre structure directly supports adjacent properties under separate ownership.
We are all aware of the skybridge, half was part of St. Louis Centre and half part of the Dillard's building. So until Pyramid brought both under the same ownership (one plan) it was going to be difficult to knock it down. You can't knock down half a sky bridge.
The 25-story One City Centre office building is part of the St. Louis Centre structure, but under different ownership. You pretty much can't take down one without taking down the other.
Finally, Macy's shipping and receiving and some utilities are located in St. Louis Centre structure and would be very difficult or impossible to move. I'm sure there are ownership or lease issues involved here as well.
So you can't simply tear down St. Louis Centre to create a development site, even if you chose to ignore the cost of demolition to create an empty site.
I think most of us here realize that demolishing St. Louis Centre would be significantly more complicated than simply taking down one structure.
When I go to other cities, I don't see nearly as many parking garages as we have here. I can't think of any cities that have anything like Stadium East/West, Kiener East/West, and Pine Street, which just feels like a continuous string of parking garages. And of course, the periphery of downtown is surrounded by surface lots.
Exactly. Especially in what should be prime real estate in the core of the city.
If we build more residential/office/retail and less parking, more people would choose to live and work downtown or use public transportation.
It's not rocket science. This is actually what has been happening in many European cities and they are thriving. Our downtown is still relatively dead, partly because we have TOO MANY PARKING GARAGES.
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Part of the problem is that land value in downtown in relatively low. Since development is (to a large extent) market driven, if prices for downtown lots were higher, it wouldn't be economically feasible to build parking garages. That's one (among many) reasons you don't see such large amounts of parking in the big, super-successful downtowns... land is just too valuable to waste on parking.
I agree. That's why we need leadership. If we keep falling in the same trap (e.g. keep building parking garages) we keep going in the WRONG direction.
The Count wrote:When I go to other cities, I don't see nearly as many parking garages as we have here. I can't think of any cities that have anything like Stadium East/West, Kiener East/West, and Pine Street, which just feels like a continuous string of parking garages. And of course, the periphery of downtown is surrounded by surface lots.
Exactly. Especially in what should be prime real estate in the core of the city.
If we build more residential/office/retail and less parking, more people would choose to live and work downtown or use public transportation.
It's not rocket science. This is actually what has been happening in many European cities and they are thriving. Our downtown is still relatively dead, partly because we have TOO MANY PARKING GARAGES.
The problem is not garages the problem is lack of density and public transit options. If we had a comprehensive transit plan or even the N-S metrolink extension, many surface lots and garages would turn into productive uses.
^
The garages ARE part of the problem. It makes for an uninviting environment and it accommodates commuting. With more residential and less parking we would stimulate workers to live downtown or use public transportation.
This would help create better public transport and a denser downtown.
The garages ARE part of the problem. It makes for an uninviting environment and it accommodates commuting. With more residential and less parking we would stimulate workers to live downtown or use public transportation.
This would help create better public transport and a denser downtown.
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goat314 wrote: The problem is not garages the problem is lack of density and public transit options. If we had a comprehensive transit plan or even the N-S metrolink extension, many surface lots and garages would turn into productive uses.
The Count wrote: The garages ARE part of the problem. It makes for an uninviting environment and it accommodates commuting. With more residential and less parking we would stimulate workers to live downtown or use public transportation.
This would help create better public transport and a denser downtown.
Seems to me both of you are correct... a wicked chicken-and-egg scenario if I've ever seen one.
The way I look at is this...a garage is going to have to be built to keep Thompson Coburn here. That was part of the city's deal with them. If the old mall can be trasformed into a parking garage for Thompson Coburn, The Laurel, and One City Centre building, then I am ok with it. But I would then like to see the parking garage one block east torn down and a office building built there and for something happen with the Mercantile Library. Long range thinking....if there was retail on the first floor of the old mall, retail on the first floor of the Mercantile Library, retail on the first floor of the Laurel, and a new 20 story office building where the garage sits now, plus Laurel residences would really transform the area.
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If a St. Louis Centre garage were to replace the "U.S. Bank Plaza" garage, I guess that helps make it a little more palatable, but certainly not ideal. Hopefully, the garage would have a cool, modern design - maybe something resembling the proposed Concord development - and I'm sure first floor retail would be a given.
What I would really like to see is new construction on the current U.S. Bank Plaza and on the vacant lot next to Lashley & Baer's (awesome) office at 7th and Locust. There will certainly be enough parking to support new buildings on those sites.
What I would really like to see is new construction on the current U.S. Bank Plaza and on the vacant lot next to Lashley & Baer's (awesome) office at 7th and Locust. There will certainly be enough parking to support new buildings on those sites.
Parking is unacceptable period!
The City should force this project to wait. I don't understand why were making TIF repayments and not even getting residential. That was the agreement. So were going to pay it off and get zero residential, which Downtown desperately needs to support large retail like Macys and the former Dillards. We also need residents to support the new Schnucks.
St. Louis Centre has been there rotting for years. We can't wait two more years for a quality mixed use condo development?
The City should force this project to wait. I don't understand why were making TIF repayments and not even getting residential. That was the agreement. So were going to pay it off and get zero residential, which Downtown desperately needs to support large retail like Macys and the former Dillards. We also need residents to support the new Schnucks.
St. Louis Centre has been there rotting for years. We can't wait two more years for a quality mixed use condo development?
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Doug wrote:St. Louis Centre has been there rotting for years. We can't wait two more years for a quality mixed use condo development?
That would be my preference. We're getting a garage either way though, either in St. Louis Centre or at U.S. Bank Driveway Plaza.