...but given all the ads and signs telling about it makes you wonder, has attendance at the Arch fallen off a cliff this year?

Lots of rangers running around but no little cubs to keep in line? Nobody taking trips to the top?

Maybe with a lack of crowds, this is the best time ever to go!

We used to visit it often by walking into the park through the Washington ave entrance. With that entrance closed off, we have cut our visits down. So as a local, yes construction must really hurt attendance.

Is the Arch garage on the Washington Avenue side closed? If that's the case, I can only imagine the chilling effect that must have on Arch visits.

I wonder. Lately, it seems the main ad campaign going on for the Arch is to tell people the place still open. What do you do with all those rangers, the concessions, the theaters, etc, if no one is visiting the place? Maybe they should just close it down during construction, sort of like what happened at the Statue of Liberty/Ellis Island for those renovations.

The other interesting thing about this is to see the playing out of the law of unintended consequences. I wonder if they had any idea how big a hit Arch attendance would take when they basically put the entire boundary of the place under construction?

And more importantly, what happens if when the place does reopen, Arch visits don't jump to advertised levels? Does a revamped museum and easy access lid over the highway translate into huge attendance increases?

Think of your own visits to the Arch. I suspect in the first year, tens of thousands of visitors will come down to check out the new digs. But after they've seen it, will they keep coming back? That's the real questions.

And what about for out of town visitors to the Arch? They too will probably come to check out the new digs. But compared to "The Bean" in Chicago, will the landscaped lid and the new museum be a big draw long term?

It's a high dollar gamble.

You all make good points. I just want to add that the bean in Chicago is really freaking dumb. That's all.

Northside Neighbor wrote:
And what about for out of town visitors to the Arch? They too will probably come to check out the new digs. But compared to "The Bean" in Chicago, will the landscaped lid and the new museum be a big draw long term?

Compared to the Bean, the Arch is at least eleventy billion times cooler.

jstriebel wrote:You all make good points. I just want to add that the bean in Chicago is really freaking dumb. That's all.

The bean is cool, but comparing it to the Arch is like comparing the Empire State Building to a really cool park bench.

I would go to Chicago to see the Bean. But I've been to Chicago so many times before, without seeing the Bean that the experiencing Bean is something new and wonderful.

Similarly, the revamped Arch will be something "different" for out of towners with lots of St. Louis visits under their belts to re-experience in a new way.

Going to Chicago to see the Bean is like coming from Chicago to stl to see city garden....

I don't think it's all about out-of-region tourism with the Arch either. I don't do this as much as I should, but with institutions like the Missouri History Museum, the Art Museum, the Science Center, etc., I'm drawn to come back frequently to see new exhibits and because they're great spaces.

The Arch in it's current (or previous state) didn't really have that appeal. It's something nice to say you had been to, and from a regional perspective, something to admire when you're near enough downtown to catch a glimpse. But nothing about it called for any frequency of visits.

Now, I'm not sure what is happening with the museum space, so I don't know if there will be any sort of appeal to visit for new exhibits. But even just being renovated might make return visits more appealing.

Now, all of that is a bit outside the discussion of whether it was the best use of $300 million dollars. That's very much up for debate. But I'm just suggesting there are a lot of positives to having the Arch grounds and museum renovated.