urbanSTL

What a heated debate



anyways, people should be concerned over the mix of tenants in this project. Its full of residental with most of the service ammentities meant to appeal to tourisits. To me that is not a positive. If the districts goal is to go tourist, then do so, but don't reliy so heavily on residental. If the goal is to develope a neighborhood, then make sure the site is designed like a nieghborhood not a mall and build in the infastructure to make sure that both current area residents and new residents can effectivly access the services. Frankly, I wonder if the residental componenet, gives its tenouse tie to the development, was the carrot the developer threw out to get the city to sign off on the TIF money, with little real concern over the practaclity of the design or its prospects of full development.

Expat wrote:I am weary of the BD argument and staying out of it.



However, I just want to tell WKnDACity that I love those Castle Townhouses & all those townhouses around St. Joseph. Very cool looking development. I would like to see them expand on that.

Thanks and I would too, but unfortunately there is no space to expand. St. Joseph's owns the parking lot next to us, which initially belonged to the townhomes but was sold to the church years ago, and as it stands only two vacant lots across the street which would be for the single family homes. A few of the residents are starting to rehab their townhomes and are putting them up for sale, something I will do next spring. My family and I have outgrown this home, but for a single person or a couple these are perfect. No one townhome is designed the same inside which really makes them neat.

JMedwick wrote:What a heated debate



anyways, people should be concerned over the mix of tenants in this project. Its full of residental with most of the service ammentities meant to appeal to tourisits. To me that is not a positive. If the districts goal is to go tourist, then do so, but don't reliy so heavily on residental. If the goal is to develope a neighborhood, then make sure the site is designed like a nieghborhood not a mall and build in the infastructure to make sure that both current area residents and new residents can effectivly access the services. Frankly, I wonder if the residental componenet, gives its tenouse tie to the development, was the carrot the developer threw out to get the city to sign off on the TIF money, with little real concern over the practaclity of the design or its prospects of full development.

jmedwick,

obviously, I could not agree with you more. I guess the biggest issues with the bd is initially the poor urban planning/design - which if this project were being proposed by a 100% at-risk developer would be less of a problem, but since this proposed project is being substantially funded by a $51 million dollar tif - that is a huge problem (a classic wrongful allocation of our city's funds - fund it after the plan makes sense).

TIF only captures half of the increased sales taxes but all of the increase in property taxes. Since the retail will be heavy in sales and the residential heavy in earnings taxes, the City will not be at a financial loss for using TIF on the Bottle District.



Something like the St. Louis Public Schools, which due to depend largely on property taxes, are the ones seeing potential revenue given away, not the City. But considering how inaccessible the Bottle District is from any neighborhood school, I doubt many families with children would live in the residential towers of the Bottle District.



Still, if we're giving away incentives, I think the City can demand better urban site design. But since the net gain in tax base is potentially so attractive to City coffers, our leaders likely feel they shouldn't demand any more of the developers.

southslider wrote:TIF only captures half of the increased sales taxes but all of the increase in property taxes. Since the retail will be heavy in sales and the residential heavy in earnings taxes, the City will not be at a financial loss for using TIF on the Bottle District.



Something like the St. Louis Public Schools, which due to depend largely on property taxes, are the ones seeing potential revenue given away, not the City. But considering how inaccessible the Bottle District is from any neighborhood school, I doubt many families with children would live in the residential towers of the Bottle District.



Still, if we're giving away incentives, I think the City can demand better urban site design. But since the net gain in tax base is potentially so attractive to City coffers, our leaders likely feel they shouldn't demand any more of the developers.

southslider,

typically developers provide a financial model to demonstrate to the city how these bonds can be paid down. These financial models are typically seasoned to obviously favor the developer (they demonstrate very high occupancy rates - just see The Renaissance Grand for an example). I think the only way the bd can pay back these bonds if with a very high occupancy rate - a rate that I think will be hard to attain. This $51 million dollar tif does impact the city's ability to provide funds through the tif vehicle for other projects (so in an indirect way it does greatly impact the city financially). So the "net gain" presented to the city needs to be looked at closely - the financial model is probably not realistic. Even if the model was attainable - I think the city should demand more from the developers who want the city's financial assistance.

long time lurker, first time poster



anyways, i've been loosely following this back and forth about the design of this place, so i decided i'd do a little research and weigh in with my own opinion. so i google "the bottle district" and two things jump out at me:



1) it's in Wikipedia.



2) THIS: http://www.theghazicompany.com/future_stl.htm



or more specifically, this: http://www.theghazicompany.com/pdf/TheB ... teplan.pdf





That's doesn't sound like the design you guys have been debating, and from the blurry date on the plan, i can tell it's not. my initial thought is WOW! there's a lot to absorb there...what does everyone think? (seems like you guys know more about urban planning as a science than me anyway )

Welcome to CWEhobber and all the others that have chimed in recently. One thing for sure. The Bottle District has attracted a lot of attention, caused a lot of discussion, and has brought more than one person to this forum. When I first learned of Liebeskind's involvement in the Bottle District, I started digging for information and that is how I found UrbanStLouis. There is something to be said for such an attention grabbing project.

Thanks CWEhobber for your links. The second link to the site plan is exactly what many have been asking for-- a street grid within the Bottle District.



It's a little fuzzy to read the issue date on this street-grid version of the BD, but I can make out October 200? Being October, I suspect it was 2004, not 2005. But can anyone else see the date?



So when the Starchitect became involved, why would the street grid have disappeared?

southslider wrote:It's a little fuzzy to read the issue date on this street-grid version of the BD, but I can make out October 200? Being October, I suspect it was 2004, not 2005. But can anyone else see the date?

it's actually november now, so it must have just been released in the last week or so. also, didn't ghazi company just announce their involvement in the project recently? i'm pretty sure this is the new plan...i could be wrong, but i doubt it.

I zoomed in on the date, and it looks like it says 25 OCT 2004, but it is pretty fuzzy.

CWEhobber wrote:long time lurker, first time poster



anyways, i've been loosely following this back and forth about the design of this place, so i decided i'd do a little research and weigh in with my own opinion. so i google "the bottle district" and two things jump out at me:



1) it's in Wikipedia.



2) THIS: http://www.theghazicompany.com/future_stl.htm



or more specifically, this: http://www.theghazicompany.com/pdf/TheB ... teplan.pdf





That's doesn't sound like the design you guys have been debating, and from the blurry date on the plan, i can tell it's not. my initial thought is WOW! there's a lot to absorb there...what does everyone think? (seems like you guys know more about urban planning as a science than me anyway )

welcome cwehopper,

If this interests you, I would recommend looking into any publication from the Urban Land Institute (ULI) - very interesting reading and great case studies for different types of urban developments.

This sounds like a conspiracy. I'm going with 2005. Look in the lower left corner where the text is vertical. I can read plotted 10/25/2005 1:18:54 PM Jones



Me likey, it looks like a totally different layout, but it does look like a street with parking on it.

Good catch. Are the streets really open on this plan? It looks like it's closed off at Cole Street, and it says (Old) Carr Street, (Old) 6th Street, and (Old) O'Fallon Street.



If the streets were, in fact, opened up to traffic, I think I would like this plan.

Looking at that new pdf, those are definately through streets open to traffic; look at the little diagrams at the bottom, there are cars in the street cross-sections. This design has really changed. I like it a lot better, with the streets open to traffic. It also looks like residential was added on top of the street facing retail, thats another good addition I think. I still would prefer that the site engages Broadway, 7th, and Cole more, but it is getting better.

If you look on the middle street it reads: 24 spaces and 30 spaces. I assume that means on-street parking. Also, DMR Architects is a new addition to this project I believe. I looked on their website and they've done work with Ghazi before in Charlotte. I like their work.



http://www.dmrarchitects.com/intro.html

brickandmortar wrote:This sounds like a conspiracy. I'm going with 2005. Look in the lower left corner where the text is vertical. I can read plotted 10/25/2005 1:18:54 PM Jones



Me likey, it looks like a totally different layout, but it does look like a street with parking on it.

brickandmortar,

I can't read the date, but I agree with you that this site plan does not jive with the Libeskind model or renderings. I like this site plan more, but are you referring to street parking or just surface parking lots (I could not locate any street parking on this site plan). A little concerned with Section A-A - think the street could have more pedestrian appeal and a more open feel with varying heights of the building envelope. Since they have broken ground it would be nice if the developer would come forward with the plan/design/renderings they are moving forward with. Glad to see this plan incorporates more of the existing street grid - step in the right direction. Glad to see the existing McGuire building become more of the plan, and glad to see the large tower being pushed to the far north end of the site - it begins to provide this development with some much needed critical mass. Look at Section C-C; it seems like the architect does not understand the required volume for a concert hall - this looks like the equivalent of having a concert in your basement.

Ah, I wasn't sure if those numbers meant that those spaces were for residents or if they meant on-street parking.



I guess the more I look at it, those streets have to be open to allow access to the surface parking lot next to the renovated office building.

Just to put to rest the date issue, here's the metadata from that PDF file:



File name TheBottleDistrict_siteplan.pdf

Document Type PDF Document

File size 2720221 bytes

Page size 15.7 x 11.2 inches

PDF version 1.3

Page count 1

Encryption None

Modification Date 11/01/05

Title 05064A.100.dgn

Content Creator Adobe Photoshop CS Windows

PDF Producer Adobe PDF Library 6.0

Creation Date 10/27/05

Author Bentley Systems, Inc.

Off topic a bit, but if you don't mind my asking jambalya, you are quite knowledgeable on city layouts, is that your profession, City Planner that is? This is a compliment, not sarcasm, I respect your opinions.

brickandmortar wrote:If you look on the middle street it reads: 24 spaces and 30 spaces. I assume that means on-street parking. Also, DMR Architects is a new addition to this project I believe. I looked on their website and they've done work with Ghazi before in Charlotte. I like their work.



http://www.dmrarchitects.com/intro.html

that's the wrong DMR...if you zoom in on the top right hand corner of the plan, you can see the address is http://www.dmra.biz, and they're out of charlotte, not new jersey...makes sense.

I don't like the surface parking lot on that plan, but the streets definately look open. You can even see where the street is wider for parking spaces and it's darker for crosswalks. I'd assume by them putting (old) in front of the street names that they are going to rename them to fit the development. Also look like there is space for 4 towers instead of 3, and I also see a ten floor residential building. There is also a movie theater by the bowling alley. The site seems to open itself up more too. I wonder if they have been reading this thread.



Now I want to see renderings that fit the new site plan. This could also be one of the reasons construction has not started yet.

CWEhobber wrote:

brickandmortar wrote:If you look on the middle street it reads: 24 spaces and 30 spaces. I assume that means on-street parking. Also, DMR Architects is a new addition to this project I believe. I looked on their website and they've done work with Ghazi before in Charlotte. I like their work.



http://www.dmrarchitects.com/intro.html

that's the wrong DMR...if you zoom in on the top right hand corner of the plan, you can see the address is http://www.dmra.biz, and they're out of charlotte, not new jersey...makes sense.

thanks, I linked the wrong one

MistaC01 wrote:Off topic a bit, but if you don't mind my asking jambalya, you are quite knowledgeable on city layouts, is that your profession, City Planner that is? This is a compliment, not sarcasm, I respect your opinions.

mistac01,

no problem in asking - planner and architect.