urbanSTL

More office and retail - blah building, but honestly I am glad that a denser, walkable environment has found an audience in St. Chuck - They need to tie into the Historic Main Street district to the north and the arena to the south.

http://www.stltoday.com/business/column ... cedef.html

beer city wrote:More office and retail - blah building, but honestly I am glad that a denser, walkable environment has found an audience in St. Chuck - They need to tie into the Historic Main Street district to the north and the arena to the south.

http://www.stltoday.com/business/column ... cedef.html

I spent a lot of time at SOSC visiting friends. It was cool being able to walk down stairs to those restaurants and movie theatre and having Main Street and the casino right there. You can do a lot worse in st Charles county.

An apartment building has replaced the one office building plan to the east of the Drury Hotel. "The Chapter at the Streets" is currently under construction and should be open by the Spring of 2023. Humphreys and Partners is the architect. CRG is the developer. Brinkmann is the general contractor. 

The building features 245, one and two bedroom apartments and an underground parking structure. 

With this building, the Streets of St. Charles will have one development parcel left, and that's on "Beale Street" behind QuikTrip. Previous plans for that parcel called for a 2-story building with retail on the first floor and office on the second. I'm unsure if that's still planned or if that will be scrapped with Riverpointe planned to rise just a block or two east.

https://realcrg.com/news/crg-announces- ... ub-market/

Previous plan...

Yeesh, is the person who put together that last 'previous plan' rendering the same guy who made the St. Francois County seal?

Thanks for sharing Chris.

-RBB

It seems St. Charles, MO is embracing some density along their riverfront, even if they're likely still unwilling to listen on Metrolink. 

I couldn't find a generic St. Charles thread, so move this if needed. 

Is there any chance that St. Charles could see that riverfront urbanism bleed into some of its less historic areas? We obviously won't see modern apartment projects built on historic Main Street, but could there be a future where Frenchtown has bustling energy and 15-story buildings? 

Could St. Charles ever have a little skyline? How hard would it be for them to retrofit urbanism into the town? 

Totally agreed. Made worse by the fact that the zones are bookended by North Town on the north side of the development.

North Town (with a space), Frenchtown (without a space), and South City. Their riverfront could use more consistent branding.

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South City, but no North City?

RockChalkSTL wrote: ↑

Mar 05, 2022

It seems St. Charles, MO is embracing some density along their riverfront, even if they're likely still unwilling to listen on Metrolink. 

I couldn't find a generic St. Charles thread, so move this if needed. 

Is there any chance that St. Charles could see that riverfront urbanism bleed into some of its less historic areas? We obviously won't see modern apartment projects built on historic Main Street, but could there be a future where Frenchtown has bustling energy and 15-story buildings? 

Could St. Charles ever have a little skyline? How hard would it be for them to retrofit urbanism into the town? 

I don't think we will --or should--see buildings of that size in Frenchtown. North Second Street has always lagged behind Main Street in terms of retail and restaurants. For years most of the businesses were antique and similar type shops with limited hours. The last time I was down there I noticed a couple of coffee shops and a bookstore.  I lived in the non-historic north part of St. Charles most of my first 25 years and Frenchtown has always been my favorite part of my hometown because it has a bit of a ramshackle charm to it. Honestly growing up in the 1980s it was considered sort of seedy, which is part of why I liked it. 

As for urbanism there's already a well defined grid system of streets in the whole town between Kingshighway and the Missouri River west to east and between the 370 and Blanchette bridges north to south. You might get a little more density through small scale infill in that area but any modern multi-level apartment buildings are probably more likely to be built near the river just south of the Blanchette Bridge.  Hopefully tied in to the downtown area with biking and walking paths unlike New Town which was dropped into the middle of a flood plain. 

^I guess I just want to know what the intentions for this plan are. 

"North Town" doesn't have much existing that is built, and most of it isn't even in St. Charles City proper. 

What does the County want long term? Because it seems this will push development to the north of the city. Will we live to see a day where St. Charles County populates all that it can of the thin peninsula that stretches between the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers? 

There's a long term plan for French Town that's focused on reviving it by focusing on small businesses and pedestrian experiences: saint-charles-frenchtown-great-streets-plan-t11956.html

RockChalkSTL wrote:^I guess I just want to know what the intentions for this plan are. 

"North Town" doesn't have much existing that is built, and most of it isn't even in St. Charles City proper. 

What does the County want long term? Because it seems this will push development to the north of the city. Will we live to see a day where St. Charles County populates all that it can of the thin peninsula that stretches between the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers? 

I would love to see that peninsula get developed someday assuming they could figure out a way to manage the flooding. It really seems like it’s just ripe for a master plan. The geography reminds me of Manhattan and Pittsburgh. Would be really cool to see some sort of high rise district somewhere in there, possibly at the confluence.


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^As it is it's some of the most valuable farmland in the world due to the occasional flooding. 
I'd prefer it stay that way rather than push the water downstream. Put those high rises on North Broadway in STL city. 

I think the confluence area floods worse than just about any other area on that peninsula. 

I have been wanting to go to the confluence for a while. I tried at some point during the summer of 2021 and the roads were blocked. 

Baltimore Jack wrote:^As it is it's some of the most valuable farmland in the world due to the occasional flooding. 
I'd prefer it stay that way rather than push the water downstream. Put those high rises on North Broadway in STL city. 

Also, raising the land and/or building a levy in order to develop floodplains will just worsen the floods downstream.

Now that the topic of pipe dreams has come up, I would love to see something done to the quarry along Arena Parkway. I’ve heard quarry work will be wrapping up in the coming years. Would be cool to have that developed into some sort of attraction. There’s a former quarry in Franklin TN just outside of Nashville that was transformed into an outdoor amphitheater. That idea probably wouldn’t work here since there’s a perfectly good amphitheater 2 miles away on the other side of the river. But maybe fill the quarry with water and make it a water park like Fugitive Beach in Rolla. That place is massively popular. Would love to see something like that for STL.


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It really would be neat to have something like Fugitive Beach in the St. Louis area. 

After looking at that plan for St. Charles, I do think it is just a matter of time before the peninsula starts getting (suburban) development. 

CG91 wrote: ↑

Mar 07, 2022

RockChalkSTL wrote:^I guess I just want to know what the intentions for this plan are. 

"North Town" doesn't have much existing that is built, and most of it isn't even in St. Charles City proper. 

What does the County want long term? Because it seems this will push development to the north of the city. Will we live to see a day where St. Charles County populates all that it can of the thin peninsula that stretches between the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers? 

I would love to see that peninsula get developed someday assuming they could figure out a way to manage the flooding. It really seems like it’s just ripe for a master plan. The geography reminds me of Manhattan and Pittsburgh. Would be really cool to see some sort of high rise district somewhere in there, possibly at the confluence.


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Absolutely zero reason to ever develop this land, and infinitely less reason to ever try and build out a dense high rise district here.  Not only is it in the middle of the flood plain (as many others have already focused on), St. Louis' existing high-rise districts aren't even at full capacity / out of developable land.  At best (worst), some developer will try to build a "mixed use" district here someday and it'll become another warehouse farm.  Just keep this land as farmland / nature preserves / park.

^100% agree. I have to think those who are opining that it should be developed have never been there. 
From Highway 67 in West Alton you have to drive down two lane roads that are impassable in most vehicles after even a moderate rain. It's so lightly populated out there that other floodplain areas like Portage Des Sioux look bustling by comparison. There's a reason for that!

Laife Fulk wrote:

CG91 wrote: ↑

Mar 07, 2022

RockChalkSTL wrote:^I guess I just want to know what the intentions for this plan are. 

"North Town" doesn't have much existing that is built, and most of it isn't even in St. Charles City proper. 

What does the County want long term? Because it seems this will push development to the north of the city. Will we live to see a day where St. Charles County populates all that it can of the thin peninsula that stretches between the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers? 

I would love to see that peninsula get developed someday assuming they could figure out a way to manage the flooding. It really seems like it’s just ripe for a master plan. The geography reminds me of Manhattan and Pittsburgh. Would be really cool to see some sort of high rise district somewhere in there, possibly at the confluence.


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Absolutely zero reason to ever develop this land, and infinitely less reason to ever try and build out a dense high rise district here.  Not only is it in the middle of the flood plain (as many others have already focused on), St. Louis' existing high-rise districts aren't even at full capacity / out of developable land.  At best (worst), some developer will try to build a "mixed use" district here someday and it'll become another warehouse farm.  Just keep this land as farmland / nature preserves / park.

The conservation areas should certainly be kept, but unless St Charles stops growing for some reason, it seems like this area is inevitably going to be developed in some form, though it might not happen for 50-100 years. So if it’s between suburban neighborhoods or a dense area with some
charm, I would take the latter all the way. Hire some Dutch engineers to manage the floods and activate the waterfront in a way that most of STL hasn’t done.

If STL ever becomes a boom city, this would be a good last resort to add supply to keep STL affordable

There's a LOT of land that would need to be developed first before this area ever became a target for developers - and I highly doubt any new levees would be approved to promote residential development at scale. It's the primary flood plain for the confluence of the Illinois and Mississippi rivers. I would bet some money that any proposed plan that required a new, very tall and long levee is quickly shot down by Army Corps of Engineers.

Now, I do anticipate that areas closer to Orchard Farm might see residential development in the next 50 years. But even that would be pretty risky from a flooding perspective.  If developers run out of land in St. Charles in the next 50-100 years, they'll just keep expanding west.

To be clear, I am not calling for development on the floodplain peninsula; I am merely predicting it happens.

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Understood.  But it's never going to happen