A suburban style Subway was rejected and this revision was submitted - overall it is an ordinary building - but it is a good ordinary building - 2 stories, hugs the street (or will if the recommendations are followed) even aligns with the surrounding streets which is nice and rarely seen in buildings that have "good urban form"



This and the CVS in the CWE are steps in the right direction, we just need all the neighborhoods to buy-in that this is a city and this is how things are done in the city, be it on Page, Goodfellow, Hampton, Kingshighway, Chippewa, or Broadway

That will be excellent. That empty lot bothers me every time I go by it. Would love to see more urban style development along 7th street, including crossing over to the other side of the street.

I like the design, not wild about the tenant. Nothing against Subway but there is another one on S. Broadway that will just close when this one opens up.

I think that would be a good place for some retail. It's on a busy thoroughfare and is close enough to Soulard Market to get some foot traffic.

^I believe most if not all of the effort get more urban design has been from the neighborhood residents, with one person in particular sticking to his demands that the developer either build something less stripmallish or look to build somewhere else.

The Family Dollar strip mall on 7th (including a Starbucks that was open for about a month, closed and was demolished within three years of being built), the grocery store on Bohemian Hill with the giant street-facing parking lot and the proposed building demolition for a pergola at 10th and Locust are the type of results you get when you rely on the city and/or Phyllis Young to ensure a more urban design.

There is a thread from February with some backstory here: http://urbanstl.com/forum/viewtopic.php ... ay#p206882

How entrenched in her seat is Phyllis Young?

If there's a push from residents to override her thinking, is there enough of a push to unseat her?

jstriebel wrote:How entrenched in her seat is Phyllis Young?

If there's a push from residents to override her thinking, is there enough of a push to unseat her?

I think she's pretty entrenched as I believe her competitor in the latest election got one only vote. Not sure how many more terms she wishes to stay as she's been around for a long time.

Complaining about badly designed new retail in Soulard, I've written to Alderwoman P. Young more times than I can count -- From the 7th St. strip mall to the suburban-style grocery story on Bohemian Hill. I didn’t move to (and invest in) Soulard to have it look like the suburbs.

For a neighborhood that's often cited as an urban rehab success story (that is, what happens when buildings are not wholly demoed) the neighborhood and its adjacent areas have a ways to go when it comes to smart, urban, pedestrian-friendly design with new retail construction.

With all that being said, it’s likely that Alderwoman P. Young is done after this term, as I believe the BOA is consolidating and her ward will likely merge with K. Ortmann’s.

Now, is Ortmann better than Young? No idea.

^^I don't think she's going anywhere until 2020, at which point I assume she'll step aside when the number of wards is reduced. I only assume that because I believe she introduced the board bill to reduce the number of aldermen.

The guy that ran against her in the last primary was advocating for more demolition in the 7th Ward at a Soulard Restoration Group meeting, which isn't a group that's generally pushing for demolition. He had a difficult time even articulating his reasons for running. He was, as innov8ion pointed out, very soundly defeated.

Just thought I'd add that this project appears to be underway. So far it's just preparing the lot or foundations or something (I'm not well-versed in the stages of actual construction), but there's definitely work being done.

I'm interested in seeing what this will look like when it's finished. I can't picture any Subways in STL that aren't cookie cutter.

Other news from Soulard--St. Joseph's Croatian Church wanted to demo their unused school building that is supposedly still in pretty decent shape despite being hit by lightning and having a small fire several years ago. The neighborhood zoning committee flatly refused to approve destruction. Huzzah!

Didn't have time to snap a picture, but this project is now very much underway.

Currently it appeared to be just the beginning of a wooden frame with some steel near the corner. It looks small, but that may be because there's more still to put up.

I wish there wasn't a drive way coming off 7th street as it would be nice to have an entire street wall, but if the brick is done nice enough, this will still be a nice addition to a corner that's been sitting empty.