which might actually be an improvement over the current pavers.bprop wrote: ↑ I can see a City street crew bashing a hole in the ground and patching it with asphalt after leaving a gaping hole for three months.
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Went down to see Kiener Plaza Sunday morning, and all the parking on the streets there and within a few blocks were full -- parking is free on Sundays. Saw several out-of-state cars that appeared to be looking for places to park. Some folks with small children were apparently going to see the Arch, but stopped by Kiener on the way. On Chestnut, only one of the 2 parking garages was open, as near as I could tell, and the Exit is on Chestnut next to Kiener, not the Entrance. It would be a lot easier for Arch/Kiener visitors to circle the Kiener Plaza block to find parking, and, if none, then enter those garages from Chestnut. Instead, they have to drive around to Pine street looking for the entrances to those garages. I wonder if those parking garages along Kiener would ever consider switching entrances and exits to better serve Arch & Kiener Plaza visitors off Chestnut vs. downtown offices of Pine?
Kiener was great and pretty busy for a Sunday morning with no baseball in town -- but it was Memorial Day weekend. We saw one homeless guy who wanted cash, but most were just families checking it out on a gloomy day.
PROPOSED CHANGE TO STREET CROSSINGS TO OLD COURTHOUSE.
One change I would like to see the City make. Simply stop allowing right-turn from East on Chestnut to South on Broadway, and also from little-used West on Market to North on 4th street. Then we could make nearly the entire block of Broadway between Kiener & The Old Courthouse, and 4th street between the Old Courthouse and Luther Ely Smith Park into wide pedestrian crossings right in the middle of the block whenever the red light on the corner stops all traffic on those one-way streets. When the light stops all cross-traffic on that block, the only cars are occasional east/west right-turn cars. Just allow right turn on red only for those two instances, and the whole block clears out for pedestrians.
Lots of people who wanted to walk straight East from Kiener to the steps of the Old Courthouse and then over to the Arch were seeing that all the traffic was stopped at the light on the corner, and then they tried crossing in the middle of the block without a crosswalk, since all traffic appeared to be stopped at the light. But then a couple of cars making right-turns from Chestnut sneak around the corner and surprise them. Or from Market onto 4th street.
Why not prioritize pedestrians over a couple of cars wanting to make right-on-green for the one-block streets East & West of Old Courthouse when the lights on the corner turns red to stop all cross-traffic? Disallow that turn on green, and paint a wide pedestrian crosswalk right in the middle of the block from Kiener to the Old Courthouse Steps on the West, and in the middle of the block from the Old Courthouse steps on the East across 4th street to the Arch via Luther Ely Smith park. To be safe, you could put another small discrete stoplight just before the mid-block crosswalk that turns red in synch (2 seconds behind, say) with the stop light half a block away on the corner. The street should be empty of cars anyway if they don't allow those right-turns, but a light would just re-assure folks crossing in the middle of the block with kids.
This change would improve pedestrian safety before someone gets hurt crossing in the middle of the block as half the visitors seem to be doing now anyway. And it makes a lot more sense from an aesthetic and functional rationale for people to walk right up the center of Gateway Mall and go through the Old Courthouse (where you buy Arch tickets) on the way to the Arch.
Kiener was great and pretty busy for a Sunday morning with no baseball in town -- but it was Memorial Day weekend. We saw one homeless guy who wanted cash, but most were just families checking it out on a gloomy day.
PROPOSED CHANGE TO STREET CROSSINGS TO OLD COURTHOUSE.
One change I would like to see the City make. Simply stop allowing right-turn from East on Chestnut to South on Broadway, and also from little-used West on Market to North on 4th street. Then we could make nearly the entire block of Broadway between Kiener & The Old Courthouse, and 4th street between the Old Courthouse and Luther Ely Smith Park into wide pedestrian crossings right in the middle of the block whenever the red light on the corner stops all traffic on those one-way streets. When the light stops all cross-traffic on that block, the only cars are occasional east/west right-turn cars. Just allow right turn on red only for those two instances, and the whole block clears out for pedestrians.
Lots of people who wanted to walk straight East from Kiener to the steps of the Old Courthouse and then over to the Arch were seeing that all the traffic was stopped at the light on the corner, and then they tried crossing in the middle of the block without a crosswalk, since all traffic appeared to be stopped at the light. But then a couple of cars making right-turns from Chestnut sneak around the corner and surprise them. Or from Market onto 4th street.
Why not prioritize pedestrians over a couple of cars wanting to make right-on-green for the one-block streets East & West of Old Courthouse when the lights on the corner turns red to stop all cross-traffic? Disallow that turn on green, and paint a wide pedestrian crosswalk right in the middle of the block from Kiener to the Old Courthouse Steps on the West, and in the middle of the block from the Old Courthouse steps on the East across 4th street to the Arch via Luther Ely Smith park. To be safe, you could put another small discrete stoplight just before the mid-block crosswalk that turns red in synch (2 seconds behind, say) with the stop light half a block away on the corner. The street should be empty of cars anyway if they don't allow those right-turns, but a light would just re-assure folks crossing in the middle of the block with kids.
This change would improve pedestrian safety before someone gets hurt crossing in the middle of the block as half the visitors seem to be doing now anyway. And it makes a lot more sense from an aesthetic and functional rationale for people to walk right up the center of Gateway Mall and go through the Old Courthouse (where you buy Arch tickets) on the way to the Arch.
FWIW, my brother was in town for a visit over the weekend. He spent most of Saturday walking all around Downtown, the Arch grounds, Keiner Plaza, City Garden, etc. He was very impressed by the large numbers of folks out walking around (and no Cardinals game in town).
The length of those lights also needs to be addressed. Giving several consecutive minutes of green to those on Broadway/Fourth exacerbates speeding problems and goads pedestrians into just crossing against the light after they either get tired of waiting or think the light is malfunctioning.gary kreie wrote: ↑May 30, 2017PROPOSED CHANGE TO STREET CROSSINGS TO OLD COURTHOUSE.
One change I would like to see the City make. Simply stop allowing right-turn-on-red from East on Chestnut to South on Broadway, and also from little-used West on Market to North on 4th street. Then we could make nearly the entire block of Broadway between Kiener & The Old Courthouse, and 4th street between the Old Courthouse and Luther Ely Smith Park into wide pedestrian crossings right in the middle of the block whenever the red light on the corner stops all traffic on those one-way streets. When the light stops all cross-traffic on that block, the only cars are occasional right-turn-on-red cars. Just allow right turn on green only for those two instances, and the whole block clears out for pedestrians.
The extra-long lights seem to be a St. Louis-only thing. Never seen them anywhere else in a pedestrian environment.
I thought the same thing, especially with the vibrant playground surface, but actually it's pretty nice in person. I went on Monday and the game was just getting out, people were hanging around and it actually felt like a vibrant city (for a few hours).urban_dilettante wrote: ↑May 19, 2017I think the new Kiener design is better than the old, but the salt-and-pepper pavers are too much, IMO. Maybe they'll be less seizure-inducing from the ground than they are in aerial photos.
The views are amazing, and it really is incredibly photogenic with the Runner, courthouse and Arch all lined up.
I loved the "New York/Paris" style seating as well, with the string lights above. I think they could use a few more chairs and tables though. Plenty of trash cans/recycling too.
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I'm running a twitter poll for those who've been @STLrainbow
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What does everyone think about the 45 degree parking on Market?
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Bike signal at Chestnut and 6th street. Sweet! Are there any others in St. Louis?
(also, the Hardee's on this corner is gone. Bummer!)
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We went down on Saturday and DAYUMN downtown was really looking good! Kaldi's was slammed, City Garden looked as good as the day it opened, the new Kiener Plaza is a real stunner, and the arch grounds looked great too.
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Here is a copy of a write-up I posted to Inter-Park's Facebook Page.
https://www.facebook.com/pg/InterPark/r ... e_internal
St. Louis recently updated the Plaza in Downtown St. Louis right in front of two of your garages:
https://explorestlouis.com/renovated-ki ... may-19-20/
The Arch eliminated their parking garage to encourage visitors to park in private garages, such as yours. I would like to suggest two things.
1. There is some back-in street parking along Market Street on the opposite side of the Plaza from your two garages. But it fills up quickly, and visitors circle Kiener plaza looking for a place to park. Your garages only have exits along the one way Chestnut street next to the new Plaza. To get into your garages, visitors have to know that they have to go all the way around to Pine Street to enter your garages. In that drive, they often find other places to park instead. When we visited the new park, we saw several families walking to Kiener Plaza from parking they apparently found further North, rather than out of your garages:
SUGGESTION: Switch Enter and Exit on at least one of your two garages so visitors to the Gateway Arch and Kiener Plaza can enter from Chestnut Street along Kiener Plaza, rather than only from Pine Street.
2. As you can see from this photo, the front of your garages are very very bland and forbidding. Since there are no entrances along Chestnut, they appear to be fortress that says, "Go Away".
SUGGESTION: I believe there are a number of things you could do to enhance these bland garage fronts. One, of course would be to commission a dramatic wall painting on them. Another would be to attach a long colorful horizontal sculptural piece to the outside of the garages, not unlike the one planned for St. Louis Airport Terminal 2. You have a giant canvas fronting the most important public space in St. Louis. Residents of St. Louis would be eternally grateful for any artistic enhancement to this concrete wall, and would look on it as saying, YES, we are a part of the St. Louis Community and support your public place enhancements. And it would say to visitors, WELCOME to our parking offering and welcome to St. Louis. Enjoy your stay throughout downtown St. Louis. And it would say, thank you, to CityArchRiver for eliminating the Arch Grounds garage and directing all that parking to our existing facilities in downtown St. Louis.
https://www.facebook.com/pg/InterPark/r ... e_internal
St. Louis recently updated the Plaza in Downtown St. Louis right in front of two of your garages:
https://explorestlouis.com/renovated-ki ... may-19-20/
The Arch eliminated their parking garage to encourage visitors to park in private garages, such as yours. I would like to suggest two things.
1. There is some back-in street parking along Market Street on the opposite side of the Plaza from your two garages. But it fills up quickly, and visitors circle Kiener plaza looking for a place to park. Your garages only have exits along the one way Chestnut street next to the new Plaza. To get into your garages, visitors have to know that they have to go all the way around to Pine Street to enter your garages. In that drive, they often find other places to park instead. When we visited the new park, we saw several families walking to Kiener Plaza from parking they apparently found further North, rather than out of your garages:
SUGGESTION: Switch Enter and Exit on at least one of your two garages so visitors to the Gateway Arch and Kiener Plaza can enter from Chestnut Street along Kiener Plaza, rather than only from Pine Street.
2. As you can see from this photo, the front of your garages are very very bland and forbidding. Since there are no entrances along Chestnut, they appear to be fortress that says, "Go Away".
SUGGESTION: I believe there are a number of things you could do to enhance these bland garage fronts. One, of course would be to commission a dramatic wall painting on them. Another would be to attach a long colorful horizontal sculptural piece to the outside of the garages, not unlike the one planned for St. Louis Airport Terminal 2. You have a giant canvas fronting the most important public space in St. Louis. Residents of St. Louis would be eternally grateful for any artistic enhancement to this concrete wall, and would look on it as saying, YES, we are a part of the St. Louis Community and support your public place enhancements. And it would say to visitors, WELCOME to our parking offering and welcome to St. Louis. Enjoy your stay throughout downtown St. Louis. And it would say, thank you, to CityArchRiver for eliminating the Arch Grounds garage and directing all that parking to our existing facilities in downtown St. Louis.
^ Let us know if anyone gets back to you. Doubtful, but would be nice if there were intelligent eyes and ears behind those garages.
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They own Kiener East and West garages and also Stadium Garage East and West. Headquarters are in Chicago. CityArchRiver did them a huge favor by shutting down the Arch garage. I'm surprised the City or CityArchRiver couldn't find a way to work with them to fund even the most minimal aesthetic improvements to those prominent structures.
This may not be the best thread for this.
But man, is 6th St. pitiful. I was out walking at lunch and started at Kiener Plaza, walking north on 6th to Washington, which I guess I haven't done in a long time.
Friday's is at Kiener, and then the MX restaurants are at Washington. Between them, there are three businesses - BreadCo, Gitto's, and Tortilla Grille. I guess you could count Starbucks on Olive. And the Christian Science Reading Room. But the rest is a dreary hallway of dilapidated storefronts and crumbling parking garages. Having what was obviously recently occupied spaces at Hardees, Joseph's, Lion's Choice, and Macy's so obviously boarded up, and both sides of the street completely empty north of Locust, didn't help.
https://www.google.com/maps/@38.6280522 ... 56!6m1!1e1
The Macy's building now has a fence running along its entire perimeter (oddly, only a foot from the building, not blocking the sidewalk, and easily movable, so what is it actually fencing off?).
It struck me because a big group of people from the convention center (looks like a contractors' convention) was walking down this depressing street.
Tying it back to the thread subject, I wonder if the opening of Kiener makes a more attractive entryway for some business to repopulate this area. It's a straight shot to the Metro station.
But man, is 6th St. pitiful. I was out walking at lunch and started at Kiener Plaza, walking north on 6th to Washington, which I guess I haven't done in a long time.
Friday's is at Kiener, and then the MX restaurants are at Washington. Between them, there are three businesses - BreadCo, Gitto's, and Tortilla Grille. I guess you could count Starbucks on Olive. And the Christian Science Reading Room. But the rest is a dreary hallway of dilapidated storefronts and crumbling parking garages. Having what was obviously recently occupied spaces at Hardees, Joseph's, Lion's Choice, and Macy's so obviously boarded up, and both sides of the street completely empty north of Locust, didn't help.
https://www.google.com/maps/@38.6280522 ... 56!6m1!1e1
The Macy's building now has a fence running along its entire perimeter (oddly, only a foot from the building, not blocking the sidewalk, and easily movable, so what is it actually fencing off?).
It struck me because a big group of people from the convention center (looks like a contractors' convention) was walking down this depressing street.
Tying it back to the thread subject, I wonder if the opening of Kiener makes a more attractive entryway for some business to repopulate this area. It's a straight shot to the Metro station.
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I always thought an art installation suspended between the two kiener garages Would be a nice touch. Something like floating globes that light up or so ething except more "all weather"bprop wrote: ↑Jun 08, 2017This may not be the best thread for this.
But man, is 6th St. pitiful. I was out walking at lunch and started at Kiener Plaza, walking north on 6th to Washington, which I guess I haven't done in a long time.
Friday's is at Kiener, and then the MX restaurants are at Washington. Between them, there are three businesses - BreadCo, Gitto's, and Tortilla Grille. I guess you could count Starbucks on Olive. And the Christian Science Reading Room. But the rest is a dreary hallway of dilapidated storefronts and crumbling parking garages. Having what was obviously recently occupied spaces at Hardees, Joseph's, Lion's Choice, and Macy's so obviously boarded up, and both sides of the street completely empty north of Locust, didn't help.
https://www.google.com/maps/@38.6280522 ... 56!6m1!1e1
The Macy's building now has a fence running along its entire perimeter (oddly, only a foot from the building, not blocking the sidewalk, and easily movable, so what is it actually fencing off?).
It struck me because a big group of people from the convention center (looks like a contractors' convention) was walking down this depressing street.
Tying it back to the thread subject, I wonder if the opening of Kiener makes a more attractive entryway for some business to repopulate this area. It's a straight shot to the Metro station.
^Keiner also makes a great projection screen. Hook up a projector with chromecast and just play google background photos and headlines on it. That would look better than it does now.
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Hey, I thought I'd share this link/photos here and ask you all to take the survey as well. Survey ends November 22nd.
"Using remaining CityArchRiver project funds, designated to be spent only within that project area, a small building will be added to the north side of Kiener Plaza. This station, which was considered in the original plans, is being built now that all other elements of the CityArchRiver project are built or underway. Project partners Gateway Arch Park Foundation, Great Rivers Greenway and the City of St. Louis look forward to designing this feature with community input in 2020 to enhance the visitor experience and ensure long-term success of this vibrant downtown space, open to residents and visitors alike to enjoy."
https://www.archpark.org/Kiener
![]()
"Using remaining CityArchRiver project funds, designated to be spent only within that project area, a small building will be added to the north side of Kiener Plaza. This station, which was considered in the original plans, is being built now that all other elements of the CityArchRiver project are built or underway. Project partners Gateway Arch Park Foundation, Great Rivers Greenway and the City of St. Louis look forward to designing this feature with community input in 2020 to enhance the visitor experience and ensure long-term success of this vibrant downtown space, open to residents and visitors alike to enjoy."
https://www.archpark.org/Kiener
And yet the only available public restrooms along the entire Kiener/CityGarden axis are - and will continue to be - the leaky, disgusting porta-potties blocking the sidewalk on 10th St.
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The survey lets you vote for the color of the building - purple, blue or green. I like them all!pattimagee wrote: ↑Nov 05, 2019Hey, I thought I'd share this link/photos here and ask you all to take the survey as well. Survey ends November 22nd.
"Using remaining CityArchRiver project funds, designated to be spent only within that project area, a small building will be added to the north side of Kiener Plaza. This station, which was considered in the original plans, is being built now that all other elements of the CityArchRiver project are built or underway. Project partners Gateway Arch Park Foundation, Great Rivers Greenway and the City of St. Louis look forward to designing this feature with community input in 2020 to enhance the visitor experience and ensure long-term success of this vibrant downtown space, open to residents and visitors alike to enjoy."
https://www.archpark.org/Kiener
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Hey bprop - I would add that to the survey notes at the end. I mentioned the same.bprop wrote: ↑Nov 06, 2019And yet the only available public restrooms along the entire Kiener/CityGarden axis are - and will continue to be - the leaky, disgusting porta-potties blocking the sidewalk on 10th St.
And like we all say all the time... the garages getting a coat of paint would be so nice.
^^ I thought the green one looked the best, myself.
I also added a note about seeing if they could talk Peabody or someone into rebuilding Peabody Plaza to better connect Citygarden and Kiener Plaza. Obviously the remaining funds discussed here can't be used for that (not to mention it's out of CityArchRiver's scope) but it would be nice if something could be done to connect them. Peabody Plaza right now doesn't really feel like a part of the Mall, more like a private plaza for the office building.
I also added a note about seeing if they could talk Peabody or someone into rebuilding Peabody Plaza to better connect Citygarden and Kiener Plaza. Obviously the remaining funds discussed here can't be used for that (not to mention it's out of CityArchRiver's scope) but it would be nice if something could be done to connect them. Peabody Plaza right now doesn't really feel like a part of the Mall, more like a private plaza for the office building.
^Unfortunately, it IS a private plaza for the office building. Guards have been known to shoo people away for lingering.
^ Well that's bullsh*t, though not all that surprising. What was the original point of the half baked "half mall" plan if no one can use it. Still, I'd like to see an effort to get the owner of Gateway One to maybe loosen up a bit.
Filled out the survey. I thought the green building option was the least garish, suggested a small kiosk to sell snacks, water , ?ice cream
And wondered out loud why decent, clean restrooms are such an impossibility.
And wondered out loud why decent, clean restrooms are such an impossibility.
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I was actually told they aren't an impossibility, and people should ask for them if they feel inclined.imran wrote: ↑Nov 06, 2019Filled out the survey. I thought the green building option was the least garish, suggested a small kiosk to sell snacks, water , ?ice cream
And wondered out loud why decent, clean restrooms are such an impossibility.