urbanSTL

dweebe wrote: ↑

Nov 15, 2019

Those ramps, exits and the overpass were re-purposing of the land that was thankfully never used for I-755.
And I hope they tear that overpass down and rebuild at street level.

Well, I'm not sure what you mean by "street level", but replacing it would be expensive, and I haven't seen any mention of it in the city or Missouri projects in any of the I-64 / Jefferson Ave, / 22nd St. interchange proposals.  But that got me to pondering who would have to pay to replace it, and who currently owns and maintains the current Market Street overpass, the city or MoDOT?  I assume it is MoDOT, since I believe the state generally owns all of the infrastructure over and under their property.

Nice article from St. Louis Public Radio about relative proximities of major-league stadiums around the country, including some very cool aerial photo-graphics:

https://apps.stlpublicradio.org/stadium-district/

framer wrote: ↑

Nov 16, 2019

Nice article from St. Louis Public Radio about relative proximities of major-league stadiums around the country, including some very cool aerial photo-graphics:

Philadelphia and Detroit probably have the most central concentration of three major sports facilities in each city: 





Side note: the interior of Detroit's Fox Theatre (just west of Comerica Park and south of Little Caesar's Arena) is nearly identical to our Fox Theatre, even down to the massive chandelier - just a year older with 500 more seats.

I guess it kind of depends on what you mean by central.

Philly’s stadiums, while close to each other, are in a sea of parking at the far southern end of the city. That sea of parking is also separated from the rest of the city by an interstate highway.

I get that they were just using distance as the determiner in the article. But all of the following 5 or so cities, including St. Louis, have or will have much more walkable and urban arrangements of stadiums.

The one thing that I thought was going to be pretty neat and very marketable if MLS stadium was south of market was the idea of Clark being marketed as the All American Sports Corridor.    Little less sellable at this point but I do like the fact that MLS and Taylor family didn't want to entertain anything other then a downtown MLS or at least gave that appearance..  

But who knows maybe my out of the stadium thought of MLS being a grander scheme for Taylor family to eventually secure the Chargers by first getting them to St Louis, then buying and then eventually putting up a new stadium of market will result in the St Louis having the most downtown pro sorts stadiums and teams present.      

The property at 2000-2006 Olive, and the triangular parking lot behind it, were sold to one TKFC LC at the end of October.  Just a guess, but TKFC is probably either Taylor-Kindle or Taylor-Kavanaugh Football Club.  Or I guess it could be a hint at the future team name...Turtle Kickers? Tiny Knickers? 

Anyway, those are the only properties I see that have changed hands so far.

^ i've been assured by someone very important that it's Turtle Knickers FC.

Do mutant ninja turtles even wear knickers? I don't recall any. I mean . . . the pants are sorta built in, right? They come with the shell.

Not much new here but some attention from a non-local online outlet.

curbed.com

They can't remove that w/b I-64 exit ramp to Market fast enough.

I walked by tonight and saw a newly absent guardrail on the north side of Market, straight north of the ramp, plus car parts and lightpole pieces both on Market and down below.  So it appears that yet again, some moron drove straight through the exit to Market and off the other side onto the ramps below here.

It can't be more than a few weeks old, but I didn't see any news stories. This seems to happen every year or two at this ramp.

^It could have been during the ice - snow storm a few weeks back.  Those overpasses ice over before anything else, and the city didn't seem to spray or sand any of them.

Wow, the price tag on this thing skyrocketed pretty fast (though I assume it includes the practice fields and offices as well as the main stadium itself): $461 million according to that P-D article. But as long as the Taylor family is footing the lion's share of the bill, not my concern.

DTGstl314 wrote: ↑

Dec 03, 2019

Wow, the price tag on this thing skyrocketed pretty fast (though I assume it includes the practice fields and offices as well as the main stadium itself): $461 million according to that P-D article. But as long as the Taylor family is footing the lion's share of the bill, not my concern.

Property acquisition, the below-grade parking garage, earthwork over a 31 acre site, and many tens of millions of public infrastructure costs are in there as well.  

There are whole lot of streetlights, signals, sidewalks, sewers, stormwater collection, utilities, etc. in and around this project site that will have to be torn up and rebuilt or built from scratch, and a significant makeover will be required for the Market St. overpass.  Clark Ave. and 22nd St. were going to be rebuilt anyway as part of the new I-64 interchange, but there will certainly be some reconfiguration and significant additional costs to accommodate stadium and parking garage access, and (hopefully) to accommodate all of the increased pedestrian traffic.

MLS group may need millions in state tax credits for new St. Louis soccer stadium

https://fox2now.com/2019/12/03/st-louis-inquire-million-dollar-tax-credits-to-help-build-new-soccer-stadium/

Black02AltimaSE wrote:

True, but they are also supposed to remediate, demo, and clean up the site before they turn it over, which in this case...well, let's just hope we don't have to wait for MoDOT to do that or the MLS team will be playing in Busch Stadium for years.

^It seems to me that is part of the reason the actual stadium location moved north of Market, because the land was more suitable to build on quickly.

Part maybe, but I think that was just speculation.  Only the MLS team and a few with the city know the main reason(s).   MoDOT will still have some demo, remediation, and clean-up responsibility for the North of Market site, unless the new owners indemnify the state and take the property as is (at less than FMV) to speed up that process. 

But there are at least 4 other solid reasons I've seen for a North of Market site, including:

• Potential conflicts and delays caused by the overlap of new I-64 interchange and stadium construction on the South of Market site
• Acquisition and removal of at least part of LHM's Union Station West parking lot would have been required for the South of Market site, at a critical time for their investment when new attractions are opening at US, potentially pitting one developer against the other at City Hall
• The MLS team partners' stated desire to undertake or partner on ancillary development around the new stadium; there is more opportunity for that North of Market, and fewer potential conflicts with LHM's plans for US
• Stadium construction could potentially begin immediately on a large part of the North of Market site if MoDOT agreed, with only the one off-ramp to Chestnut being closed, giving MoDOT flexibility to plan the remaining closures around the new interchange construction, and maybe speeding up the property acquisition

Construction team coming together with Kwame involvement announced.  Not much new but things must be moving forward if they intend to have stadium ready for 2022 season as stated in PD article

https://www.stltoday.com/business/local ... 914a4.html

The new stadium is expected to open ahead of the 2022 MLS season. KWAME will help in project planning and scheduling, value engineering and budgeting, selecting project partners, maximizing MBE/WBE participation, coordinating with the city and utility companies, and other project management tasks.

A few notes from the MLS / MoDOT Open House last week; it's all subject to change of course, but the architectural rep seemed pretty certain that the overall stadium / training facility / street grid plan will include:

• Replacement of the Market Street overpass; which is apparently in the scope of the new I-64 interchange access street and grid reconstruction
• A covered, below-grade service access / loading dock space for the stadium, with access from 22nd St. south of the new Fairfield Inn garage, via a ramp that descends between the hotel and training facility and under the new Market St. overpass
• Similar street level appearance on all four sides of the stadium, with fan entrances, views into the stadium, and sidewalks integrated with the entrance plaza all the way around, i.e. no intrusive curb cuts, blank back of house walls, ugly loading docks, service entrances, VIP parking lots, etc., and hopefully, as few visible retaining walls as possible

Also heard that Schlafly Tap Room has big plans to increase their visibility from the stadium, Union Station and I-64.

PD write up on planned downtown ramp closures for MLS stadium construction along with graphic on future Jeff interchange improvements.    I don't believe their is much new than what is already known but definite confirmation of things moving full steam ahead..  Assume everything will look vey different for west downtown in the near future 

https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/met ... 724c3.html

Feels like we'll be getting part of our city back: 

dredger wrote: ↑

Jan 23, 2020

PD write up on planned downtown ramp closures for MLS stadium construction along with graphic on future Jeff interchange improvements.    I don't believe their is much new than what is already known but definite confirmation of things moving full steam ahead..  Assume everything will look vey different for west downtown in the near future 

https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/met ... 724c3.html

This is very misleading. The ramp work has nothing to do with the stadium. I would know, I planned the funding for it when I was at MoDOT. This was planned for the new NGA HQ, cleaning up the 20th street mess and making Jefferson a full interchange.