What do you think are the worst/best empty lots in St. Louis? Which lots would piece together the urban fabric the most if developed?



A few that come to mind:



Ballpark Village

Park & Mississippi Ave (Lafayette Sq.)

NE & SE Corners of Lindell & Grand (SLU lawns)

Euclid & Pine (proposed Mills Euclid Walk site)

Kingshighway & Pine, Kingshighway & Lindell, Euclid & Lindell

NE Corner Delmar & Kingshighway (Vacant Schnucks)

Clayton & Hanley (Vacant Schnucks)

Rosedale & Delmar (Proposed Loop Center)

Clayton Hole (Proposed Trianon Development)

Jefferson & Arsenal (Benton Park)

Tucker & Olive (Proposed Park Pacific Garage)

14th St. & Washington (Canceled Skyhouse)

Grand & Chouteau (SLU lawn)

Carondlet Ave btw Bemiston & Central in Clayton (Proposed Montgomery Bank Tower)

Laclede's Landing Blvd. & N 2nd St.

Every Parking Lot on Washington Ave. btw 4th St. & 20th St.



I'm not including garages (including the loathsome Delmar & Debaliviere MetroBus garage), although I wouldn't mind seeing all of them razed and replaced with Apartments/Offices. I am including SLU's productive lawn projects.

RE: Park & Mississippi Ave (Lafayette Sq.)



I spoke with the developer of this, as I was interested in housing in the area. He said they've pushed it back to Mid 2010 opening, with 2009 construction.



Blah. They'll probably never end up building the thing, especially at the prices he was asking.

Spring and Vista behind SLU hospital. Used to be transit owned not sure who owns it now.

The Riverfront. Don't know if you can consider it an empty lot, but it is certainly a waste of space. A properly redeveloped riverfront could successfully tie together Laclede's Landing, The Arch, and the future development at Choteau's Landing. To have it as parking is just baffling.

I'll go with the parking lot at 6th and Olive. It's a shame to have surface lot in our CBD. I know parking is needed in DT and Chicago has surface lots close to theirs, but it seems like a big hole.



Probably #2 is Lindell and Kinghighway.

Surface lot on the Southeast corner of Broadway and Spruce.

Busch Stadium on the west

Pointe 400 on the east

Tums on the North

I-40/64 on the south

^aw c'mon I park there!

The Park around the Arch

The Gateway Mall

The land just west of Union Station to Grand

Kingshighway and Lindell

The vacant land just north of Lacledes Landing

Tucker and Olive.



NW corner.



SW corner.

The one at the southeast corner of Kingshighway and Southwest is an underutilized, high-profile bummer.

brickandmortar wrote:I'll go with the parking lot at 6th and Olive. It's a shame to have surface lot in our CBD. I know parking is needed in DT and Chicago has surface lots close to theirs, but it seems like a big hole.

The Boyd's store stood there until it was demolished in the 1980s. You can thank May Company for that bold display of vision.



I think the absolute worst waste of space in the city is on the other side of the Railway Exchange Building and Macy's- US Bank Plaza at Seventh and Locust streets where the Ambassador Theater stood until the mid-1990s. Its massing and exterior details complemented the adjacent Railway Exchange and Mercantile Trust buildings nicely. Also, a row of solid if undistinguished buildings along Seventh Street made way for the garish St. Louis Centre in the 1980s, but the ultimate crime was committed when the Ambassador Theater's ornate interior was mercilessly stripped away before the building was demolished in the mid 1990s for a concrete plaza that's as useless as it is unattractive and unwelcoming.



At least where the Century stood there will be a Schnucks at Ninth and Olive streets that will serve downtown workers and the growing number of residents- while there's no chance to recapture the Ambassador Theater- or even anything that will make the land where it once stood useful and attractive again.

What about the most egregious parking garage?

STLCardsBlues1989 wrote:What about the most egregious parking garage?

Tough question, as most downtown garages are poorly designed IMHO. You could take your pick- the Kiener garages, Stadium East and Stadium West garages, or the Cupples Station garage closest to Interstate 64/Highway 40. Of course, this is only a partial list.



The funny thing is, the garage that angers preservationists the most is perhaps one of the better designed garages downtown- and that's the Ninth Street Garage that will soon be home to the downtown Schnucks location. Say what you will about the loss of the Century Building as I don't like it either, but that garage looks far better than the horribly designed Plain Jane garages that litter our downtown and limit the full potential of our urban landscape.



Beyond Skinker Boulevard, I agree with Juice, as the garage behind The Meridian at Brentwood is hideous.

A different kind of garage, perhaps even more damaging:



The Debaliviere and Delmar MetroBus garage. What a terrible place for this monstrosity. Sadly it sits right in the middle of the proposed Loop Trolley route, Presenting a huge barrier to the entire Loop/Delmar/Debaliviere corridor.



Metro needs some money, and they are decreasing services. Why don't they leave a small fraction of the site as a yard for trolleys and sell the rest. Someone could develop it as a mixed use/mixed income public housing area with a pocket full of tax credits, a la Old North St. Louis. The development would have the loop 4 blocks away, Metrolink 3 blocks away (on either side), Forest Park 5 blocks away, and a trolley at its doorstep.



Also the stadium garages are horrible.

JuiceInDogtown wrote:

STLCardsBlues1989 wrote:What about the most egregious parking garage?

Not in the city, but that huge parking garage you can see off of 64 in Brentwood that was recently built is pretty terrible. Not to mention it lights up the sky.

I don't think there is anything bad about the garage itself. It's a very nice garage to use on the inside. In my opinion, the only bad thing about the garage is that it is so much bigger in size than all the buildings it is attached to.



I've been interested in exploring all the downtown parking garages and rating them. Some of them are very nice: the garage at the NW corner of 7th & Pine is very open and airy on the inside, it's clean, easy to enter and exit, and has an excellent set of stairs with windows to the outside. Others are absolutely horrible: cramped, dark, and smelly dungeons with odd configurations that make you wonder where the hell is the exit (I'm looking at you, Kiener). Some garages make you wonder whether their designers even considered the need for people to walk from their vehicles to their destinations and back; most seem to have left this as an afterthought.

stlmark wrote:The one at the southeast corner of Kingshighway and Southwest is an underutilized, high-profile bummer.

You know what always bugs me about that intersection? It's the way the library turns it's back on the City. Instead of putting the main entrance facing the two major streets, they put it in back, facing a parking lot. For that matter, Southwest Bank across the street does the same thing.

stlgasm wrote: ↑

Jan 22, 2020

This is such a great thread and I think it’s time to revive it.  Here are a couple head-scratchers, besides the ones mentioned above):
-Forest Park Pkwy & Vandeventer, NW corner
-DeBaliviere Ave across from Crossroads School
-Delmar & Des Peres Ave, NW corner (empty taxi garage adjacent to Metro station, What?)
-Shaw & Tower Grove Ave, NW corner (seems like prime real estate across from Botanical Garden and resurgent Botanical Heights commercial district)
-Chouteau Ave- basically every intersection between Jefferson & Grand

These are technically in the County but worth mentioning:
-Seminary Place & San Bonita Ave (DeMun) NE & NW corners
-FPP & Forsyth- “Clayton hole” right next to Metro station
-Forsyth & Lee Ave across from new Centene garage (Downtown Clayton)

So many more that I’m forgetting, but I’m sure others can fill in the blanks... literally!

Are the lots on Delmar just west of Kingshighway still empty? I remember there being the sunflower field there a few years ago. 

Does Delmar + Euclid count?