urbanSTL

In December 2019 the Forest Park Southeast Neighborhood Association held a special meeting for Drury to share their draft of suggested plans on how they would engage the community in a process for what they called, The South Kingshighway Frontage Plan & Redevelopment Projects. Within their community engagement process it was to be assumed Drury would incorporate residential (with a hotel, of course). It was rumored that Koman (I'll have to find that source) would partner with them on the residential portion of the development.

Background/context of that meeting:

A "robust community engagement & development review process" was a requirement to ensure community support in Washu's RFQ to sell the 1.7 acres of land at 64/Kingshighway.

Months prior to this Drury meeting, Washu put out an RFQ.  Residents were worried that Washu would quietly select a developer without first getting community input, thus pigeonholing a plan that may or may not be what the neighborhood wanted (example: Drury = hotel, plus ingress/egress roads, loss of buildings on the national register of historic places, and so much more). So residents advocated for a multi-part process to inform the development of this land.

Soon after, the RFQ was pulled. 

However, concerns remained that Drury would be the only viable candidate (now and in the future) to purchase this land (based on the amount of contiguous parcels they owned at that location; their prior attempt to build a hotel there; and that they weren't (likely) seeking incentives). Thus, pressure from residents to define that process remained. 

Drury, taking the strategy that if they take the community up on developing this community engagement process, could fulfill Washu's requirement of a "robust community engagement & development review process" and earn (coax?) community support/trust, and could then be at the advantage to be selected to purchase Washu's land.

Pressure to define the community engagement process turned into a Neighborhood Association/Drury meeting, in which Drury presented their engagement process. The Association held a meeting in January '20 to gather community input on Drury's plan. Then the pandemic happened.

Kind of self-imposed trojan horse, really. Took pandemic to save us.

Skipped over quite a bit of detail, but thought I'd share. 

quincunx wrote: ↑

Dec 04, 2020

How aboutKinghighway at Oakland Curb Bumpouts.png

Looking at this is also a reminder for me that there are already people living right on this stretch of Kingshighway (see the houses south of Oakland). The community already exists. Need to stitch it back together with the correct development goals and initiatives. 

GoHarvOrGoHome wrote: ↑

Dec 30, 2020

Speaking of signs, any word on the Grove sign that got knocked down in the storm? I could be wrong but I don’t believe it ever got reinstalled

I've wondered the same. I've reached out to get answers. The sign(s) have been discussed in various Grove CID meetings, but it's nearly impossible to follow in the meeting minutes. Most minutes have disappeared from the website, or are so poorly written they might as well not be written at all. 

Until I receive something more definitive, here's the best I could muster:


From the time the signs went down to May 2020

• There are no available minutes or agendas. I believe their contracted social/web agency at one point proposed redoing the site because Wordpress was too hard and they wanted to use Squarespace. They took the site down, causing dead links. Not sure if the minute/agenda pdfs are still in their directory. So....

May 2020

• Grove CID issues an RFP for "for the Grove Sign Support Structure" (can't actually access the issued RFP). 
• There ends up being two bidders, Piros and Sitelines.

July

• The Grove Public Service Board motions to select Piros as the RFP winner for sign support structure. But at a separate Grove CID Board meeting, there are questions about the bids, which stalls approval. 
• In the same Grove CID Board meeting, it was said that the sign(s?) were "almost completed by DeMond Signs. The Grove CID only needed to pay the $2500 deductible."

August

•  At the Grove CID Board meeting, it was said that both support structure bidders would be able to start immediately and have the same approximate timeline for completion (how long, who knows, not stated). 
• BUT, the Board wants the Public Services Committee Board to host interviews for the two bidders
• At the August Grove Public Service Board meeting, they interview the two bidders and again motion to move forward with Piros.

September

• At the Grove CID Board meeting, they decide to table sign structure process and go back to both vendors with bid request.

October

• Grove CID Board meeting: agenda item notes the sign structure as a topic. No minutes posted.

November:

• Grove CID Board meeting: agenda item notes "New Sign Structure RFP" as a topic. No minutes posted.

December

• Grove CID Board meeting: agenda item again notes "New Sign Structure RFP" as a topic. And again, no minutes posted.

So what's the latest? Who knows. But I hope to have an answer soon.

Why the lackluster accountability of minutes and agendas? Park Central Development oversees the meetings and handles minutes/agenda. PCD has expanded their footprint and much of their focus is now north of Delmar, replicating much of what they've done in the 20+ years in the CWE & FPSE (which is great). BUT, I don't think they've hired appropriately to account for their increase in services and are at a point where if they're dividing their attention in so many ways, they're now prioritizing other neighborhoods. Where FPSE/The Grove are in a relativity stable state, other neighborhoods are now the focus. There's a strong hint of that in WUMCRC's 2020 fiscal report.

PCD's waning but still very visible involvement in FPSE has been a discussion between a group of FPSE residents over the past year or so. The FPSE Development Committee is an asset to the development process, but the committee's active participation is diminishing. Attendance at meetings isn't strong. There's stagnant membership (open seats and lack of new faces). Development packets don't always include all variances. Minutes and agendas haphazardly posted. I haven't seen PDC fiscal reports, but without a Gala to raise money and few donors (SLU stopped donating a couple years back), funds aren't likely what they used to be. 

Sorry - point is, we need to rethink of how PCD operates in FPSE if WUMCRC wants them to focus in other neighborhoods. What worked for this neighborhood 10, 15 years ago doesn't work as well now as it did then. 

/rant