urbanSTL

Would have preferred a renovated Children's building than generic new construction.

Stltoday- Municipal Court hotel developer, city treasurer at odds over adjacent lot

https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/gov ... f.amp.html

Hotel developers want to use the lot to build a hotel garage, which also would have retail and restaurant space.

Something bigger and better would be such a better use of this site.  The area around EC is set to become a parking wasteland for the next 50 years it seems.

^We could use a good natural history museum if someone with deep pockets and a love of the sciences is reading this thread. Get some local mastodons in there for a start. Showcase some SE MO fossils and talk up the Mississippians. Could be a good compliment to or cooperative effort of the history museum, science center, botanical garden, and zoo. (Though I would not care to see it come out of their budgets. Only if someone else funds the thing.) Even the art museum could get in on the act. They have quite a lot of stuff in their collection that would compliment a natural history museum well.

Fund it, get the gallery space built, and invite other local museums to display interesting stuff in their collections they otherwise lack the space to show off. A museum isn't a bad idea at all. It really looks like one anyway. And courtrooms could make good galleries.

I love a good hotel as much as anybody, this building is way too grand for a hotel. Would be a waste. A marquee museum makes a lot of sense here and would make good daily use of the ridiculous amount of parking in the area. In my ideal world, the museum would eventually expand over the surface lots to the south of the muni courts building and City Hall. Utilize underground parking for city and museum employees and turn the green space between the two buildings into a public outdoor exhibit sponsored by the Botanical Garden.

How about we liberate the Grant archives from Mississippi and turn it into the US Grant presidential Museum and Library?

^Not sure anyone would be willing to fund that in this day and age.

I would love to see a Natural History museum here, but I don't remember the interior of this building. Are there many large, open spaces, or just the courtrooms?

If dreams are on the table...

Any word? 

Adding onto the pipe-dream thread, does anyone have any photos of the interior?

An exclusive look inside the Old Municipal Courts Building, rotting away next to City Hall

https://www.kmov.com/news/an-exclusive- ... _id=990844

I was wondering about that project. Really sad. Just another example of how we really shoot ourselves in the foot as a City sometimes.

not sure why the Treasurer's office gets to decide what constitutes a viable development plan. and i feel like she/they are kind-of missing the forest here. not crazy about a hotel either but i'm less crazy about the continued deterioration of the municipal courts building.

Thanks for posting link Kipflet,  To bad Treasurer hid behind the spokesperson.  Empty twenty years, no revenues and or no taxes with no foreseeable use of old muni courts building and a lot on the backside/along Clark primed for development.   What is more valuable for the city a one upside gain and or one more surface lot being developed & on tax rolls for decades to come.  

Adelani said he wouldn't comment on that architect's lawsuit. News 4 wanted to talk with the Treasurer for this story, but instead, we heard from a spokesperson who re-iterated they were opposed to selling city owned property for what they say is $10 million below market value.

An exclusive look inside the Old Municipal Courts Building, rotting away next to City Hall
https://www.kmov.com/news/an-exclusive- ... _id=990844

sc4mayor wrote: ↑

Mar 09, 2021

Eh...I still don’t want it to be a hotel.

I was really skeptical about this plan until 1) I saw that it was planned to be a Hyatt Place and 2) the architect mentioned worked on the Hyatt Place at the Custom House in St. Paul, which is a beautiful renovation. It likely means the same developer was involved. I got pretty excited. 

I'd still love to see someone turn this into a natural history museum. Proper rocks and dinosaurs and maybe a mastadon or two. You could talk about our mining history: the clay and the limestone both under and around us. The caves, the lead, the crinoids and inland seas. Granite from Elephant Rocks or iron ore from Ironton. Ancient fish and mammals. Native settlement before Laclede's arrival. Talk about Chief Pontiac. His grave is supposed to have been lost somewhere beneath downtown. (Purportedly near Fourth and Walnut.) That building is an absolutely ideal museum. And we could always use one more.

^I figure MO History has enough in storage almost by itself to populate that amount of gallery space. Maybe add some local interest art. See if the folks behind the old natural history house museum at Oak Knoll would participate. (Assuming they didn't give their entire collection to the Science Center. And if they did . . . ask the Science Center to join in.) Maybe get MO Conservation and the state parks on board. It would require some creativity, but I bet we have more than enough in local collections already to make something interesting happen. Just so long as extant institutions see it as a benefit and not a threat. Make it a partnership that helps all of them.


Ultrasaurus approves of this message*

*Ultrasaurus does not approve of the discovery that he is a chimera and most of what makes him belongs to supersaurus. Or that a dinosaur in Korean grabbed his name. But hey, them's the breaks and you can't let them interfere with good Missouri Natural History playtime.

No animals or toy dinosaurs were harmed in the making of this picture.

I agree that hotel wasn't my first thought when it comes to this building.  Music/event venue is out.  Residential would seem somewhat awkward, but the building exterior wise doesn't look that far off from a lot of the school house conversations.  Museum would be far more fitting, just worry Downtown STL continuing the spiral into tourist nation, though that use is far more beneficial than a vacant building at any rate.  I do really like KMOV's sensational 'crumbling' comment as its visual equity situated next to the patina'd City Hall makes it look like a diamond.  Not that I hate the patina.  Just pointing out.  I also agree that the Treasurer should get prodded for this one.  If we got a mixed space development on the parking lot, it'd immediately elevate the outside of Enterprise Center as well.  Maybe even just a 1+3+5 retail garage residential component.