The OPUS Group is planning a 207-unit development to the North of Olive Boulevard and East of Price Road. The project will replace 23 single-family homes. It seems like it has been proposed for several months now and flew under the radar. The first submission to the City of Olivette was in December. Construction could begin by years end and be complete in March 2023.

Below is a site plan and some renderings of the project. Not the best project, but it becomes one of a number of projects changing Olive Boulevard (the Oliver, Olive Crossing, Market at Olive, OPUS). 
https://www.olivettemo.com/605/The-Opus ... em-Project

Looks pretty cheap for an Opus project.  

I wish Yawitz wasn't ruining the railroad ROW. But waiting for the County to expand Metrolink is probably a fools errand. The amount of investment going in shows how Metro service here really could have coaxed and nurtured some denser, improved land use over what's proposed. 

Transit regrets aside, it's interesting how this intersection and Delmar & 170 are suddenly seeing significant investment. 

^That'd be a nasty curve and at least the E/W segment is still an active line. (Serving a surprisingly large number of industries.) If Metrolink ever builds through there I expect they'll want to avoid that right of way to an extent. The old Rock Island passenger line (to which Framer was referring) would probably serve better. And they can probably go around new development just like they did on the Terminal West Belt near Sunnen. Follow the TRRA West Belt north from where the existing Shrewsbury extension leaves it to the site of the old bridge over 170, balloon south and west around Yawitz, then use the passenger line to rejoin south side of the Rock Island RoW following that until you cross under Page. Then break away and parallel Page into Westport. You'd cut a couple of spurs, but most are to the north. (And you could probably do a Midtown style workaround where the switching line serves those customers at night when Metrolink isn't operating.)

Of course, this all assumes the Westport extension happens one day. Honestly, it wouldn't be terrible. It'd be a fairly cheap extension to a lot of jobs. But the TRRA West Belt through there is all a trail now anyway, so it's probably a dead letter.

symphonicpoet wrote: ↑

May 12, 2021

^That'd be a nasty curve and at least the E/W segment is still an active line. (Serving a surprisingly large number of industries.) If Metrolink ever builds through there I expect they'll want to avoid that right of way to an extent. The old Rock Island passenger line (to which Framer was referring) would probably serve better. And they can probably go around new development just like they did on the Terminal West Belt near Sunnen. Follow the TRRA West Belt north from where the existing Shrewsbury extension leaves it to the site of the old bridge over 170, balloon south and west around Yawitz, then use the passenger line to rejoin south side of the Rock Island RoW following that until you cross under Page. Then break away and parallel Page into Westport. You'd cut a couple of spurs, but most are to the north. (And you could probably do a Midtown style workaround where the switching line serves those customers at night when Metrolink isn't operating.)

Of course, this all assumes the Westport extension happens one day. Honestly, it wouldn't be terrible. It'd be a fairly cheap extension to a lot of jobs. But the TRRA West Belt through there is all a trail now anyway, so it's probably a dead letter.

I'm sure the trail could run alongside the MetroLink line if the route was chosen. The area would have to be made wider anyway to support the tracks and infrastructure for the MetroLink. Including a few more feet of width on one side for a pedestrian trail wouldn't kill anyone.

I'm just thinking that the MetroLink should only be extended to just past Olive for now while alternatives to Westport are selected later. Although I personally would prefer if the MetroLink ran straight up 170 and connect to the Red Line, offering South County residents a direct connection to the Airport from Shrewsbury Station without needing to transfer at Forest Park-Debaliviere. Maybe name it the "Purple Line" or "Green Line" since it would only share 5 stations with the Blue Line and 2 with the Red Line. 

This is getting the thread off track, but it is interesting to think about, but @wabash makes a point. The McKenzie, Avenir, Olive Crossing, Market at Olive, and the OPUS project are no small investments and makes you wonder what the situation would've been if the MetroLink was already built through here. More likely than not we would be seeing denser and high-quality TOD. But even if the MetroLink runs through here one day, the stops at Olive and Delmar will already be worlds better than the Brentwood stop (which is a hellscape for a transit station). At least Olive and Delmar will have job centers and hundreds of apartments and houses nearby. Brentwood has a parking garage, strip malls, and I-64.

This actually makes The Standard look not so bad after all. 

sc4mayor wrote: ↑

May 12, 2021

^ Provided Cross County to the north ever gets done, I imagine it wouldn't be impossible to use that rail corridor that branches off near Page to head to Westport.

That rendering you posted shows just how wasteful, cost additive and longer such a route would be. And the station would be sandwiched between a highway and Costco, instead of on the more densely developing (if not perfectly walkable) west side of 170. Anyways, I don't think the County leadership has ever shown any real appetite for any such route. 

^Responded to you in another thread. 

Suburban, surrounded by parking, cheaper looking materials, and replaces 23 existing homes. This project isn't what we're used to seeing from Opus, who set a high bar for themselves with Park East Tower, 9 North Euclid, Ceylon, and Citizen Park.

But I suppose taking it out of that Opus context, it's no worse/different than a lot of the other multifamily projects we've seen proposed or built around 40, 170, 270, Olive, St. Charles, etc... in the last decade. 

This is a lousy project. Ugly building. Sea of parking with very limited covered parking. Lame amenity space. No retail or restaurant space. I would not consider living here.

The site's been cleared. Haven't heard anything lately, though.