urbanSTL

My guess is to prevent pedestrians from walking on that part of the slope, with the secondary function of providing additional seating.

Looks to be largely aesthetic, too. Get some foliage in there.

StlToday - Gateway to what? Arch renovations yet to fulfill promise to St. Louis

https://www.stltoday.com/business/local ... cbc84.html

I agree with the article.  Not nearly enough going on at the Arch area.  Not like the old days.  Why not bring back Live on the Levee with free band concerts each weekend on the stage below the Arch steps.  They raised it up just for that reason.  They used to have bands like New Republic, etc. that were popular.  Now - nothing.  They don't ever use the stage at all or steps for seating as near as I can tell. 

Who does the programming of the Arch grounds? They should have concerts weekly at least.  Instead of going downtown for music, we go to Kirkwood Plaza across from Kirkwood City hall for free weekly concerts.

River levels should not be an excuse.  London, Portland, Paris and a lot of other cities have active rivers and still manage to use their riverfronts for entertainment.

gary kreie wrote: ↑

Apr 24, 2022

I agree with the article.  Not nearly enough going on at the Arch area.  Not like the old days.  Why not bring back Live on the Levee with free band concerts each weekend on the stage below the Arch steps.  They raised it up just for that reason.  They used to have bands like New Republic, etc. that were popular.  Now - nothing.  They don't ever use the stage at all or steps for seating as near as I can tell. 

Who does the programming of the Arch grounds? They should have concerts weekly at least.  Instead of going downtown for music, we go to Kirkwood Plaza across from Kirkwood City hall for free weekly concerts.

River levels should not be an excuse.  London, Portland, Paris and a lot of other cities have active rivers and still manage to use their riverfronts for entertainment.

I could be wrong, but my understanding is that it's harder for them to do that now that the Arch is a national park due to federal regulations and whatnot.

City arch . . . crickets. I don't know that I'll ever be happy with the way the project cut the arch off from the river or Laclede's Landing from everything. Raising Lenore Sullivan just makes the riverfront look all that much more cramped. And the lack of boats makes it feel empty. It's never going to be a beach. The current is too fast and the bank too steep. It's too commercial. They need to bring back some boats somehow. I feel like food trucks are just a really poor substitute for food barges and boats. Boats tell a story that makes contextual sense. Trucks are just . . . meh. While the bridge was a good idea the riverfront improvements seem mostly to have missed the mark badly.

symphonicpoet wrote:City arch . . . crickets. I don't know that I'll ever be happy with the way the project cut the arch off from the river or Laclede's Landing from everything. Raising Lenore Sullivan just makes the riverfront look all that much more cramped. And the lack of boats makes it feel empty. It's never going to be a beach. The current is too fast and the bank too steep. It's too commercial. They need to bring back some boats somehow. I feel like food trucks are just a really poor substitute for food barges and boats. Boats tell a story that makes contextual sense. Trucks are just . . . meh. While the bridge was a good idea the riverfront improvements seem mostly to have missed the mark badly.

Well we *could* put a beach next to the river…Paris did so. The Landing would need to be much more vibrant than it is now though.

To your main point though, I agree the improvements missed the mark, but outside of redeveloping what surrounds the Arch grounds, I’m not sure any improvements wouldn’t have missed the mark. The problem is downtown is not super vibrant compared to other downtowns, the landing is pretty desolate (although it is getting better and the future is bright), Chouteau’s landing is a wasteland, the highways are still cutting it off to a large extent. There’s nothing keeping tourists around the Arch, they come see it and then go somewhere else. Laclede’s and Chouteau’s landings should be cool areas with bars, hotels, apartments, rooftop restaurants, etc and downtown should be a lot more bustling than it currently is. Couple those changes with more concerts and other events at the Arch that others have suggested and the Arch becomes one of the most visited monuments in America.


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^I think what we're missing is that the riverfront used to be an entertainment destination in its own right. There were theatres and ballrooms on the river. (The Goldenrod and the Admiral.) There were restaurants on the river itself. There were always people there on a summer day. And that flowed over into the landing. All of that began to change in 1993. The Inaugural wasn't the only thing that floated away: there was also a floating restaurant. (That hit the Poplar Street Bridge.) I forget when the Goldenrod moved, exactly, but it was around that time. The Admiral came and went a few times, as did the Robert E. Lee. (Not that I'm suggesting we bring back a restaurant with precisely that name.) But before about 1993 there were usually three to four significant attractions moored in front of the Arch. City/Arch/River concentrated on fixing the connection to downtown, but that moat was always there during the life of the Arch so it really can't have been the cause of the drop in attendance. And C/A/R did absolutely nothing to really bring permanent non-Arch attractions back. A concrete podium where you can put your stage is nice for a festival, but those last a week each at best. To really make it work you need something to bring families down the other forty eight or forty nine weeks a year. Food trucks really aren't going to cut it. But a bunch of barges made up to look like steamboats is almost an amusement park. That can bring people day in and day out. And that, boats, is what we need. I'm completely certain of it. Nothing else will really bring people down to the river. Without boats its just a bunch of brown water.

So C/A/R pretty much completely missed the mark. I get it. I like the lid. It's sexy. But in the end, I think it was a solution in search of a problem. It was an excuse to do something a lot of people wanted to do anyway. It didn't fix the real problem, so the real problem is still there slowly getting worse.

Suds wrote: ↑

Apr 24, 2022

gary kreie wrote: ↑

Apr 24, 2022

I agree with the article.  Not nearly enough going on at the Arch area.  Not like the old days.  Why not bring back Live on the Levee with free band concerts each weekend on the stage below the Arch steps.  They raised it up just for that reason.  They used to have bands like New Republic, etc. that were popular.  Now - nothing.  They don't ever use the stage at all or steps for seating as near as I can tell. 

Who does the programming of the Arch grounds? They should have concerts weekly at least.  Instead of going downtown for music, we go to Kirkwood Plaza across from Kirkwood City hall for free weekly concerts.

River levels should not be an excuse.  London, Portland, Paris and a lot of other cities have active rivers and still manage to use their riverfronts for entertainment.

I could be wrong, but my understanding is that it's harder for them to do that now that the Arch is a national park due to federal regulations and whatnot.

The Arch grounds were a National Park back when Live on the Levee was active.  I still think even regular rotating free local cover acts on the river stage all summer (like, say, Ticket to the Beatles, or Kevin Babb, etc.) would go a long way toward bringing folks back to the riverfront.  They don't have to plan - they can just show up knowing something will be happening.

gary kreie wrote: ↑

Apr 25, 2022

Suds wrote: ↑

Apr 24, 2022

gary kreie wrote: ↑

Apr 24, 2022

I agree with the article.  Not nearly enough going on at the Arch area.  Not like the old days.  Why not bring back Live on the Levee with free band concerts each weekend on the stage below the Arch steps.  They raised it up just for that reason.  They used to have bands like New Republic, etc. that were popular.  Now - nothing.  They don't ever use the stage at all or steps for seating as near as I can tell. 

Who does the programming of the Arch grounds? They should have concerts weekly at least.  Instead of going downtown for music, we go to Kirkwood Plaza across from Kirkwood City hall for free weekly concerts.

River levels should not be an excuse.  London, Portland, Paris and a lot of other cities have active rivers and still manage to use their riverfronts for entertainment.

I could be wrong, but my understanding is that it's harder for them to do that now that the Arch is a national park due to federal regulations and whatnot.

The Arch grounds were a National Park back when Live on the Levee was active.  I still think even regular rotating free local cover acts on the river stage all summer (like, say, Ticket to the Beatles, or Kevin Babb, etc.) would go a long way toward bringing folks back to the riverfront.  They don't have to plan - they can just show up knowing something will be happening.

The Arch grounds were managed by the National Park Service before, but it's only been an official national park since 2018. That designation comes with much more conditions for things like concerts. This is why you hardly ever even see food trucks or anything on the Arch grounds. I agree with you, though; weekly concerts during the summer would be a huge boon for the area.

^ seems like it was a mistake to make it a National park then. The Arch grounds are the perfect place for many events in STL. It is the Grant Park of St. Louis. A true gathering place for the region. It should be filled with different touch points and things to do, like Grant Park in Chicago is.

I think it was a mistake to build the giant park around the Arch in the first place. It should’ve been a dense, car-free neighborhood, filled with cafes and shops with the Arch peaking over it. And then the Gateway Mall would’ve been able to function as a true park cutting through downtown and connecting it at all to the Arch


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CG91 wrote: ↑

Apr 25, 2022

^ seems like it was a mistake to make it a National park then. The Arch grounds are the perfect place for many events in STL. It is the Grant Park of St. Louis. A true gathering place for the region. It should be filled with different touch points and things to do, like Grant Park in Chicago is.

I think it was a mistake to build the giant park around the Arch in the first place. It should’ve been a dense, car-free neighborhood, filled with cafes and shops with the Arch peaking over it. And then the Gateway Mall would’ve been able to function as a true park cutting through downtown and connecting it at all to the Arch


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A true gathering place for the region. It should be filled with different touch points and things to do, like Forest Park in St. Louis is.   
DTSTL has Kiener/City Garden as their Grant Park analog.

CG91 wrote: ↑

Apr 25, 2022

^ seems like it was a mistake to make it a National park then. The Arch grounds are the perfect place for many events in STL. It is the Grant Park of St. Louis. A true gathering place for the region. It should be filled with different touch points and things to do, like Grant Park in Chicago is.

I think it was a mistake to build the giant park around the Arch in the first place. It should’ve been a dense, car-free neighborhood, filled with cafes and shops with the Arch peaking over it. And then the Gateway Mall would’ve been able to function as a true park cutting through downtown and connecting it at all to the Arch


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I'm conflicted because on one hand the Arch grounds are gorgeous. On a nice summer day, it might actually be my favorite park in STL. But there should also be more things to do right there to take advantage of the tourists and give residents more of a reason to go to the Arch. I think both could exist simultaneously; I don't know why the NPS is so against allowing more activities/restaurants/etc. there.

The previous administration demonstrated that it's possible to strike national park lands off the list and put them in private hands. Maybe it's time to find a way to transfer the Arch and its lands out of the NPS and into the hands of the city or state. The NPS hates the thing anyway. (Until it's time to make a new poster at least.)

I think the arch grounds are nice, as a downtown resident it works as a great local park to lay on the grass or go running. I think what really needs to change is the buildings facing it, the physical connection to downtown has been improved but the experience is never going to feel connected when you essentially have the back of the Mansion House et al. complex on the north and the abandoned Millennium Hotel on the south. How nice would it be to have some sort cafe or bar with a patio right next to the arch grounds or any sort of storefront facing it? Of course the highway moat is still there and that needs to be fixed, but in the meantime the areas directly next to the lid and the other 2 overpasses could be more welcoming to park visitors and maybe get people to stay in that area.

I don't think the Archgrounds itself can ever -- or should ever -- have the attractions that Forest Park has, but it should also feature a better use of park space. Too much of the park is just grass and emptiness. This works when the Blues win a Stanley Cup, but it doesn't work any other time.  

I wish we could see the park become a greater version of itself. Have self-guided tour plaques that bring people down closer to the river or into a restored Laclede's Landing or Chouteau's Landing. I love the idea of steamboats -- or fake steamboats -- on the riverfront. Aren't they a quintessential part of St. Louis riverfront history? Why don't we have them? 

Fake steamboats that are actually self-guided museums, playgrounds, restaurants, and merch shops could be one way to go. What if people could have a hotel room on one? 

Another thing I want to see is a better reason for people to be on the walking paths within the park. They're great if you're there to gawk. But couldn't they be better with a few athletic courts (pickleball, tennis?), workout equipment, splash areas for kids, Tower Grove-type pavilions, and other green space attractions that draw people into our other city parks? 

A cheaper fix....  Lenor K Sullivan and the surrounding areas should have lots of vendors, food, trinkets and oddities (more than they have now). Make it a pedestrian street at times. 
Some music performers and weird oddities like you see in a place like Rome. By the Coliseum, there are weird mimes, guys dressed in Roman soldier outfits which make for good photo-ops. While those things are goofy, tourists and kids like that stuff. Cart vendors should have food options, as well as other higher quality options. A fun carnival feel would not be a bad thing on Lenor K. My dream is for a fleet of at the very least 4 riverboats be brought in. I loved the McDonald's boat as a small kid. Some boats with food and entertainment would be cool. There has to be a way to engineer a moat or some way to safely and securely lock in boats to the waterfront. 

It seems like the Landing is moving in the direction of a residential, mixed-use neighborhood, so maybe a revitalization of the south riverfront with walking access from the Arch grounds is the way to go, regarding shops, restaurants and entertainment to keep Arch-goers down there.  The Millennium Hotel site has to be a priority. What an eyesore. The City should use some of the Rams cash to incentivize a developer to move on this property. It is so ridiculous to have an abandoned building on your riverfront as a welcome mat, along with your tallest tower empty. Hopefully, there are things going on behind the scenes. 

_nomad_ wrote: ↑

Apr 25, 2022

I think the arch grounds are nice, as a downtown resident it works as a great local park to lay on the grass or go running. I think what really needs to change is the buildings facing it, the physical connection to downtown has been improved but the experience is never going to feel connected when you essentially have the back of the Mansion House et al. complex on the north and the abandoned Millennium Hotel on the south. How nice would it be to have some sort cafe or bar with a patio right next to the arch grounds or any sort of storefront facing it? Of course the highway moat is still there and that needs to be fixed, but in the meantime the areas directly next to the lid and the other 2 overpasses could be more welcoming to park visitors and maybe get people to stay in that area.

I agree. 

I don't think the current highway lid is nearly large enough. If we can't remove the highway, we need a lid over the entire highway so that we can essentially drag the city to the park.

None of the buildings facing the park actually interact with the park in any way. I've complained about the nature of this in St. Louis with both the park and the Gateway Mall. You've got just one business that faces the national park, and it's an axe-throwing bar. This absolutely needs to change if we expect people to hang out near a noisy highway or barren riverfront. 

RockChalkSTL wrote:

_nomad_ wrote: ↑

Apr 25, 2022

I think the arch grounds are nice, as a downtown resident it works as a great local park to lay on the grass or go running. I think what really needs to change is the buildings facing it, the physical connection to downtown has been improved but the experience is never going to feel connected when you essentially have the back of the Mansion House et al. complex on the north and the abandoned Millennium Hotel on the south. How nice would it be to have some sort cafe or bar with a patio right next to the arch grounds or any sort of storefront facing it? Of course the highway moat is still there and that needs to be fixed, but in the meantime the areas directly next to the lid and the other 2 overpasses could be more welcoming to park visitors and maybe get people to stay in that area.

I agree. 

I don't think the current highway lid is nearly large enough. If we can't remove the highway, we need a lid over the entire highway so that we can essentially drag the city to the park.

None of the buildings facing the park actually interact with the park in any way. I've complained about the nature of this in St. Louis with both the park and the Gateway Mall. You've got just one business that faces the national park, and it's an axe-throwing bar. This absolutely needs to change if we expect people to hang out near a noisy highway or barren riverfront. 

This is so true. The urban form of our buildings downtown is one of the biggest problems. It should be in our code that every building that faces the mall or the arch should be required to have street facing retail. And they should have 15 years to make the required changes. I would say most of those buildings could be retrofitted to make it work, but are there any buildings along the mall that aren’t replaceable besides the Wainwright Building? I would say no.

This should be a prime tourist, residential and entertainment district, not mostly empty office buildings, ugly garages, and some sporadic hotels


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sc4mayor wrote: ↑

Apr 25, 2022

There is a plethora of underutilized park and green space in downtown St. Louis already.  If I recall one of the criticisms from many urban minded folks back when MVVA was picked was the additional 11 acres of parkland it would bring to a downtown already full of it.  

We don’t need to spend 10s of millions of dollars decking over the highway to simply add more underutilized green space which is about all the NPS would allow.

Spend a lot less money and finish the Gateway Mall.

Right their with sc4mayor,

First, any tens of millions of dollars to be spent on downtown infrastructure should go towards removal of the raised freeway section w freeway ending at a grade Wash Ave/Eads Bridge intersection, blvd to another at grade Cass Ave intersection in my opinion.  Reconnect Laclede's landing w downtown, near northside to make whole should be a city wide priority.  Finally, would love to see the public beach concept at Laclede's Landing maybe with a indoor water park.

Second, Gateway Mall is already huge opportunity to activate events, music and so on.   My two cents is find a new home for Twain sculpture and CityGarden redo and expansion.   I don't think you need Arch facing retail.  You need more activity where you already street facing retail

On expanded park space, sports fields.  I always thought the GRG owned parking lot between Busch stadium and Purina campus should be torn up and sport fields for DT residents/near southside neighbor.   I think it is slated for being part of Greenway.   Do that inconjunction with Northside park rebuilds and improvements that Reed suggested as part of stimulus funds.   Heck,  designated part of Ram's settlement for near northside park and trail improvements if not the Raised Freeway removal.   

To help with this conversation let me provide a few exhibits. Here's a graph of annual attendance from completion to present:



The data above is taken from Alex Ihnen's 2013 article "The Missing Conversation About Visitor Attendance at the Gateway Arch" and amplified by statistics taken from statista.com in a Google search to bring the chart to the present day. Alex cites the NPS for his data. I presume that's also where Statista got theirs, though I didn't find the original data in my quick googling. (Please feel free to point me to a better source, but I figure this is close enough for government work, as they say.)

There are two real statistical outliers: 1966, which was the first full year after the Arch's completion, and 2020. Apart from that, attendance slowly grew after opening to a peek of 3.6 million in 1996. It held fairly steady at that level until 2001, after which it began to slowly decline. The latter trend continues unabated to the present.

A few salient points: Since the construction of the Arch the highway has always been there. Its presence cannot be the cause of the decline, as it was present during the growth of traffic and improving access across it did not slow the decline. I'm glad we have the lid. It's lovely. But it appears completely irrelevant to this conversation.

This leaves us asking what changed?

This isn't a perfect answer, but here's a few captures grabbed from Google Earth:

1988: 2.48M


1996: 3.65M


2002: 3.33M


2006: 2.57M


2011: 2.26M


In the 80s you can see there was quite a lot of life on the riverfront. It's not just a couple of excursion boats and a barge for helicopter tours. You can see the Goldenrod and another boat up at the Landing. South of that is the Admiral, and a half dozen other occupied moorings. There's the Inaugural, the two tourboats, the helicopter, the McDonald's barge, a second fast food chain (Burger King? Hardee's? I no longer quite recall.) A sit-down restaurant. (The Robert E. Lee, I think.) And there's a slew of little boats moored together that really pickle me. But there's . . . a lot! Tourism wasn't up to its peak, but it was picking up. Further, there were four hotels adjacent to the Arch grounds, all with decent access. By 1996 the number of boats is down, but the hotels were still all going strong and a couple of Drury properties had joined the mix. And by that time you're beginning to get casino traffic. Things hold steady there through 2002, but they begin to drop off quickly after. Lumiere Place opened in 2007, deeply damaging access between downtown and the landing, and gutting the President's numbers. When did demo and construction start? By 2011 you can see it's the wasteland we know and love now. Sure, the Becky Thatcher is still there, but how much life does a tiny little tourboat alone on a vast levee really bring? And why would I go downtown to see the same food trucks I can see more easily in Tower Grove or elsewhere?

I don't think the pics or even the chart provide a clear answer. Ihnen, in 2013, suggested that the traffic correlated in part to airport traffic. (Have a long layover? Visit the Arch!) That makes a certain amount of sense. If that's the case then nothing we do downtown will really bring back the magic. On the other hand, I'm still inclined to think that if you want people to come more than once you need something unique that you can't get elsewhere in town. And that something is going to have to tie into the river itself somehow, fickle as he is with his moods and rages. Maybe one thing the city could do is bring back utilities at moorings so operators aren't completely speculating. Yes, that's public money to support private business. And there's no guarantee it would work. But what we're doing isn't especially working either. Maybe City-Arch-River could fund mooring improvements. And if you want food trucks, fine . . . but put them on a barge so you can actually sit out on the river while you eat. Make the presentation different. Honestly, that's mostly what was there before the casinos anyway: places to eat. I think even Goldenrod was a dinner theatre for a while. (And the Admiral had plenty of food.) All of this may be silliness, but all the landscaping and extended cap ideas sound like more of the same.