I just want the success and wealth of the west end to push northwards up Kingshighway. Are people REALLY against this concept? Level the fast food retail at and north of Delmar and let it begin!
Oh, and I love how Richard Barron is some kind of saint in StL for using tons of government money for todays projects and making himself totally loaded off of it...
JCity wrote:I just want the success and wealth of the west end to push northwards up Kingshighway. Are people REALLY against this concept? Level the fast food retail at and north of Delmar and let it begin!
Oh, and I love how Richard Barron is some kind of saint in StL for using tons of government money for todays projects and making himself totally loaded off of it...
I think it may be that people recognize that development in a city is complicated. Everyone wants stability and even prosperity north of Delmar and on either side of Kinghighway. However, if you're a poor person, you know all too well your second class status where you can be up and moved in the name of progress--or that you'll have little say when some company decides your downtrodden neighborhood is a great location for a new landfill or polluting plant.
This is NOT a reason to end development in areas that are poor; that would amount to keeping these areas isolated and in poverty. But it is a call to take sensible steps to assure people who will be displaced can find housing. I do agree that this is the natural way of development--that those without the necessary money to live somewhere simply can't. I might want to stay in my Manhattan kitchenette-turned-luxury loft, but the property values preclude it.
The complexity comes from the fact that few of our developments are truly the private market "selecting" a new "hot" area. In effect, we are forcibly gentrifying rather than witnessing a natural movement. Forced gentrification becomes an amplified issue when the residents targeted for dispersal are all or mostly black, and the residents targeted for gentrified developments are all or mostly white.
At that point, we are using public monies to shift demographics entirely.
The magical way to avoid this situation is to address systemic poverty and stark cases of segregation so that gentrification can be a natural cycle of development for a city.
Aviator wrote:Why do I go to work everyday? That place looks nice. I think I should quit my job and live there.
Umm. If you quit your job, you probably won't be able to live there. Housing for low-income people doesn't necessarily mean they are unemployed or don't have a income. Low-income means just that.
"Why do I go to work everyday? That place looks nice. I think I should quit my job and live there."
This kind of bulls--- response is kind of typical of St. Louis, with its inherent racism and implications that anybody who lives in subsidized housing is a welfare mother with 12 illegitimate kids from 12 different fathers, a welfare cheat, a drug dealer or all of the above.
As a student at SLU with limited income in the early 70's (I'm a white male BTW), I had 3 choices for living arrangments: living in a roach infested, market rate apartment, share an apartment with a pothead or some other deranged idiot, or get an apartment in a subsidized comlex. I chose option number 3, and was one of the first tenants to occupy the high rise at 60 North Ewing, in the Operation Breakthrough section of Laclede Town. The place was brand new with central air, a great kitchen with everything including a trash compactor and a swimming pool. I paid a grand total of $96.00 a month for a studio as was damn thankful for it.
Any apartment complex, whether or it be market rate or subsidized, or any other type of rental real estate including office buildings and shopping centers, is only as good as the management running it. If management isn't staying on top of maintenance, if management isn't staying on top of rent collections, if management isn't dealing with problem tenants, you're going to have problems. I could go to any number of market rate apartment complexes in St. Louis County, Covington Manor in South County comes to mind, where ineffectual management has led to trashy conditions. And face it, there are wealthy people who are slobs and don't give a damn about where they live, there are middle class people who are slobs and don't give a damn about where they live, and there are poor people who are slobs and don't give a damn about where they live. And there are white, black, Asian and Latino peoples who are slobs and don't give a damn about where they live. No single race or economic class of people has a monopoly on being pigs. And its up to management of any rental complex to deal with these type of people. Laclede Town was a great place to live, WHEN IT WAS MANAGED PROPERLY. Mismanagement ruined it, its that simple.
McCormack, Baron and Salazar have done a great job with their complexes in St. Louis. They've been the trail blazers who've led the way for market rate developers to follow. When they started Westminster Place in the late 1980's, no private developer in their right mind was going to build new housing in that area. Now, fifteen years later, market rate housing is booming around the original Westminster Place development, including Gaslight Square. Hopefully, the areas around Renaissance Place at Grand and the new Cochran gardens housing will follow the same path. And instead of trashing MBS like so many people on here take great pride in doing, we should be proud of their accomplishments.
Oh, but wait, this is St. Louis, where negativity about the city abounds and trashing it and anybody seriously trying to do something about is as popular as watching the Cardinals.
well this building to me is beautiful, it has been freshly rehabed and it is well taken care of and has several security features it has only one bedrooms and it is incomed geared mostly for single mothers and elderly the building is ocupied by these two groups of people. My sister who has lived there for 3 years has been to college has a good job and takes good care of her daughter by her self. Because of this building being income geared she able to live normally in this beautiful quiet building and enjoy life in the central west end and not be on welfare. amen for that. Last year before the rehab the building was messy but now you can not get a unit easy. go see for your self you will be impressed. not every one is in the same shoes and my need some help here and there.
Thank you so much for that post above, steveninphila. I hope people read and re-read it.
Subsidized housing exists everywhere, including in the most posh neighborhoods in the most up and coming cities. It is a unique American political development that has demonized subsidized housing and has subsequently isolated and condemned those forced to live in it. It really is despicable. People need major education as to the truth.
steveinphila wrote:"Why do I go to work everyday? That place looks nice. I think I should quit my job and live there."
This kind of bulls--- response is kind of typical of St. Louis, with its inherent racism and implications that anybody who lives in subsidized housing is a welfare mother with 12 illegitimate kids from 12 different fathers, a welfare cheat, a drug dealer or all of the above.
As a student at SLU with limited income in the early 70's (I'm a white male BTW), I had 3 choices for living arrangments: living in a roach infested, market rate apartment, share an apartment with a pothead or some other deranged idiot, or get an apartment in a subsidized comlex. I chose option number 3, and was one of the first tenants to occupy the high rise at 60 North Ewing, in the Operation Breakthrough section of Laclede Town. The place was brand new with central air, a great kitchen with everything including a trash compactor and a swimming pool. I paid a grand total of $96.00 a month for a studio as was damn thankful for it.
Any apartment complex, whether or it be market rate or subsidized, or any other type of rental real estate including office buildings and shopping centers, is only as good as the management running it. If management isn't staying on top of maintenance, if management isn't staying on top of rent collections, if management isn't dealing with problem tenants, you're going to have problems. I could go to any number of market rate apartment complexes in St. Louis County, Covington Manor in South County comes to mind, where ineffectual management has led to trashy conditions. And face it, there are wealthy people who are slobs and don't give a damn about where they live, there are middle class people who are slobs and don't give a damn about where they live, and there are poor people who are slobs and don't give a damn about where they live. And there are white, black, Asian and Latino peoples who are slobs and don't give a damn about where they live. No single race or economic class of people has a monopoly on being pigs. And its up to management of any rental complex to deal with these type of people. Laclede Town was a great place to live, WHEN IT WAS MANAGED PROPERLY. Mismanagement ruined it, its that simple.
McCormack, Baron and Salazar have done a great job with their complexes in St. Louis. They've been the trail blazers who've led the way for market rate developers to follow. When they started Westminster Place in the late 1980's, no private developer in their right mind was going to build new housing in that area. Now, fifteen years later, market rate housing is booming around the original Westminster Place development, including Gaslight Square. Hopefully, the areas around Renaissance Place at Grand and the new Cochran gardens housing will follow the same path. And instead of trashing MBS like so many people on here take great pride in doing, we should be proud of their accomplishments.
Oh, but wait, this is St. Louis, where negativity about the city abounds and trashing it and anybody seriously trying to do something about is as popular as watching the Cardinals.
Sorry to spoil your preconceived notions about me, but I'm not even originally from St. Louis, I don't think everyone in subsidized housing is a welfare mother with 12 kids, I love the city, and I live next door to subsidized housing by choice. Lighten up.
Just because you're not the type he described doesn't make it any less true, you realize. It is an embedded mentality among those in this country, and St. Louis is no different.
Forced gentrification becomes an amplified issue when the residents targeted for dispersal are all or mostly black, and the residents targeted for gentrified developments are all or mostly white.
I don't care who lives in those houses north of Kingshighway and Delmar as long as they are well kept. I just want the occupants to take care and preserve these architectural assets St. Louis has. MANY people in these neighborhoods do, but unfortunately many do not.
It is a unique American political development that has demonized subsidized housing and has subsequently isolated and condemned those forced to live in it.
Or maybe it's St. Louis' very own homegrown example of the worst housing disaster in the history of this country - Pruitt Igoe. Laclede Town ALMOST worked too... whoops...
I do give MBS credit for their development on Sarah and a few others, I have no problems with those, but I just wish this building on Kingshigway was market rate condos. The occupants of this building can go into another abandoned building that is in dire need of redevelopment in the city. My goal is again for the success of the CWE to push north.
It's not as if sub-market rate apartments are such a lucrative venture that the developer simply won't do market rate because of it.
Yes, it is a function of the low-income tax credits, but it's also a function of demand. Clearly, the developer does not feel that the market is right for market-rate. Relax. If demand increases, it will turn over. In the meantime, I don't expect to hear anything bad come from these apartments in the fashion they're being developed.
Matt Drops The H wrote:It's not as if sub-market rate apartments are such a lucrative venture that the developer simply won't do market rate because of it.
Yes, it is a function of the low-income tax credits, but it's also a function of demand. Clearly, the developer does not feel that the market is right for market-rate. Relax. If demand increases, it will turn over. In the meantime, I don't expect to hear anything bad come from these apartments in the fashion they're being developed.
Exactly. While the Washington Apartments could theoretically be turned into nice condos, I think it would be hard to find anyone willing to pay typical CWE prices for condos at that location given the current state of the immediate surrounding area. The view directly to the north is dominated by a long-abandoned Schnucks whose vast parking lot is slowly but surely reverting to nature; diagonally to the northwest is a nondescript gas station; and directly to the west is a small laundry/cleaners and a fast-food place, IIRC, followed by several hundred yards of blighted near-wilderness stretching all the way to
Union. Furthermore, the Washington Apartments building itself is fairly isolated from the rest of the residential areas further south on Kingshighway and Euclid, and that corner is not exactly the safest place to be walking on the street after dark. Unless the surrounding blocks become more attractive, it's going to be difficult for developers to market any high-priced residential properties adjacent to that stretch of Delmar. Until such regeneration occurs, especially on the north side of the street (and I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for that to happen), the current plan for the Washington Apartments is probably the most viable option for all concerned.
Clearly, the developer does not feel that the market is right for market-rate.
oh, come on. You know MBS chose to redevelop it as "low income" because people would flip their sh*t if they were "booted" out for "rich people"..
Furthermore, the Washington Apartments building itself is fairly isolated from the rest of the residential areas further south on Kingshighway and Euclid, and that corner is not exactly the safest place to be walking on the street after dark.
Oh really? So, muggers decide to hold off at Washington? better not cross that "line". This building is ONE block from Balabans, Westminster Place, Zoe Pan Asian, etc...
well this building to me is beautiful, it has been freshly rehabed and it is well taken care of and has several security features it has only one bedrooms and it is incomed geared mostly for single mothers and elderly the building is ocupied by these two groups of people. My sister who has lived there for 3 years has been to college has a good job and takes good care of her daughter by her self. Because of this building being income geared she able to live normally in this beautiful quiet building and enjoy life in the central west end and not be on welfare. amen for that. Last year before the rehab the building was messy but now you can not get a unit easy. go see for your self you will be impressed. not every one is in the same shoes and my need some help here and there.
