For 3+ weeks now I’ve been thinking about the physical environment of West Florissant from the burnt out QuikTrip location south to the elevated train tracks, just under half a mile. Let’s take a look:
The former Ponderosa at 9200 W. Florissant was built in 1972, it closed sometime between September 2012 and August 2014. A Google Streetview camera from 9/2012 showed the business openJack in the Box built this in 1969, now it’s a locally owned businessThe streetscape design is pure 1960s, lacking anything that would appeal to a pedestrian. The absence of curbs & street trees make you feel vulnerable to traffic. What is this like during heavy rains?Drains for runoff waterThe West side of W. Florissant is very similar to the East. lots and lots of pavingVery few crosswalks exist, the ones that do are poorly designed. Here the crosswalk and ramp have no relationship to each other. One of the rare spots where curbs exist.Pedestrians are many but they’re subjected to narrow broken sidewalksNeither of these storefronts are accessible in a wheelchair. Why hasn’t the Chesterfield-bsaed company that owns numerous buildings on W. Florissant made required ADA improvements in the last 21+ years?The McDonald’s was built in 1989, but recently remodeled inside & out. An ADA accessible route was forgotten in the remodeling though.Pedestrians arriving in wheelchairs must roll into the site from the public sidewalk to nest the rear of the building before finding a ramp.
The area looks & feels tired. Ferguson, Jennings, Dellwood, St. Louis County, Emerson, etc. all need to look at updating the public streetscape along W. Florissant. The use of rain gardens on both sides would visually improve the look as well as absorbing considerable water runoff. Walk Score gives the area a low 36 (Car Dependent) rating, embarrassing for an area with so many pedestrians and frequent transit users.
In Part 2 I’ll look at similar issues a little further North, in Dellwood.
— Steve Patterson
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Currently there are "13 comments" on this Article:
A lost cause. If you want walkability, and for some ungodly reason need to live in NoCo, try downtown ferguson, not this area. Better yet, if you dont want a suburban landscape get outta the burbs. Move to the city.
I kinda like the fastfood place converted to an ethnic restaurant motive. You can find that in some of the more autocentric parts of south grand and south kingshighway.
I agree, “the area looks and feels tired”, but so does Manchester Rd. west of 270. I doubt that “updating the public streetscape” is the real answer. This is a poor area, and until incomes in the area increase, the focus needs to be on meeting the basic needs of the residents (like jobs and paychecks), not “putting lipstick on a pig”. Low rent businesses and boarded-up vacant commercial structures are a much bigger issue than a lack of rain gardens. Poor maintenance is a reflection of little or no profit – successful businesses reinvest, struggling ones don’t!
No, entrepreneurs, especially new, small retailers, seek out areas with higher disposable incomes, at the median for the SMSA, or above. Starting any business involves risk, and most entrepreneurs want to minimize, or at least manage, risk. High end areas command high rents, for a reason – greater potential income. Low end areas command low rents, for the same reason – lower potential income.
The best way to “bring jobs to an area” is to convince people and companies, like Centene, to invest in non-retail jobs. We can’t spend our way to prosperity, we need to earn it. It doesn’t matter if it’s a call center, a distribution center, a warehouse or a manufacturing plant. Expecting Chop Suey or Salon Supplies, Check Cashing or a Comic Book Store to create significant wealth in the community is a fantasy.
Retail is like crack to small city governments – all they see is immediate $$$$, from sales taxes. They don’t get, or want to acknowledge, that well-paid employees are needed to spend their paychecks in said stores! These sad, fading retail strips are a direct reflection of their surrounding neighborhoods – they’re either young and poor (spending money only on low-end essentials) or old and middle class (seeing no real need to buy much of anything except prescriptions, Ensure and Depends). Saying no to any new non-retail businesses is fairly common – can’t disrupt the tranquility of the suburban dream – but for money to flow, it needs to be created, somewhere, hopefully nearby.
Finally, the biggest challenge tired, ugly retail strips is found in the classic book, Learning from Las Vegas. One of the most effective things that could be done here (and elsewhere) would be to plant (and nurture) street trees – http://www.michigan.gov/documents/dnr/22_benefits_208084_7.pdf . . but most retailers adamantly oppose them simply because they (would) block their huge ass signs! (And the signs are big because they need to be read by traffic passing by at 20 or 30 mph, and trees compromise that investment.) “Solve” that conundrum and you’ll be classified as a miracle worker . . . .
Many nationwide retailers want the demographics you describe. I don’t think you’ll find a Family Dollar store in Ladue…
Who said retail is the only form of commercial activity for this area? I know one insurance company has a space here. One large 2-story building is in the center, offering office space over retail.
What about someone from Ferguson/Jennings/Dellwood that wants to start their own business, they’re not necessarily going to go to the Chesterfield Valley to do so.
Do only the wealthy deserve attractive & functional commercial districts?
Point one – agree. Point two – OK, primarily retail, but not exclusively retail. Point three, no, they probably won’t be going to the Chesterfield Valley, but depending on their focus, they could go to South Florissant Road (and stay in Ferguson), North Lindbergh, Halls Ferry Road, Delmar/University City, Clayton and on and on (and likely do better, financially, than they would here).
Point four – it’s not a question of “deserve”, it’s a question of who’s going to pay for it?! Most areas with “nice” streetscapes either have a business improvement district (funded by hyper-local taxes) or have amenities that been installed, and continue to be maintained, by the local property owners, be they fast food restaurants or developers creating shopping centers.
Most cities, these days, big and small, don’t have any extra, discretionary funds for things like water gardens and street trees. They’re more focused on keeping the basics patched together and functioning. And, unfortunately, it does boil down to follow the money – areas with low sales taxes are going to have a lower priority than those that generate high(er) sales taxes. It may not be “fair”, but it is how life works, and, unfortunately, rioting, looting and arson are truly disincentives to further investments.
Governments need to weigh expenditures on projects, part of the evaluation is an option to “do nothing”. To me doing nothing will only exacerbate underlying problems that have plagued St. Louis city for decades and now much of north county.
I don’t see sticking our collective heads in the dirt as a viable solution to very real problems.
I agree, doing nothing is not a great option, but WHO is going to pay for these improvements? Taxes need to come from somewhere and/or someone! Do you raise property taxes, throughout the city (on properties with declining assessed values), to pay for improvements in specific commercial areas? Do you create a BID and tax the existing and future businesses? Do you impose an earnings tax so that Emerson employees can “help out”? Do you tax meals served in restaurants? And, at what point, will higher taxes become counter-productive?
Steve, we’re bringing Chuck Marohn of Strong Towns to St. Louis Oct. 7-9. nextstl.com/strongtowns It’d be great if you can come. Chuck wrote about Ferguson and pointed out some of the same things you have. http://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2014/8/25/stroad-nation.html
can we please send the human cockroaches shagged out of Larry Rice Center everyday at 6am to Ferguson? They should help with the cleanup efforts and make themselves useful for once instead of driving business and people out of downtown. thanks, SARGE
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looks much different west of chambers and downtown Ferguson.
A lost cause. If you want walkability, and for some ungodly reason need to live in NoCo, try downtown ferguson, not this area. Better yet, if you dont want a suburban landscape get outta the burbs. Move to the city.
Even as auto-centric commercial it fails to be appealing.
I kinda like the fastfood place converted to an ethnic restaurant motive. You can find that in some of the more autocentric parts of south grand and south kingshighway.
I agree, “the area looks and feels tired”, but so does Manchester Rd. west of 270. I doubt that “updating the public streetscape” is the real answer. This is a poor area, and until incomes in the area increase, the focus needs to be on meeting the basic needs of the residents (like jobs and paychecks), not “putting lipstick on a pig”. Low rent businesses and boarded-up vacant commercial structures are a much bigger issue than a lack of rain gardens. Poor maintenance is a reflection of little or no profit – successful businesses reinvest, struggling ones don’t!
And how do you bring jobs to an area? Entrepreneurs usually don’t seek out tired ugly areas.
No, entrepreneurs, especially new, small retailers, seek out areas with higher disposable incomes, at the median for the SMSA, or above. Starting any business involves risk, and most entrepreneurs want to minimize, or at least manage, risk. High end areas command high rents, for a reason – greater potential income. Low end areas command low rents, for the same reason – lower potential income.
The best way to “bring jobs to an area” is to convince people and companies, like Centene, to invest in non-retail jobs. We can’t spend our way to prosperity, we need to earn it. It doesn’t matter if it’s a call center, a distribution center, a warehouse or a manufacturing plant. Expecting Chop Suey or Salon Supplies, Check Cashing or a Comic Book Store to create significant wealth in the community is a fantasy.
Retail is like crack to small city governments – all they see is immediate $$$$, from sales taxes. They don’t get, or want to acknowledge, that well-paid employees are needed to spend their paychecks in said stores! These sad, fading retail strips are a direct reflection of their surrounding neighborhoods – they’re either young and poor (spending money only on low-end essentials) or old and middle class (seeing no real need to buy much of anything except prescriptions, Ensure and Depends). Saying no to any new non-retail businesses is fairly common – can’t disrupt the tranquility of the suburban dream – but for money to flow, it needs to be created, somewhere, hopefully nearby.
Finally, the biggest challenge tired, ugly retail strips is found in the classic book, Learning from Las Vegas. One of the most effective things that could be done here (and elsewhere) would be to plant (and nurture) street trees – http://www.michigan.gov/documents/dnr/22_benefits_208084_7.pdf . . but most retailers adamantly oppose them simply because they (would) block their huge ass signs! (And the signs are big because they need to be read by traffic passing by at 20 or 30 mph, and trees compromise that investment.) “Solve” that conundrum and you’ll be classified as a miracle worker . . . .
Many nationwide retailers want the demographics you describe. I don’t think you’ll find a Family Dollar store in Ladue…
Who said retail is the only form of commercial activity for this area? I know one insurance company has a space here. One large 2-story building is in the center, offering office space over retail.
What about someone from Ferguson/Jennings/Dellwood that wants to start their own business, they’re not necessarily going to go to the Chesterfield Valley to do so.
Do only the wealthy deserve attractive & functional commercial districts?
Point one – agree. Point two – OK, primarily retail, but not exclusively retail. Point three, no, they probably won’t be going to the Chesterfield Valley, but depending on their focus, they could go to South Florissant Road (and stay in Ferguson), North Lindbergh, Halls Ferry Road, Delmar/University City, Clayton and on and on (and likely do better, financially, than they would here).
Point four – it’s not a question of “deserve”, it’s a question of who’s going to pay for it?! Most areas with “nice” streetscapes either have a business improvement district (funded by hyper-local taxes) or have amenities that been installed, and continue to be maintained, by the local property owners, be they fast food restaurants or developers creating shopping centers.
Most cities, these days, big and small, don’t have any extra, discretionary funds for things like water gardens and street trees. They’re more focused on keeping the basics patched together and functioning. And, unfortunately, it does boil down to follow the money – areas with low sales taxes are going to have a lower priority than those that generate high(er) sales taxes. It may not be “fair”, but it is how life works, and, unfortunately, rioting, looting and arson are truly disincentives to further investments.
Governments need to weigh expenditures on projects, part of the evaluation is an option to “do nothing”. To me doing nothing will only exacerbate underlying problems that have plagued St. Louis city for decades and now much of north county.
I don’t see sticking our collective heads in the dirt as a viable solution to very real problems.
I agree, doing nothing is not a great option, but WHO is going to pay for these improvements? Taxes need to come from somewhere and/or someone! Do you raise property taxes, throughout the city (on properties with declining assessed values), to pay for improvements in specific commercial areas? Do you create a BID and tax the existing and future businesses? Do you impose an earnings tax so that Emerson employees can “help out”? Do you tax meals served in restaurants? And, at what point, will higher taxes become counter-productive?
Steve, we’re bringing Chuck Marohn of Strong Towns to St. Louis Oct. 7-9. nextstl.com/strongtowns It’d be great if you can come. Chuck wrote about Ferguson and pointed out some of the same things you have. http://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2014/8/25/stroad-nation.html
can we please send the human cockroaches shagged out of Larry Rice Center everyday at 6am to Ferguson? They should help with the cleanup efforts and make themselves useful for once instead of driving business and people out of downtown. thanks, SARGE