Word Police: Vacant vs Abandoned

People often refer to vacant properties as abandoned.  Though abandoned properties are usually vacant – unless a squatter has occupied it – a vacant property isn’t necessarily abandoned. Take the beloved Laclede Power building (1246 Lewis St) as an example.

This building, long been identified as a trailhead for the north riverfront trail, has been vacant for years, it’s boarded and has missing windows. Classic abandoned building, right? Wrong!  Anyone who knows the history wouldn’t describe it as abandoned:

In 2001, Trigen St. Louis Energy Corp. donated the 45,000-square-foot Laclede Power Center at 1246 Lewis St., valued at $150,000, to Trailnet.

Trailnet plans to develop the building to serve as a gathering place for cyclists using the St. Louis Riverfront Trail. Originally, Trailnet sought to develop the building alone, but the group now plans to partner on the site with a for-profit developer. Tucker said the organization will have a request for proposals available in early June; it’s already spent about $1.5 million on property repair and environmental cleanup. (St. Louis Business Journal)

The building is now owned by Great Rivers Greenway District:

Our History

In the year 2000, the people of the greater St. Louis area voted to create the Great Rivers Greenway District. By exercising their voice and their vote, the residents of the City of St. Louis, St. Louis County and St. Charles County made it clear that they wanted to make the St. Louis region a better place to live. Since that time, the Great Rivers Greenway District has been working to carry out the vision of the people.

Our Mission

The fundamental purpose of the Great Rivers Greenway District is to make the St. Louis region an even better place to live by creating a clean, green and connected region.

Lots of effort & money have gone into this building over the years, including a new roof, waterproofing, etc. to stabilize it. It’s one of my favorites, so much so we have a large framed photo from the interior in our entryway.

Another example is the closed Jamestown Mall.

Yesterday:

FLORISSANT, Mo. (KMOV.com) – St. Louis County Police were searching the abandoned Jamestown Mall early Monday morning after a break-in was reported. (KMOV –Police respond after break-in reported at abandoned North County mall)

It’s closed, but not abandoned! The building still has power & water, the owner is presumably paid the property taxes. Saturday afternoon Fox2 posted the story ‘Take a creepy trip into the abandoned Jamestown Mall‘, featuring this video (some language NSFW):

At the 11 minute mark the urban explorer reaches the mall office — the lights are on in the hallway, a chime goes off and he says, “I have a feeling I should not be in here.”  Though the video includes “abandoned” in the title the description on YouTube is:

Published on Dec 15, 2014
Exploring a certain StL mall upon popular request. The power is still on here and it is alarmed. DO NOT attempt to trespass here; you will be caught and charged. Armed guards patrol the mall 24/7. 

A vacant building with power, water, alarm, security guards, etc isn’t abandoned!

So why am I playing the role of word police? Words influence perceptions and perceptions can influence action — or inaction.

Please don’t call a building abandoned unless you know for sure the legal owner has walked away from the property.

— Steve Patterson

Sunday Poll: Thoughts On ICM/Summer Rocks Not Hosting A Concert Memorial Day Weekend?

Yesterday in the Post-Dispatch came word a huge music event planned for Memorial Day weekend will not take place this year:

City officials confirmed on Friday that Summer Rocks, billed as an annual country music concert series on the scale of Lollapalooza in Chicago, will not take place over Memorial Day weekend as planned. And another rock-related event planned for Labor Day weekend is not a certainty. (Post-Dispatch: Summer Rocks concert series in St. Louis stalls; won’t begin in May)

For the poll today I’m interested in your thoughts on this new development, the exact question is: ICM/Summer Rocks has notified St. Louis they won’t hold a concern Memorial Day weekend, Labor Day weekend is uncertain. Thoughts?

I’ve provided a variety of answers but you’re able to add your own at the bottom of the poll, see the right sidebar to vote.

— Steve Patterson

St. Louis’ Latest Folly: New NFL Stadium

The Rams Task Force unveiled its proposal for a new open-air stadium in downtown St. Louis last Friday:

The proposed location of the new stadium is on the North Riverfront, adjacent to Laclede’s Landing, sitting on over 90 acres of privately and publicly owned property. The completion date would be set no later than 2020. (KSDK)

The reactions to Friday’s announcement of a proposal for a new stadium were swift and varied; some liked it, others habte it. It was suggested it’ll never happen, it’s just a way for politicians to say they tried their best to keep the Rams from leaving or Kroenke is set on LA, he’ll never go for it. Unlike when we failed to get an NFL expansion team and we had to attract an existing team, now all we need to do make the proposal attractive enough so the NFL owners don’t vote to allow the Rams to leave — except that Kroenke seems willing to build a new LA stadium, move the team, and fight his fellow NFL owners in court. The truth is likely a combination of all these.

Rather than rush out a post, I wanted to visit the area again in person before putting my thoughts down. My previous visit was in May 2012, passing through on Amtrak.

Hopefully this won’t go forward, but we must act as if it will to help block it.

• The proposal with images.
• Map link.

The good:

• Proposed stadium not within the CBD (Central Business District): I’ve been posting for years that NFL has no place in a CBD, they play too few games and the tailgate tradition means surface parking — both bad if you desire a 24/7 downtown.  For these reasons, other cities have placed their stadiums just outside their CBD
• Recognition of need to connect two areas long separated by highway: Two long-neglected areas on each side of I-44, previously I-70, each need investment and access to each other.
• Open-air, dual use for soccer: Open air is much nicer than dark and closed (EJD), weather permitting. Major League Soccer (MLS) is expanding, we could get an expansion team if we build a stadium. This sounds vaguely familiar…
• Would retain the Ashley Street Power House, a city landmark.

And the bad:

• Bad use of public resources, see Nicklaus: Stadium may sparkle, but it’s not an investment: “St. Louis is being asked to pay dearly for the prestige of remaining an NFL city, so I think Peacock described his stadium plan accurately when he called it a “crown jewel.” A jewel can sparkle and make its owner feel good, but it’s hardly a productive use of half a billion dollars.”
• Would destroy recently completed (April 2013) $10 million+ transitional housing project called Stamping Lofts, halt plans for future phase to create urban farming jobs know as FarmWorks.
• Would destroy the unique Cotton Belt building (shown above), individually listed on the National Register of Historic Places for over a decade.
• Would destroy the William Kerr Foundation building, a state of the art green building.
• Would destroy the Laclede Power building.
• Would wipe out most of the North Riverfront Industrial Historic District & the North Broadway Wholesale and Warehouse District, both listed on the National Register of Historic Places,in 2003 & 2010, respectively.
• Would  destroy numerous vacant warehouses that could be used for offices and/or residential.
• Would force numerous businesses to close or relocate.
• The railroad isn’t likely to agree to routing their track to the West of this new stadium, in a ditch.  Leaders must’ve forgotten about the legal battles won by the railroad when designers want the track moved for the Arch, see tunnel.
• Although MetroBus service exists, light rail isn’t close.

Let’s take a look:

For years now this area has been coming together, with two National Register historic districts and one individually-listed building, substantial investments have been made to numerous buildings as a result. Don’t our leadership care about the investments, businesses, and year-round jobs? Sadly, as I pointed out yesterday, St. Louis began planning to raze a hotel less than a decade after it opened.

It also seems like every decade our leadership wants to raze a historic building — this would let them take away two entire districts and an individually-listed building. It’s been just over a decade since the wrecking ball began taking down the Century Building, so they’re on schedule I suppose.  This area is also likely targeted because the owners of Lumière Place Casino and Hotels and Bissinger’s don’t like the rest of the area between them.

I’ll end with an open note to Rams owner Stan Kroenke:

Mr. Kroenke:

There are lots of large vacant sites in the St. Louis region where you could build a stadium. I say you build it because you’re a real estate developer, you know the value of owning the real estate. More importantly, I want you to own any new stadium so you’ll reinvest your profits in it as you see fit, also making it harder to walk away in 10-20 years.

You can do something else with your property in Inglewood, CA, but I think you already know prime property like that has many potential projects. Hell, build a stadium on it for another NFL team. But please, don’t accept the task force proposal — we’d lose too much and gain…more public debt.

So build elsewhere in the region or move the team back to LA!

 — Steve Patterson

State & Local Leadership Have Failed To Learn From Mistakes Of The Last 75+ Years

I’d like to think that after decades of leadership pushing projects that clear many acres of buildings, streets, sidewalks, utilities, etc., that someone in city hall or Jefferson City would realize that such projects are costly follies that never live up to the promises. Some examples:

There have been countless other projects; including highways that separated neighborhoods, warehouses that destroyed the street grid, etc. In 1988 the city began discussing buying the Sheraton Hotel, located immediately east of the Cervantes Convention Center to expand and build a football stadium, the 600+ room hotel wasn’t even a decade old when talk began of razing it to expand the convention center and build a domed stadium.

As politicians smiled and sweated in Monday morning’s 89-degree heat, ground was broken for the $260 million stadium expansion of Cervantes Convention Center.  The building, scheduled for completion by October 1995, will seat 70,000 for professional football. With 177,000  square feet of exhibit space on one level, it will accommodate events as large as national political conventions.  During the hour-long ceremonial groundbreaking at Seventh Street and Convention Plaza, demolition crews began swinging a giant ”headache ball” at the old Sheraton Hotel, one block north. Each swipe at the 13-year-old hotel, which sits near the 50-yard-line of the stadium expansion, brought cheers.  But the sturdily built hotel was slow to succumb to the headache ball. (Post-Dispatch Tuesday, July 14, 1992)

I was just 25 when demolition began on a tall hotel that wasn’t even 15 years old, but it was worth a couple of shots on my roll of film.

Razing the hotel built to serve conventions meant we had to build another convention hotel, the Renaissance Grand has lost money since opening.

“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”

— Albert Einstein

Tomorrow I’ll post about the particulars of the latest St. Louis folly: last friday’s proposal for a new NFL/MLS stadium to convince billionaire Stan Kroenke from moving the Rams back to Los Angeles.

— Steve Patterson

Broken Zipper: Washington Ave Street Tree Wells

The Washington Avenue streetscape, completed about 15 years ago, was designed to visually play tribute to the area’s history as a garment district:

Through the ’30s and ’40s, St. Louis had one of the largest needle-trade centers in the country—second, many said, only to New York—and was the center of manufacture for junior-size dresses. (St. Louis Magazine)

So Washonhgton Ave was given a zipper motif. But in the last 15 years the very expensive streetscape’s design elements haven’t always been respected. Most recently the street trees.

The street trees never did well because the costly streetscape was designed with style over function — too small of a surface area to collect rainwater. After removing the dead/dying trees extra grates were used to cover the holes where the original trees were planted, which kept the design motif intact.

If the the new trees survive perhaps it’s worth sacrificing the design, still visually jarring after all these years.

— Steve Patterson