Time To Rethink Aloe Plaza

Eighty-three years ago today a new urban plaza was opened across Market Street from Union Station. The decennial census taken the previous month would later show the city’s population had declined slightly.

St. Louisans of the 1930s removed the buildings, businesses, and activity from across Union Station. It was what people first saw upon arrival, they wanted beauty instead of what they viewed as clutter and illicit activity. Passive over bustling. They were successful…too successful.

For a good 70 years the west end of Aloe Plaza is what motorists saw as they exited the highway, ending up at 20th & Chestnut. Now with CITYPARK, our new MLS stadium replacing the on/off ramps, the situation west of Aloe Plaza is entirely different.

20th Street is closed for a block party before matches, porta-potties are lined up nearby. To the west is the start of the Brickline Greenway, a 2-way cycle track plus a wide pedestrian path. This needs to continue east and the two blocks of Aloe Plaza are next.

The space has some very large old trees. I’m not an arborist so I can’t say they’re worth keeping, or not. The ’Meeting of the Waters’ fountain by Carl Milles is certainly sacred, though in desperate need of a new basin.

I’d love to see something happen (charrette, competition, etc) to gather ideas on how to turn this passive two-block long public park into an exciting new public space that includes the fountain in the same or different place. Does the fountain need to be centered on Union Station? Must it be parallel to Market Street? Among many questions we should ask ourselves.

One thing I see as a must-have amenity is a public restroom. The entire region needs these where we expect tourists, people cycling/walking, and such. Not inside a nearby business — a highly visible kiosk structure that opens directly to the sidewalk. These can be self-cleaning, the ones I used in San Francisco last fall were wonderful.

I can also imagine a structure(s) for food, beverage, events, and such.

I’m not sure about the name Aloe Plaza. It made sense in 1940 as the former president of the board of aldermen, Louis B. Aloe, had died just over a decade before. Aloe was instrumental in a 1923 bond issue — a century ago. Aloe, the bond issue, the businesses displaced, etc should all be represented in the new space. I’m just not sure the name for the last 83 years should carry forward.

The entire two block park bounded by Market, 18th, Chestnut, and 20th needs to be rethought, reimagined for the 21st century.

— Steve
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St. Louis urban planning, policy, and politics @ UrbanReviewSTL since October 31, 2004. For additional content please consider following on Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, Threads, Bluesky, and/or X (Twitter).

BREAKING! New MLS Stadium Sponsor to be Announced Monday

Last year ST LOUIS CITY SC, the latest MLS expansion team, announced a stadium naming partner only to announce later that deal fell through.

The downtown-based home of St. Louis CITY SC is now known as Centene Stadium, it was announced Tuesday.

The expansion club, which will become Major League Soccer’s 29th team upon competing in 2023, has entered a 15-year naming rights partnership with the multi-national healthcare enterprise.

mlssoccer.com February 15, 2022

The team released a slick video via Twitter:

A little over 6 months later, Centene was out!

ST. LOUIS — Centene Corp. has backed out as the naming sponsor for the new Major League Soccer stadium here, just eight months after striking the deal.

St. Louis City SC’s stadium will now be called CITYPARK, the team said Tuesday, and it is searching for a new naming sponsor.
The Clayton-based health insurer’s decision marks the first major upheaval among the team’s corporate sponsors that include some of St. Louis’ most well-known businesses, such as Anheuser-Busch and Purina.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

The thrilling home matches have been at CITYPARK — yes, all caps. According to sources today a new stadium sponsor will be announced Monday.

Another well-known St. Louis company has stepped up. The new name will be, ironically, Dirt Cheap Stadium. MLS rules prohibited it from being called Dirt Cheap Beer & Cigarettes Stadium. Carol House Furniture was a close second.

This is sort of in the family. STL CITY SC’s main owners are related to the late Andy Taylor, founder of Enterprise Rent-A-Car. Dirt Cheap Beer & Cigarettes was founded by Paul Taylor, Andy’s 2nd cousin. Not to be confused with Andy’s late brother Paul.

Note, the person many of us remembers from Dirt Cheap commercials was not founder Paul Taylor, but employee Fred Teutenberg.

Enjoy tonight’s home match hosting Minnesota United FC at CITYPARK. In two weeks we’ll host FC Cincinnati at Dirt Cheap Stadium…even though tickets, food, beverage are anything but dirt cheap.

— Steve
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St. Louis urban planning, policy, and politics @ UrbanReviewSTL since October 31, 2004. For additional content please consider following on Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, and/or Twitter.

Preliminary Look at the Newest MLS Stadium: CITYPARK, Home of ST LOUIS CITY SC

Tomorrow, Saturday March 4, 2023 is the first league match at CITYPARK, in the Downtown West neighborhood of St. Louis — home to the 29th team in Major League Soccer (MLS). On August 20, 2019 MLS announced a St. Louis-based ownership group selected to become the 29th team in their league. Nearly three and a half years later here we are. I’ll leave the sports coverage to others, this has meant big changes to infrastructure, connectivity, etc.

For those unfamiliar we should go back and take a look at the before and during views.

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I have more pictures from driving by, as well as some six months or so before my power wheelchair began having issues. Once my chair is fixed I’ll return and take an up close look. I’ll be watching this match on Apple TV+ both for action but also for how CITYPARK and St. Louis are presented to the world.

— Steve
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St. Louis urban planning, policy, and politics @ UrbanReviewSTL since October 31, 2004. For additional content please consider following on Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, Threads, Bluesky, and/or X (Twitter).

Vacant Land Near Centene Stadium Awaits New Construction

Centene Stadium (St. Louis) – Wikipedia, the soccer stadium finishing up construction now, is reshaping the Downtown West neighborhood.   This got me thinking about a vacant parcel just south of the stadium, next to the former YMCA that became a Drury Hotel in the 1980s. The official address is 222 South 21st Street.

This site is 9.16 acres, is one parcel, and owned by Bi-State Development (aka Metro) since July 2019. According to city records Bi-State paid $1.65 million.

Just before Bi-State closed on the property the 1960s commercial laundry building was razed. It had a fire in 2005, that was repaired. A new occupancy permit was issued in 2018 for warehouse/storage.

So a 1960s commercial laundry occupied the western half of the site for decades. What about more than a century ago?

The brown box is the new Railroad YMCA , the city block was divided by a small portion east of Tom Street, and the bigger portion west of it. When Union Station added more tracks Tom Street became 20th Street, giving the station more land up to Market Street. Many buildings between Eugenia and Market were razed so that 20th could shift west. The site now knowm as 222 South 21st Street was 13 parcels with houses and stables on the east, at Tom.

As you can tell from the 2010 photo above of the now-razed laundry, I’ve had an interest in the site for a very long time. At the time it didn’t make any sense to propose new construction — a business occupied the existing building and the site was on a tiny short block of Clark Ave, between 20th & 21st.

Now Clark Ave will soon connect to 22nd Street, I-64, and Jefferson Ave.  I thought of this site again earlier this year when I saw an article about a 7-unit apartment building in Philadelphia built on leftover land measuring only 11′ x 93′. View in Google Street View.

This site is considerably larger. What I’d do is build an apartment building on the east end that has zero off-street parking. With the Union Station MetroLink light rail station nearby this is ideal for some apartments without parking, since structured parking is so costly.

The west end of the site has great views of the new soccer practice fields, build tall enough and you can see over the Drury Hotel parking garage.  A rooftop patio would be outstanding.

A garage entrance off the low end of the alley would keep the perimeter public sidewalks unbroken. Creative architects could probably come up with many options to maximize the site without any surface parking or curb cuts.

I think 2-3 buildings ranging from low-income to high end would do this site justice, and provide a nice range of options. It would require thinking differently, but so did getting 7 units on a parcel only 11’x93’.

— Steve Patterson

Rethinking 2211 Market Street (Pear Tree Inn)

As I outlined two years ago, the blocks around new Centene Stadium will most certainly change in the coming years, decades. We’ve already seen some buildings on Olive be razed for the stadium, and more for a new garage. These weren’t architectural masterpieces, but they were urban. Hopefully it’ll be a good trade off.

One building I want to see razed, or significantly altered, is the hotel at 2211 Market Street (2.78 acres). Currently it’s officially known as the “Pear Tree Inn Near Union Station.” With the new major league soccer stadium nearing completion next door I think they’ll rename the hotel to reflect the ideal proximity. I’d like to bigger change — a complete rethink.

One of the first things I like to do is look back at what existed before — especially streets & alleys. Not that I’d necessarily want to recreate what existed over a hundred years ago, I just find it helpful.

Interestingly, the little bit of land between the east side of the hotel and the new 22nd Street is deeded in several small parcels, at least one to TKFC Properties, LLC in Moscow Mills, MO. The accessor classifies it as “9900 (OTHER UNDEVELOPED LAND AND WATER AREAS, NEC)”, so perhaps it’ll collect runoff water. Seems too valuable for water retention.

I strongly dislike this hotel and parking garage. I suspect the owner, Drury Hotels, is contemplating their options now that their real estate has a prime spot near the MLS stadium, and a higher valuation. The big question is what are the various ways to rebuild or start over?

I believe in reusing existing structures, so the first option would be to look at adding a new tower perpendicular to the existing one so hotel rooms on the east side could look toward the stadium and downtown. The roof of a new tower could contain a rooftop restaurant/bar with outstanding views. A new urban entrance facing Market, 22nd, or Pine. Some sort of drive though for check in that doesn’t block the many pedestrians that will soon be in this area.  Parking will need to go somewhere, preferably underground.

Other options involve razing the tower and garage, completely starting over from scratch. If they get the little bit of land between the existing lot and 22nd Street the site will be bordered by four streets — it needs to acknowledge all of them.

Reconstructing Chestnut Street needs to be considered. Chestnut still exists between 23rd and Jefferson Ave. so this would help reconnect the original street grid. We would then have two parcels, with the north larger than the south.  Perhaps a parking garage in the center of the larger parcel, wrapped in hotel rooms, apartments, and/or offices? The new block of Chestnut might be a full public street, a public walkway, or a private walkway that’s generally open to the public. I can see a Chestnut walkway being filled with outdoor dining, a new building(s) on the south side blocking the hot sun.

I’m confident this site will look dramatically different within a decade, just not sure how it’ll look. If I’m still around when something happens I’ll be sure to post about it.

— Steve Patterson