Halliday St. Illegal Parking Pad Fiasco Ends, Portion of Street Likely Given Away

OK, so here is what you do if you buy a property to rehab that has no parking. First, you pave over any bit of yard that exists on a Saturday when you won’t get caught. One of two things will happen, you either get left alone and get to keep the parking or “compromise” and get the alderman to give you a portion of the publicly owned right-of-way for you to include with your property.

I first blogged about this in June of last year (post) and a fourth time in August 2007 (post w/links to other posts). Last month, after wearing down the neighboring residents, something finally happened. The pad, illegally placed in the front yard, began to be removed.

Now, this sounds wonderful. As we can see from the image below…

…the pavement is now gone from the front yard after a six month prolonged process. The developer had promised parking to his buyers and rather than face the music for such a commitment the city is going to come along and bail him out — by giving him part of the public street.

This quiet one-way street in the Tower Grove East neighborhood is about to get some angled parking for the condo residents. I personally have no objection to the switch to angled parking or even issuing them permits for their exclusive use of those spaces. My issue is with the city vacating a portion of the street so it can be given over to private residents. Late last year Ald. Conway confirmed with me that he was trying to get Todd Waelterman, Director of Streets, so sign off on the vacation. I have not received a response from Waelterman that this has indeed happened.

In a city public space, the collective street, sidewalk, etc…, should be valued highly. It is these public rights of way that service as connectors to all privately owned land. It is the use and arrangement of these spaces that define a street as part of a walkable community or simply as a suburban arterial road with no redeeming public value. Cities like St. Louis need to treasure our publicly owned land that we have in our streets and alleys.

Aldermen Pass Legislation to Approve 10-Year Tax Abatement for Strip Center

The St. Louis Board of Aldermen just “perfected” Board Bill #257 giving the suburban strip mall at 2000-2014 South 7th (aka Broadway to most of us) at Russell 10-year tax abatement. Basically the building, built as part of a prior redevelopment plan, was considered “blighted” because it was vacant.

Last month the project added a sidewalk connecting a portion, but not all, of the storefronts to the public sidewalk system. For more information click here.

Century Building Case Continues Wind Through Court System

Yesterday I spent a half hour sitting in a courtroom listening to lawyers support and counter arguments in the case against two friends of mine, Marcia Behrendt and Roger Plackemeier.  Each filed lawsuits a number of years ago once it was realized developers sought to raze the historic Century Building for a parking garage.

Ultimately the developers got their financing and began demolishing the long-standing building — the very one the city had only a few years earlier told the then owner it should not be razed for parking. That started on the evening of October 20, 2004 — they had to quickly damage the building beyond repair.  As Behrendt & Plackemeier had sought to save the building, the one remaining and active suit was dropped.
In April 2005 the state (via the Missouri Development Finance Board) the city (via the Land Clearance for Redevelopment Authority), the developers NSG Developers LLC and St. Louis US Custom House and Post Office Building and Associates (aka Steve Stogel and Mark Schnuck) decided to sue Behrendt & Plackemeier, claiming “malicious prosecution.”

Recently they are asking the court to name attorney Matt Ghio as a defendant as well.  By doing so, he could represent himself but not B&P.  Doug Down, now representing NSG and the Post Office Associates, made Ghio out to look like an evil lawyer run amuck – handing out bad advice to B&P.  Dowd then told judge Donald McCullin that they’d sue Ghio individually if he were not added a defendant.  Ghio, in rebuttal, indicated this simply proved the developers, state and city sought to separate Ghio from defending B&P.  Ghio, having been involved in these cases for a good five years or so, knows all the issues quite clearly — that removing him would “prejudice his clients.”

Before Judge McCullin now are motions from each side.  The plaintiffs (developers, city, state) seek to add Ghio as a defendant (a motion to leave) as well as add another charge of “abuse of process” to B&P.  The defendants (B&P) filed a “motion for summary judgment” — asking the judge to throw out the case all together.  I’ll keep everyone posted once the judge makes his ruling on these motions.

[Photo by Alan Brunettin from Remember the Century pictorial.]

Where Will the Bowlers Park, The Need for On-Street Parking on Washington Ave

The sign went up last week and the lanes are nearly complete, we are about to have a new bowling alley on Washington Ave. — Flamingo Bowl! I have little doubt that this new venture of the Loop’s Joe Edwards will be successful. People will likely be coming and going during business hours, whatever those may be. The one thing they will not be doing is parking in front of the building.

You see, in our most pedestrian friendly part of town with thousands of new residents we must keep four lanes of traffic free and clear for the rush four hours. On the North side of the 11xx block of Washington Ave, we must keep it open 24/7.

Yes, it is OK to have the intersection of 11th & Washington blocked for a month so that all Westbound traffic is diverted. And yes, construction crews can block the outside lane as needed. But hey, once those are gone we’ve got to get serious about keeping traffic moving. You regular folks can’t even think about blocking traffic here.

Apparently someone at City Hall, the Downtown Partnership or somewhere thinks we have a huge morning and evening rush — enough to warrant two hours of no parking on the street every weekday morning and evening. Any after work folks that want to stop by a place for a happy hour special had best walk or wait until 6pm to do so.

As I’ve indicated before, we do have somewhat of a backlog in the afternoons as drivers head to I-70 and to Illinois. This backlog of cars is caused by poor signal timing as much as anything else. Until the city can manage to time the signals such that cars are not stuck heading Eastbound every afternoon I can see not allowing any parking in that direction. But what about Westbound?

I’ve actually given on-street parking on Washington quite a bit of thought and I want to share this with you. Let’s start over at Memorial Drive and work our way West back to Tucker.

Memorial (3rd) to North Broadway (5th):

In these two blocks, shown above, on-street parking is not currently permitted in either the Westbound or Eastbound direction. Here is what I’d like to see:

• EB Memorial to 4th: Leave this as a right turn only lane, no parking.
• WB Memorial to 4th: Wide area with two lanes going straight ahead and a right turn lane for those going northbound on 4th. I say we allow on-street parking in the current right turn only lane and make the center lane go straight while the other lane would become a right? I’m sure the owners of the hotel that have restaurant/retail space in the base of their building would appreciate it. This would also help create separation from those walking along the sidewalk and passing cars.
  
• EB 4th to Broadway: Allow parking on this entire side of street, but initially prohibit parking for 4:30pm-5:30pm M-F.
• WE 4th to Broadway: Make the area in front of the Missouri Athletic Club a combination no parking/bus stop area. Allow on-street parking on the balance of the block. As Broadway is southbound at this point we don’t need the outside lane for drivers turning right. Potentially prohibit parking for an hour weekday mornings.
• 

North Broadway (5th) to 7th:

• These two blocks are very easy: make provisions for bus stops to connect with the MetroLink stop and allow parking on the balance.
• Consider no-parking for an hour in the AM in the WB direction and an hour in the EB direction in the afternoons.
• Retail space in the buildings on the north side of Washington have not done well. As Pyramid remakes the area into the Mercantile Exchange District we need to think more about the needs of retail business as well as how pedestrians will use the space. On-street parking in these two blocks will help.
• 

7th to 9th:

• EB: Allow on-street parking end to end, except for bus stops and drives. Drivers heading east won’t be turning onto 7th (one-way) so keep traffic moving straight. A couple of spaces just West of 8th could be 15 minute spaces for those running inside the Starbucks. As before, consider a M-F rush hour no-parking provision for the afternoons only.
• WB 7th to 8th: Regular readers know my thoughts on this one. Remove the taxi stand from the sidewalk in front of the convention center and put it on the street, just east of 8th. There is room for a single space between 7th and the circle drive to the convention center — this should be a 15-minute limit “visitor” space for someone wanting to run into the tourist information office on the corner.
• WB 8th to 9th: Place the bus stop between 8th and the exit for the convention center’s circle drive. The remaining space just prior to 9th should be right turn only onto northbound 9th.
• 

9th to Tucker:

• EB 9th to 10th: This is in front of the hotel ballrooms and the retail space at 10th. Put the bus stop anywhere but directly in front of the retail space — in front of the entrance to the ballrooms (seldom used) — just not in front of the retail store. Allow on-street parking here, with the same exception noted about an hour in the afternoon only.
• 
• WB 9th to 10th: Here we have the newly opened Good Works store selling nice furnishings and accessories. Next door we have the Lammert building with the AIA bookstore on the ground floor. These retail entities need on-street parking. I don’t believe their is any morning rush at this point. Anyone heading into the CBD will be in the left turn lane to turn onto 10th so the right lane can be used for parking.
• 
• EB/WB 10th to 11th: On-street parking is allowed here but it is removed two hours each weekday morning and afternoon. We have zero EB morning rush and zero WB afternoon rush. If folks are going to insist on keeping lanes open rather than fixing the timing on the lights at least limit the no-parking provision to something logical — such as the direction of traffic.
• EB 11th to Tucker: Aside from getting the valets at Copia to understand that the meter on the west end of their valet zone is not in fact in their valet zone, this block is pretty good. Same thing as above, there is no morning rush in the EB direction so there is really no reason to keep this free.
• WB 11th to Tucker: Which brings us back to the block with Edwards’ new project, Flamingo Bowl. When parking was permitted from 10th to Tucker they initially put up signs to allow it here as well. That lasted about a week. Construction began on the loft building and once it returned to normal this side of the street was no parking. Hmmm. If you are a retailer would you prefer a space where someone can potentially park in front of your door or a place where traffic speeds by? Much of this lane is marked as right turn only onto Northbound Tucker. Of course, Tucker is now down to one lane up to Cole and then Tucker is closed due to the age of the bridge that creates the underground tunnel. A right turn only lane is not really necessary, especially at this point.

Basically the city is losing money because they are not out collecting revenue off mostly unused street real estate. We can provide convenient parking to help out retailers and make the sidewalks more comfortable for pedestrians without screwing up traffic — we simply prohibit the on-street parking in the direction the traffic is going — Eastbound back to Illinois in the afternoon and to a lesser degree Westbound in the AM. Furthering the retail and restaurant operations toward the river will be welcomed to visitors at our convention center who, upon visiting, don’t necessarily know about the great things happening further West — the lack of parking in the immediate area gives a dead impression. Having on-street parking, even if full, gives the impression that downtown doesn’t have a parking problem.

The Downtown St. Louis Residents Association (DSLRA) is holding a holiday event at the new Flamingo Bowl on the evening of Thursday December 13th.

We Need More Parking…For Bicycles

Next week is back to the bicycle for me. Sure, we are going into winter and it is easy for me to type this while in Miami Beach in 80-degree weather. Still, staying warm on a bicycle is easier than staying warm on a scooter. I’m not putting the scooter away, just not relying on it for 100% of my transit.

Later this week, I’ve got a convention downtown. It would be nice to bike there but where to lock? There are parking garages everywhere downtown, including one as part of the convention center complex. The large curved front is all cars — both the driveway and sidewalk are devoted to cars. No room for one little bike. Not to worry, I’ll find a place to lock it.

So this and some bugging from a friend got me thinking about what it is that I’d like to see in the city and the surrounding region. The first thing is bike parking. No doubt about it, bike parking is critical to successfully being able to park bikes. Duh, right? Bike lanes are rather useless unless you just want to ride around in circles. Sure, often a sign post or some other object exists to secure a bike but you just never know.

The uncertainly, if you have a choice, may cause you to leave the bike at home and take the car to the store a mile away — an easy bike ride. Convenient parking, on the public sidewalk, is a key element to increasing the daily use of bicycling. Of course the city owns and controls their sidewalk. Some, such as the City of St. Louis, allow taxi cabs to wait around for customers on sidewalks. A better use of this space would be to have bike parking throughout commercial districts.

But this is easier said than done. Because the city doesn’t want to have people installing bike racks left and right without any oversight (they may want to save that sidewalk for a taxi, for example), the process is long and brutal. Chicago has a better answer — they simply install them. It works like this, business owners ask for bike parking, the city quickly evaluates, and installs the rack. Likely in less time it would take to get on the agenda at the Board of Public Service to get your rack approved.

So what do I want? I want municipal supported bike parking! We can find ways to spend tens of millions on parking garages but the city can’t find any money to install bike racks downtown and in commercial districts?

Earlier today I met Andy Clark, Executive Director of the League of American Bicyclists. He was here, in Miami, speaking to rail advocates about the importance of cycling. Briefly we talked about St. Louis and how much we have to do before becoming a bike friendly city. I hope we get there some day.
In addition to bike parking, I’d like to see some of the following:

• A transportation-focused bike plan
• A bike station in the central business district as well as in downtown Clayton. Should include shower/locker facilities and indoor bike storage.
• Municipal/Regional adoption of Complete Streets.
  
• New zoning in the City of St. Louis, as well as nearby municipalities, to require a more urban form. This will benefit cyclists (and pedestrians) without punishing motorists. This is in conjunction with Complete Streets above.

There is a strong connection between using public transit (all forms), walking, cycling and yes even using my scooter. There is an upside here too for the motorist. The more folks we get out of cars the more room on the existing road there will be for you. Just give me a few feet of sidewalk for bike parking.