I like to end each week with a positive post and nothing is more positive than a favorite building, long written off, getting rehabbed. A large house on Delmar, with unique dormers, has been in disrepair for years. A few months ago a friend posted on Facebook that work was starting on the building. Earlier this month I took the #97 MetroBus to photograph the progress.
Work was still ongoing on my December 12th visit.Diagonally across Delmar & Pendleton, click image for mapThis March 2014 photo from GEO St. Louis shows the old fire escape from when the house was divided into multiple units.
City records indicate 4270 Delmar Blvd was built in 1893 and contains 5,687 sq ft. This property is just a couple of blocks West of another favorite building, that also recently got rehabbed, now known as Freedom Place. Fingers crossed someone will take on the building at the East end of Fountain Park.
The last Blumeyer tower being razed, demolition started on October 23rd3501 Franklin in March 2012Most of the Blumeyer towers were razed years ago, photo from January 2007
A 2011 article says the site will become “green space.” I doubt it’ll be quality park space, just a green-ish rectangle.
I’m a huge fan of Retrofitting Suburbia, the redevelopment of formerly auto-centric suburban retail sites. In late September, while on my honeymoon, I got to see three different examples in the Denver area. Two site once had traditional enclosed malls, the third was previously an airport. We started with the oldest and finished with the newest.
Englewood, CO
In June 2000 the CityCenter Englewood project opened, replacing Cinderella City mall that had opened just 32 years earlier:
The mall was completed and officially opened for business on 7 March 1968 and once held the distinction of being the largest covered shopping center west of the Mississippi River. It featured four sections: Rose Mall, Gold Mall, Shamrock Mall and Cinder Alley. In addition, the Center Court area was known as the Blue Mall. It was demolished in 1999. (Wikipedia)
Englewood was founded in the 19th Century but largely developed in the Post-WWII era. Like many post-war suburbs, it lacked a downtown. By the 1980s newer malls had eclipsed Cinderella City. In the late 1990s they saw the replacement of the mall and the coming of light rail as an opportunity to build a downtown:
CityCenter Englewood replaced Cinderella City with a transit-oriented development (TOD). This TOD is a pedestrian-friendly, mixed-use concept that includes retail, entertainment, residential, office, civic and open space elements with a transit focal point. The former Foley’s building was renovated into the new Englewood Civic Center, which houses the City Hall offices, the Library, Municipal Court, and the Museum of Outdoor Arts. The Civic Center was the first feature of CityCenter Englewood to open when it made its debut in June 2000.
The Civic Center creates the cornerstone of the redevelopment of Cinderella City that includes Wal-Mart, Trammell Crow apartments with first floor retail, Office Depot, the Sports Authority, IHOP, Qdoba, and other retail and commercial businesses, second floor office with first floor retail, an RTD light rail station, and a Bally’s Fitness Center. (City of Englewood)
You can see a current aerial here, and a 1991 aerial here. In the Southwest corner of the site an anchor store building was retained, as was part of the structured parking. The adjacent street grid was brought through the site. Apartments were added nearest the new light rail station, big box stores added to the east end of the site. All connected by a grid of streets and sidewalks.
The former anchor store that remained is nope the Englewood Civic CenterThe light rail station is to the left, the Walmart down the road to the right. Yes, a Walmart is across the street from a large 3-story apartment building that has street-level retail.
Not bad for an early example of such a project. We saw people walking as we drove through, others can be seen in Google Street View.
Lakewood, CO
The Villa Italia mall opened two years before Cinderella City, in 1966. By the 1990s Lakewood officials saw both malls dying off, they didn’t want a vacant mall in their city.
A referendum was held in 1997, which authorized “urban renewal” to redevelop Villa Italia into a more conventional downtown district, something that the post-war suburb had never had.
In 1998, Lakewood entered into a joint venture with Denver-based Continuum Development. Continuum purchased the land beneath the mall from the Bonfils-Stanton Foundation in September 1999 and acquired the buildings and ground leases from Equitable in early 2001. The site was rezoned (from that of an enclosed shopping center to a mixed-use development) and the redevelopment plan put in motion.
Villa Italia closed in July 2001, demolition began the following January. Belmar opened in 2004. Like CityCenter Englewood, streets were cut through the site. Not private driveways, public streets with public sidewalks. The pedestrian grid was as equally important as the vehicular grid, not an afterthought.
You can view an old aerial here and a current one here.
A new street at BelmarThe new buildings have a variety of uses and architectural stylesIt too has big boxes, this is the side view of Target.
A former anchor department store building was kept, it’s now a Dick’s Sporting Goods store. New housing is on the perimeter of the site, surrounding the retail core.
Stapleton
When Denver decided to build a new airport east of the developed region the question became what to do with the old airport.
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A wide variety of new housing is part of Stapleton, including single family homes, apartments, townhouses, etcAn internal street in the center of the main retail area called The Shops at Northfield StapletonAnother viewAnother street in the core of the retail area, note the on-street parkingDespite plenty of free parking on the perimeter, to park in the center requires payment. The silver Ford Focus was our rental for 3 days of our 7-day honeymoonLooking out at the street from our lunch tableJust beyond the center you can see big box stores and large parking lots.Like the two previous examples, pedestrian connectivity was planned from the start to connect everything together.The urban-ish area on the left, big box to the right. All walkable & drivable.Another view from the retail center looking toward the big boxes on the perimeter.Target is among the many big box stores at StapletonLooking out from Target, their walkway connects to the Stapleton pedestrian network beyond Target’s parking lot.The street where we parked terminated in a Bass Pro Shops store, also connected to the sidewalk system
The overall site is massive, as you might expect from a former airport. It has many residential neighborhoods, distinct retail areas, and a business park.
Final thoughts
All three are variations on the New Urbanist/Retrofitting Suburbia theme. While I wouldn’t want to live at any of the three I know someone like me, who uses a wheelchair often, can get to businesses at each development on a sidewalk network. All three remain very car friendly, I drove to all three. Providing the option to walk doesn’t make them less appealing to motorists. Some pedestrians probably arrived by car but decide to explore on foot rather than drive from store to store.
Overall readers in the poll last week indicated are general disliking of the new Aventura Apartments in the Forest Park Southeast neighborhood, just south of I-64.
Here are the results:
Q: The Aventura apartments south of BJC/Cortex are… (pick up to two answers)
architecturally out of place 63 [36.84%]
not ideal, but could’ve been worse 27 [15.79%]
better than the old gasometer 20 [11.7%]
not my taste, but right for others 19 [11.11%]
attractive to their target audience 17 [9.94%]
TIE
quality housing with needed density 11 [6.43%]
Other: 11 [6.43%]
yuk! total let down in otherwise awesome neighborhood
ugly suburban crap. will be trashed in
doesn’t interact with the street
Cheap and suburban. Horrible design and little effort from the developers.
Could not have been much worse
good density, poor quality. what will they look like in 30 years?
Crappy Suburan type desig
Predictable design, but it works OK.
Sad ongoing trend of what our beautiful city is morphing into
The density is appropriate, the design is not
whatever
unsure/no opinion 3 [1.75%]
All 11 of the other comments are correct! My main issue isn’t so much the aesthetics, but the building’s lack of relationship to the public sidewalks and each other. It’s isolationist, a gated enclave.
This is the photo of the Aventura apartments used on the poll post was the most positive image possible from the public sidewalkThe east side faces Chouteau Park (right), but isn’t oriented to it
This project won’t age well, the plastic shutters that can’t cover the windows will fall off, the surrounding sidewalks will remain lifeless and therefore unsafe. This project sucks the life out of the area. Hopefully I’ll live long enough to see it razed and replaced with an appropriate development(s).
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Built St. Louis
historic architecture of St. Louis, Missouri – mourning the losses, celebrating the survivors.
Geo St. Louis
a guide to geospatial data about the City of St. Louis
