I Agree With the Group Trying to Stop the Lindell Tower
That is right, I agree with the group that wants to stop the 26-story Lindell Tower project. No, I don’t want to stop the tower project itself, but I want to stop the city’s process of old codes, aldermanic control, and backroom deals. The tower project, as now proposed, will be a nice addition to both the city skyline as well as the Euclid & Lindell streetscapes (my review). The archaic system by which projects move through the city, however, remains unwelcomed.
Yes, the tower is getting an exception due to its height. Was that exception granted as part of the system that I want to destroy, yes. Does the fact it is being approved through a unsavory process mean it is a bad design, no. The group trying to stop the project claims it is a bad project, that the height is out of scale. While it is true the height does not align with the adjacent buildings that does not mean it is out of scale.
I think this group of well-meaning citizens are fighting the wrong battle. I respect their beliefs and love their passion but I think they’ve latched on to this height thing to the point it is clouding their judgement. I personally love differences of height. Scale and massing are two different subjects entirely. Given all the really atrocious design being plopped down in this city such as Pyramid’s Sullivan Place & the McDonald’s drive-thru, Wohlert’s Magnolia Place where St. Aloysius thankfully still remains today, or Loughborough Commons in Matt Villa’s ward I just can’t expense time debating 26 floors vs. 20 floors or whatever the number may be.
Where I agree is the process, but that is getting lost among the discussions of the specific project and the debate on the number of floors. Relative to the actions I’ve seen from numerous other Aldermen I think Lyda Krewson has done an outstanding job trying to balance the perspectives of her constituents as well as the city at large. Is she part of the system? Absolutely. Does she need to be pressured into changing the system to serve the citizens or be voted out? A resounding yes!
In fact, every single member of the St. Louis Board of Aldermen needs to feel heat over the process of backroom deals, lack of comprehensive planning and zoning dating to the 1940s. That folks, is the battle we all need to be fighting together.
[NOTE I have had to make considerable edits to the recent comments that follow. The reason? Someone posted a comment pretending to be a person oppossing the tower project but I know in fact it was not her. I deleted the pretend comments as well as responses that related to those pretend comments. I understand that sometimes people want to post anonymously but it is quite another to pretend to be someone else. I hated having to delete so many comments but they were not based on a true representation of fact. The offending person, whom I’ve been able to track, has been asked to stop pretending to be someone else. 4/26/06 @ 5pm.
– Steve
Steve, I could not agree more. The system needs a massive colonic. But the additional density offered by strategically placed new high-rises will be a very a good thing for the vitality of the neighborhood and the City. More people (and in a built-out area like the CWE, that means people in the sky) will help the West End attract more and stronger retail business, which will provide much-needed services and tax revenue.
I think that sums up the most serious problem for St. Louis. To get where good planning can take us, with walkable/bikeable communities, stable property values, and the convenience/safety in density, we can’t go on like this. With a city full of such neighborhoods, commercial establishments won’t need financial encouragement to move into the city, even if they have to abide by strict codes for sites and buildings.
Back room deals, removing areas from historic districts, corporate welfare, and aldermanic courtesy that nullifies the only good planning guidelines we have are killing our chances for a responsible and proven process for positive change.
Good call, Steve. Will this be your campaign platform for a run at the mayor’s office?
The density is great, but economic diversity needs to be a consideration. I support tall new buildings but I think that there should be a requirement for set-aside affordable units in all new construction. That should be a requirement for getting a variance, in my opinion. Otherwise, we will be watching a dramatic demographic flip between the city and suburbs over the next 25 years.
Neither Opus nor those protesting the tower showed much interest in promoting economic diversity in the CWE. The ironic thing is that the young people in support of the tower probably can’t afford to live in it. Developers like Opus need the support of young people to build public support for their projects. In turn, they need to support these people by creating modern affordable housing. If non-profit developers like RHCDA can do things like this, deep-pockets developers can do the exact same thing times twenty.
The current system is all about money. An alternate system could be all about people. Please let’s don’t let the suburbs become the destination for cheap rent.
[REPLY – Thank you! This is a very important point. We we rebuild and repopulate our city we do need to give consideration to making sure we provide housing for those of various income levels. This is not to say that this building should accept Section 8 vouchers but it is reasonable to negotiate some more affordable units as a trade-off when exceeding requirements such as height. I say let them add another floor or two if necessary and have a few sub-market rate units. – SLP]
Requiring affordable housing is tricky to implement. Hopefully, all real estate will appreciate in value over time. When an entity requires a below-market-rate component, it creates the likelihood that someone will benefit from above-average appreciation at some point in the future:
The free market says a unit should sell for $200,000. The law, however, says it can’t sell for more than $150,000. The law also (has to) includes a time period after which the unit is no longer appreciation-controlled. At that time, whoever owns it will realize a windfall profit from having the luck to purchase the unit at a below-market price x years ago. Is this fair? I don’t think so. Better to let the market decide waht a fair price should be for all buyers.
Bigger picture, life ain’t fair. We all can’t afford to live in the cool part of town / wherever we want to. If it’s cool, it’s going to cost more. Desirability increases prices. And coming from Colorado, I can guarantee you that St. Louis is, in general, very affordable. You can buy a perfectly livable home here for less than $100,000. It would cost twice that in Colorado and three to four times that on the coasts.
Better to look outside the CWE than to complain about the cost of new high-rise construction. This also points out some of of the downsides to densification and reinvestment in urban areas. It simply costs more to build desirable projects like this, so to live in one, you’re either going to pay more or live in a smaller home!
Jim, your points are good ones. However, the reality is that this country’s economy is creating one of the largest gaps between haves and have-nots ever. It’s not enough to say “you can’t live inthe cool parts of the city” when the cool parts of the city become anywhere safe with historic buildings. Look at the horrible class segregation in Chicago as an example of how rising real estate prices have divided the city into a high-priced half many people can’t afford and a low-prices half where no one wants to live. College students looking to save money are far more likely to live in Elmhurst or Downer’s Grove than Lawndale — to the detriment of the city’s cultural life.
St. Louis is nowhere near Chicago’s situation, but it is on the road to higher prices and without sensible planning could make the same mistakes.
In other words, if only people with oncomes in the city’s top 10% can afford to live in a neighborhood, how cool can it be? Our region isn’t exactly creating lots of good new jobs, and the reality is that most city residents are not earning what they would like to earn. That’s not their fault when there are no good jobs to be had!
We can’t keep creating frontiers, because in the end those who can’t afford to live “cool” (most city residents, and nearly all with families) will have to move to St. Louis or St. Charles counties or elsewhere.
Appreciation control could last 50 years.
I live in the CWE (right up the street from Opus’s other project–we bought in 1994 when it was still quite affordable) and I don’t have a problem with the tower. If it adds street level retail, it will be a boon to that corner–the existing building adds nothing. As Steve said, the process is the problem–the list of current projects (McDonalds, Magnolia Place, Hudlin Park) is just a drop in the bucket compared to what has happened in the past.
Affordability is an issue, but that’s gone in the CWE. While I lament that in one way, because I loved the mixed-income atmosphere, it was so different from the suburban areas I grew up in– I think the rebound of the CWE has encouraged people to abandon conventional St. Louis thinking and invest in other areas of the City.
I could see demanding affordable housing if this new tower were replacing existing residential, but it’s not. Since the American Heart Association chose to sell their building and relocate (no involuntary displacement here), I say let the market achieve whatever prices people are willing to pay.
In other words, the CWE is gaining additional housing units, albeit at higher prices. The area’s existing mix of housing will still be there post-tower, just more units in the upper end added to the current mix. If anything, existing owners will be enriched in their home equity, and all residents, including renters, will benefit from more retail and services attracted to such increasingly dense, collective purchasing power.
“I think the rebound of the CWE has encouraged people to abandon conventional St. Louis thinking and invest in other areas of the City.”
Great point. However, not everyone is able to make an investment. In fact, most St. Louisans probably cannot afford to look at their housing choice as an investment. Some people just want to rent or buy a small place in a safe and walkable area. Housing elsewhere often requires rehab, and not everyone can afford rehab loans or do work themselves. (I’m handy but I work a full-time job and end up hiring out things that I could do myself.)
The flip side is also relevant: what happens when once-hip neighborhoods get one chain restaurant too many to be cool anymore? How does that impact the quality of life of those who can afford to live there?
Balance is crucial.
Cities are living things and hipness is an ephemeral thing. Therefore, where the “cool” places are will never completely line up with where the “nice” areas are. That’s part of what makes a place hip – the exclusivity of knowing about it. Artists and the “creative class” that can’t afford the CWE or other expensive areas take up residence other places – The Grove, Cherokee and add the things that make the area interesting.
People that value security and safety more than low rents, but still appreciate “culture” will move in next, and then the more conservative investors move in, pricing out the original tenants sending them to other undeveloped areas. Or something like that. I ripped that off from someone. Trying to stop this cycle is impossible. I think the best thing to do is to have a system in place that ensures that when a neighborhood reaches this final stage, the conservative late movers can’t just leave it high and dry. There should be a golden rule of investment – once an investment cycle hits a nieghborhood, it should be left in better shape than it was found, regardless of who the actors are or what part of the cycle they are in. Unfortunately, this last group in the cycle tends to think more of money than sustainable growth and the associated long term improvements to a neighborhood (that’s why it took them so long to get in the neighborhood in the first place – they needed to make sure that OTHERS stabilized it before they would put THEIR money in it).
Wait, what was I talking about?
While the notion that new housing should include units set aside for “all income levels” is nice, it is an unrealistic ideal. It is a fact of life that not everyone is going to be able to afford to live in the most sought-after urban neighborhoods (I am one of those people). It’s not a “mistake” that Chicago made, it’s called a market economy. And it’s not only Chicago either– it’s hot neighborhoods all over the country that are becoming more and more expensive. What happens when a neighborhood gets popular? It gets expensive. Period. In a perfect world we could all live side by side no matter what our income, but come on, who are we kidding.
While I do not support mass, heavy-handed gentrification, it has been obvious for the past 10 years that the CWE is no longer the hippy/bohemian enclave that it once was. That distinction has moved to other neighborhoods in the city. You have multi-million-dollar mansions lining private streets all over the West End, it shouldn’t be a surprise that new development is going to be a bit pricey. The CWE was originally built to be a very wealthy neighborhood, and the fact that prices are going up is a sign that there are lots of people with money who want to live here again. I take that as a positive change. More dollars for the city’s tax base.
There are PLENTY of neighborhoods in the city that are lively and very affordable, some as a result of the rising prices in the central corridor. And let’s put things in perspective here, $250,000 is a drop in the bucket compared to coastal cities. I wouldn’t take this tower as a terrible threat to the neighborhood. It was going that way anyway.
It’s also very important to remember that developers are not charity workers. Of course they want to make money on these projects. We can only hope they do so in a community-conscious manner, which I think Opus has done.
I fought against the Century Building’s demolition, and I’ve seen the ugliness of backroom politics. I think there are many, many flaws in our city’s government and there are a lot of questionable practices in our midst. But that’s a fight we need to confront directly, and we don’t need to derail projects that are going to add vitality to our neighbhorhoods in order to do so.
I fully support the Opus project at Lindell & Euclid, even if I don’t support the ways in which it came to pass.
I don’t get it, should the city not have neighborhoods that appeal to different socio-economic groups? I live in a modest two-family in South City and am very happy here. And I don’t resent the people who can afford to live the good life either.
Do people have a right to live where ever they want?
Does someone have a right to live in the CWE or Ladue?
If the answer is no, then maybe controling housing prices doesn’t make sense. Besides demand rather than supply side gov’t housing policies work better.
Jeff’s analysis of settlement cycles is really good! He is right that the late movers aren’t thinking long-term and sometimes just leave an area. Their exclusive presence, just like the exclusive presence of low-rent tenants, leaves an area vulnerable to sudden downturn.
As for maket forces, they aren’t often responsible for good urban planning. Market forces are what are building the exurbs and what tore down great downtown buildings. Planning is inherently resistance to the market — resistance that guarantees sustainability, something the market does not.
Affordable neighborhoods vs higher end neighborhoods? This is really starting to sound like suburbia.
Part of the beauty of true city living is the variety of housing stock that should be present in a neighborhood. Most traditional neighborhoods in the US and Europe have had people making the current equivalent to $12,000 living next to people making $200,000 dollars. By affordable units we shouldn’t mean units that someone making $175,000 could afford next to someone making $200,000.
It was a suburban, segregated way of thinking that decided neighborhoods should be divided up this way. A neighborhood for people who make 175k-200k, another for people who make 30k-40k…. The only thing this does is foster a culturless prosperity in the upper-end neighborhoods and poverty and crime in the lower-end ones.
When you do this you effectively cut out the potential for real “culture”. It’s usually the people making 200k that appreciate art and usually the people making less than 20k that create the art for them to appreciate. Artists and creative people have always been in lower income brackets, with the solitary exception of “rock stars” and “movie stars”. What Jeff talked about is a perfect example of what happened in NYC’s East Village. Artist’s move in for low-prices, neighborhood becomes “hip”, prices go up.
I think we shouldn’t just accept that some neighborhood are by nature unaccessible to people with lower incomes. A healthy neighborhood should have a healthy mix of both.
[RPELY – Very good points, thank you. As an example of “affordable” I lived in The President on Lindell next to then Boatmen’s Bank. My efficiency apartment was located next door to a large 3-bedroom where an A.G. Edwards VP lived. We weren’t in the same social circles but we’d meet in the hallway while waiting for the elevator. We likely would never have interacted otherwise. This only comes from good diversity of housing. – SLP]
Diversity in housing opportunities is a great goal, but in reality, it’s a truly utopian concept. The question remains, how do you make it work in a free-market economy, without introducing artificial constraints (that have more unintended consequences than positive outcomes)? Do you tell a property owner that they can’t sell their property for what the market is willing to pay?! Yeah, it sucks being poor, either by choice or by circumstances, but that’s life! If you’re willing to work, there should be a way to have a (not any, but a) roof over your head – there does need to be “affordable” housing available, and around here there’s plenty. Work harder and/or smarter (or win the lottery or inherit a pile of money) and you get a better roof. That’s life.
The only two ways that I’ve seen that come close to “working” to address the affordable housing “issue” are a growing economy and more-flexible zoning and building codes. “Affordable” is relative – if you’re making minimum wage, $500 a month is stretch. If you’re making $50,000 a year, living in Ladue’s going to be unaffordable. The trick is balancing supply and demand. Boulder, Colorado is a classic example. 25 years ago, they established a greenbelt around the city, limiting both sprawl and growth. The result is an increase in density and an explosive increase in housing costs. The unintended consequence is a big change in commuting patterns. Most people who work (and many who go to school) in Boulder now live outside Boulder and have to commute 10-20-30 miles to get there. 25 years ago, they could’ve afforded to live there. The only way to change this is have much higher wages, but as we’ve all seen with the demise of unions and a manufacturing-based economy and the rise of globalism, the few rich are getting richer while the middle class is losing ground.
Fixing zoning includes allowing (and encouraging) a much broader range of housing types, including “granny flats”, “mother-in-law” apartments that can also be rented, SRO hotels and more efficiency/studio apartments. There’s a direct correlation between smaller and cheaper and more-dense and more-affordable. For example, in St. Louis, the existing 4000 square foot minimum lot size for single-family residences, 1500 square feet/unit lot size for multiple-unit residences (in the C & D zone districts) and 750 square feet/unit lot size for multiple-unit residences (in the E zone district) are all artificial constraints that limit options. So are the parking requirements of 1 space / unit for new construction and ¾ space / unit for renovated properties.
For all the challenges St. Louis faces, affordable housing isn’t really one of them. Choosing to be an artist or a bohemian or a barista is just that, a choice. It may be cool, rewarding and a way to express one’s self, but most of the time, it doesn’t pay squat. Still, there are many, many places to either buy or rent around here that allow people to make that choice and still “survive” (they’re not “living in the back of a van down by the river”). That’s a good thing (actually, a pretty good thing). Still, it’s all about choices. Going to work for “the man”, whether it’s becoming a cop or a fire fighter or a teacher or building minivans in Fenton or hustling vinyl siding and replacement windows at Sears or Home Depot may not be your vision of a perfect life, but it will allow you to buy what you want in a lot more parts of town. Like I said, life’s not fair, but it works . . .
[REPLY – Your points about various housing types including flats and Single Room Occupancy (SRO) is exactly how cities used to achieve housing for all: not everyone got a single family detached home. You are correct that zoning should allow and encourage a mix. Same for high rises, each floor could contain an efficiency unit offering more affordable rents than other units in the same building.
But, we do have an affordable housing issue in St. Louis. I know a department head in the city that says his employees are getting priced out of the city as gentrification occurs. Many affordable places are owned by absentee landlords. I remember seeing a Section 8 unit in a building a couple of years ago that had just passed its annual inspection but I can’t imagine living there. And we have to think about providing minimal shelter for the homeless among us.
Your Boulder example is a good one. They didn’t have an affordability issue until after they’d managed to urbanize the city but by then it was too late. We must think about these things now rather than later.
This can be done without tons of bureaucratic BS. A 500sf efficiency unit on each floor of the Opus tower would create a more affordable option in the CWE. No federal subsidy needed. No requirement the price be fixed for a given number of years. The size alone will guarantee the price stays relatively affordable. – SLP]
So how does one get there? One idea – create incentives. The expensive parts of any housing unit are the kitchen, bathroom(s) and any required parking. What if St. Louis were to allow up to 10% of the units in any new multi-unit building with more than x units (20? 30?) to delete the required parking for any unit with less than y square feet (600? 700?)? What if St. Louis were to allow up to 10% of the units in any new multi-unit building with more than x units (20? 30?) to be less than y square feet (350? 500?) in total area? Either or both would move away from manadated affordable housing toward a more market-driven solution for denser developments . . .
[REPLY – Exactly, structured parking often adds $10K-$20K to the price of a unit. If you are buying a half million dollar condo that isn’t such a big deal but if your budget is $100K then another $15K can prevent you from owning a place. Many of the downtown lofts have a simple 1:1 parking ratio whereas the Lindell Tower was proposing 1.5 spaces per unit. As far as the minimal size of the unit I don’t know that a developer couldn’t do that now. – SLP]
I do not make a lot of money, and I do not think every new project must have “affordable” units. I don’t think that ruins neighborhoods. It’s the natural cycle of life in the big city. Someone cited SoHo in NYC as a great example. SoHo was edgy and cheap at one time. That sparked interest in the neighborhood, the yuppies moved in, the creative types moved on to other neighborhoods like Williamsburg, Brooklyn and the like.
I think all those preaching “mixed-income” development should go and pitch that idea to developers who are paying gobs of millions to acquire these parcels in the CWE. Does it make financial sense for them to make everything attainable to all economic groups? I doubt it. I agree it would be much better from a sociological standpoint, but that’s not the real world.
[REPLY – When people are priced out of areas they could once afford it does change dynamics. Even Ladue has more modest houses relative to the big mansions.
The “reality” is we as a society must figure out ways to house everyone and I don’t like the ‘burbs because of the way everyone is income segregated. Cities should be more mixed. I’m not saying we have to force it on developers but offering incentives is a good start.
The idea of dropping parking for the affordable units can help the developer’s bottom line. Also allowing a developer the rights to build higher, and thus more total units, in exchange for having some very small units will build in market based affordability and offer the developer real financial incentives to do so. This also makes the project more dense that it would have been otherwise. Can you possibly argue against such incentives? – SLP]
^I definitely agree. I just haven’t seen a project in any city which does that. Usually new construction in hot neighborhoods is expensive. I do think it would be awesome to build a much more affordable tower on one of the many vacant lots on the north side of the CWE, which would attract more modest buyers. The land would be cheaper and the project would help to spread development north, which is long overdue. When I hear “mixed-income” all I can think about is Laclede Town, which was a successful product of its time for a while, but short-lived.
I love the idea of having incentives. Any successful examples from other places?
[REPLY – Affordable tower to attract modest buyers? Why so economically segregated. The entire point is to have various economic levels fully integrated into every neighborhood. Granted, you are not going to get someone making twenty grand a year living in the Lindell Tower. They already have $250K and $1 million dollar units in the same building, why not have a few $150K units? Again, I don’t want to hurt their bottom line, it can be done so they make additional profit for providing these units; a win-win.
Other cities that recognize they must build-in affordability as they go along use these types of incentives to encourage developers. Developers, on the other hand, often don’t think about this but with the incentives jump on the chance to increase their bottom line. – SLP]
To reiterate my position:
Backroom politics: BAD
A highrise at Euclid & Lindell: GOOD
^Good to keep it simple for those afraid of shadows.
But as much publicity and meetings this project has had, I don’t think of the Lindell tower as a backroom deal. Granted, aldermanic courtesy will still likely be followed to allow development counter to established district/plan area rules. And that system does need reform.
But it would have been nice if another alderwoman seeking a development counter to established drive-thru prohibitions would have encouraged as much public involvement as Krewson has for a development counter to adopted height restrictions.
And it’s not hypocritical to view a height restriction on a historically high-rise street like Lindell as counter-intuitive, while also supporting an established drive-thru restriction on a historically pedestrian street like South Grand. Indeed, for those following both battles, the consistency is in the history of great streets (Lindell and South Grand) remaining true to their roots and improving further as vital urban corridors.
I was at the meeting when the new design was unveiled. The majority of people who spoke are in favor of the development.
It’s laughable that one woman actually stood up and opposed the project on the basis that she “doesn’t want to see it from her front porch.” Oh well in that case, god forbid we build ANYTHING in the city! A resident might actually SEE it!
Anyway, I’m very excited to see this project going forward. Get rid of that disgusting eyesore that is truly a BLIGHT on the neighborhood.
Steve’s point about segregating economic levels–particularly when attached to the word “affordable”–is of particular importance when discussing multi-family housing. High rises in particular only overcome the stigma of the 1960’s public housing legacy if the word “luxury” is attached to them.
That said, the northern edge is the next frontier, and the old Schnucks at the corner of Kingshighway and Delmar is the first site in my mind’s eye. But I don’t think that a tower would be successful there; the scale of the surroundings wouldn’t support it, not to mention the perceptual issues. I’m thinking multi-use development like the Boulevard. Now, if only I had the money to do it . . .
Lisa:
Why don’t you think that the scale of Delmar and Euclid would support a tall building?
The Roosevelt Hotel to the east and the Euclid Plaza building south of there form a pair of considerably-sized buildings that need some friends. While 28 stories may be too high, even 15 stories could be appropriate given the existing density.
I’ve seen a number of photographs and postcards depicting the corner in the early part of the century, and the buildings that were there were not all that tall–8-10 stories, similar to the two buildings at Euclid. (There’s a really great picture in one of Andrew Young’s St. Louis Streetcars books, but here’s one example: http://www.usgennet.org/usa/mo/county/stlouis/postcards/1911kingshighwaynorth.jpg)
The houses on Enright and Aubert are significantly smaller in scale, akin to those on Maryland and McPherson, where the adjacent commerical construction is similar in size. Many of the houses are missing but I see more activity in this area every day, and hope that (decent) new construction will follow.
A tall (20 stories +) building in that location would shade many of those homes from southern sunshine–maybe okay during the summer months, but not very neighborly during the winter when the effects would be strongest because of the sun angles. The satellite photo on Yahoo maps shows this very clearly with the Roosevelt.
I said “the Boulevard” as shorthand–yes, I think a taller segment–15 stories? maybe more, hard to tell without the tools in hand–would be appropriate on the Delmar side, particularly if Taco Bell, the strip mall, and the other suburban intruders could be reborn as tenants on the first floor of another high rise development.
Were I designing it, the development would be tallest on the Delmar/Kingshighway corner with a signature element to increase its visibility, while while supporting the taller scale with retail/office/lofts on the Delmar edge. Parking would be internal and accessible from the reintroduction of Aubert Street through the site. Smaller scale residential (5 stories max) would soften the edge to the homes on the north side.
Anyone out there ready to buy an old grocery store?
the question still remains..what should happen at lindell & euclid? those dead lots need to go in order to achieve a unified cwe. and if you don’t like what is proposed, what do you want to see there, when do you want to see it, and who’s going to put it there considering the high cost of the land?
In the spirit of the late great Jane Jacobs, I respect any community group that is willing to put up their dukes for what they believe in.
For the sake of the CWE’s future I hope they [CRD] lose, but I respect their efforts nonetheless.
I have regretably had to edit some comments, see the note above at the end of the original post. – Steve/Urban Review