Mall Owners Seek Tax Increase To Raze Portion of Vacant 4-Year Old Anchor Location

In the late 1990s Australian based Westfield Group got a dandy TIF (nearly $30 million) to rebuild West County Mall — claiming it was outdated and unable to compete with newer malls. The suburban community of Des Peres, with well heeled residents, agreed and blighted the old mall.

Reopening in September 2002 the expectations were high but a year later in September 2003 sales were under projections. From the Post-Dispatch of September 14, 2003:

…a year after reopening to much hype, West County Center is yet to prove whether it can prevail in a high-stakes battle for the affluent shoppers of west St. Louis County.

In its first year, West County Center has struggled to capture the sales expected of it, according to figures from the city of Des Peres.

Analysts and retailers say the 1.3 million-square-foot mall, the area’s third largest, has been hurt in the struggling economy and by stiff competition from established high-end malls, namely the St. Louis Galleria and Plaza Frontenac.

Sales for 2003 will be down about 26 percent from original projections, according to the city.

In 2006 Federated closed numerous Lord & Taylor locations, including the one at the Galleria and West County Center (Biz Journal). Earlier this year Westfield and Tennessee based CBL formed a partnership that included a number of area malls, including West County Center.

So now this new partnership wants to create a community improvement district. From today’s Post-Dispatch:

CBL Properties, the new owners of the shopping center, plan to demolish half the building to create a restaurant village with four to six dining establishments and a courtyard in the center. The upper half of the remaining building would be a large bookstore and the lower half would have small retail shops.

The improvement district would impose a 1 percent sales tax on stores in the mall, except for anchor stores Macy’s, Nordstrom and J.C. Penney. The sales tax is expected to generate $10 million to retire notes or bonds issued to finance the project.

A public hearing will be held Dec. 10 on the request for the district, the redevelopment plan and conditional use permits.

Wow, when will these folks ever stop? So I’m now supposed to pay an extra cent sales tax on purchases at the Apple Store so they can fund the latest re-working of the failed indoor mall concept? Meanwhile, purchases made at one of the three anchors would be a cent less than in smaller stores in the mall?  And what “community” is this district to improve?  Are we calling a privately owned mall a community now?  The owner of this mall is not destitute — let them borrow the money needed to rebuild as they see fit.

“Clowns” on Jury Award Metro Zip!

The Post-Dispatch is reporting this afternoon that the jury in Metro’s case against four contractors reached a decision — Metro gets nothing out of the $81 million it sought. The contractors counter-suit against Metro? They get not quite half of their requested $6 million — $2.56 million. Ouch, that has to hurt.

Larry Salci, the head of Metro, must be a tad upset. He is probably calling folks more than just clowns. Earlier this month he said of KTVI’s Elliot Davis, “He fits right into St. Louis, he’s a (expletive) clown.” Salci later apologized.

Will this impact voters in St. Louis County in February when they are asked to approve a half cent sales tax to keep Metro solvent as well as raise money to extend the light rail system? Has Salci’s job security changed?

UPDATE 11/30/07 @ 7pm — link to article from St. Louis Business Journal.

What To Do With the Vacant Municipal Courts Building?

The latest plan for the shuttered Municipal Courts building was to be a boutique hotel across the street from a renovated Kiel Opera house. However, two years ago today developer Don Breckenridge lost his battle with lung cancer, he was 73.

The Municipal Courts building was vacated when the federal courts moved to the new Thomas Eagleton Federal Courthouse.   This allowed our municipal courts and related offices to move into the former digs of the federal courts, at Tucker and Market — two blocks East.

Just across the former 13th Street (now a parking lot for city hall) the building is ideal for city offices.  Currently the city leases office space in at least two other buildings —- 1015 Locust and 15th and Olive.  Traffic court is in space over at 15th and Olive.   The St. Louis Development Corporation and various departments such as the Planning & Urban Design Agency operate on the top two floors of the building at 1015 Locust — about 7 blocks away.  Someone visiting city hall for a building permit might be told they need to talk to someone over at 1015 Locust, say relating to a historic district.  I think Cultural Resources keeps someone over at City Hall even though their offices are on the 11th floor of 1015 Locust.  Eventually you learn the lay of the land and where everyone is located but why not have complimentary departments closer together?

Above is the view of the Municipal Courts building from the Ray Leisure conference room on the 2nd floor of City Hall.  As you can see, it is close!  The parking lot below is the former 13th Street.

The very civic nature of the building, the proximity of it to the existing city hall, and the fact we have leased space spread out in other buildings are all reasons we need to seriously consider using this structure for city government.

Of course, we have no money for renovations.  I don’t even know the minimum it needs to reopen for such purposes, certainly less than what it would need as a posh boutique hotel.  I also don’t know how long our leases run on the other two buildings where we have space.  ADA entrances and security becomes an issue with such an old building, as in city hall.  The city hall entrance facing Market street is no longer open, only the East entrance facing Tucker and the south entrance facing the parking lot are open, with the exception of the ADA entrance into the basement.  Thus someone going from one building to the next has to take the long way.
While the steep pitched roof of city hall eliminates the option of a green roof the Municipal Courts building is ideal for such a green living roof.   A green roof often implies a larger renovation but not necessarily.

I like the notion of taking a look at all of our city departments and various agencies to see how best to use City Hall and the Municipal Courts building as complimentary facilities.  Could we, at minimal cost, use this building?

Schmid Names All Association Members to Nominating Committee In Marine Villa Neighborhood

It’s been a tough year for Alderman Craig Schmid. The old guard controlling the Cherokee Station Business Association were ousted (see post). Schmid then faced a primary opponent to keep his seat (which he did) and neighbors in the Marine Villa neighborhood, where he serves as President, have been pressuring him on the leadership of the organization.

Neighbors have been pushing for open elections, per the 1969 bylaws they finally got a copy of earlier this year (see post). These bylaws call for the President to create a “Nominating Committee” of an unspecified number of persons. So what does Schmid do? He mails out a letter to all members stating they are all on the nominating committee. He is asking them to mail back to him their nomination.

Several things I should note about this, I received copies of these mailings via an anonymous email account. The mailings were sent out in official Board of Alderman envelopes, despite not being official aldermanic business (image at right, click to see larger version in Flickr). Presumably city tax payers bought the envelopes for official business? The mailings were stamped so we don’t really know who funded the postage. Ditto for the return envelopes which had postage affixed.

Despite this questionable use of taxpayer funded materials (envelopes at a minimum) the mailed out form listed all six positions up for nomination. However, it gives the member only one place to nominate for a single office. Must these members run out to Kinko’s to make multiple copies of this form to nominate someone for each office?

One last thing the sender pointed out to me — the materials sent have conflicting boundaries for the neighborhood. The bylaws state Jefferson as the Western boundary and I-55 as the Eastern boundary. However, a flyer for their next meeting on January 28, 2008 indicates California (street) as the Western boundary and the river as the Eastern boundary. Maybe the first order of business at the next meeting might be to nail down those boundaries once and for all?

Click here to view the 3-pages mailed to members (I’ve circled the boundary sections on pages 2 & 3). Their next meeting is on the 28th of January although the flyer doesn’t list the time. Their website says 6:30pm. I’m thinking this will be an interesting meeting to attend.

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.