I Biked, Walked and Scootered Yesterday

Heading from my new loft to the convention center 8 blocks west yesterday for the Missouri section of the American Planning Association conference I managed to make a trip on foot, one on bike and another on scooter.  The joys of multi-modal living choices!

The scootering, of course, was the easiest as it requires no effort and the weather was quite pleasant.

Walking was actually the second easiest.  It took less than 20 minutes at a comfortable pace.  I’m out of shape and substantially overweight so walking — and lots of it — is on my agenda.

Bicycling, on the other hand, was a chore.  The only one of my bicycles I have downtown now is my rather cool looking single speed bike, a bike that weighs in at 50lbs!  Add my weight and you can imagine the challenge of pedaling all that around.  Granted, it had been over two years since I had really bicycled anywhere so it felt good to be on the bike.  Plus those bike helmets are feather light compared to a motorcycle helmet.

Although the YMCA is across the street I’m really not a gym kinda person.  I prefer my exercise outdoors — more naturally.  Hence the walking and bicycling.   Well, time to hit the sidewalk and walk back down to the conference for the final day.

St. Louis’ Planning Director Speaks on Density

This morning Rollin Stanley, St. Louis’ Director of Planning & Urban Design, spoke at the opening plenary session of the Missouri American Planning Association Conference. Stanley took the place of Mayor Francis Slay.

Stanley alluded to spending another week in London coming up shortly — winning another award from an organization that doesn’t disclose the number of entries? Click here to read last year’s post. The topic this time? Who knows. I’m sure I’ll have to do another sunshine law request to get a copy of what is touted as a city-saving plan.

But Stanley’s talk this morning was really good. He is, in fact, a really great public speaker. This morning he talked about changing demographics and how we all need to watch out for it. He indicated that increasingly we will see more and more single person households and how the country will be quickly adding another 100 million people. This led to density — and specifically the need for increased density. Or densification as term goes in planning circles.

He is right, of course. Stanley talked about the need for tax revenues to help support city services. He showed the census tracts for the Central West End and how the population has dropped since the 1970s — some 30% if I am not mistaken. A dropping population cannot support local jobs and retail services.

Yet the city continues to build low-density, often single use, projects in highly urbanized areas. Downtown St. Louis has the urban character is does not through good planning but through the re-use of existing buildings. Buildings our current zoning codes wouldn’t likely allow to be built today.

Another speaker on the plenary this morning was the Chief of Staff to Chicago’s Mayor Daly, Lori Healey. Healey shared real projects that demonstrated, for example, Chicago’s commitment to becoming a green city. Stanley, however, could only illustrate what we are not doing — pointing to the attempt to build a high rise building at the NE corner of Lindell and Euclid — that was stopped due to neighbors. Stanley pointed out the location’s proximity to transit and other amenities and asked, “If we can’t build a high rise here, where can we build a high rise?”

Of course we all know that we can actually have good densification without having high rise buildings popping up on random corners. I’d personally much rather see dense corridors, with localized transit like frequent bus service or streetcars, occupied by 4-8 story buildings their length than the occasional high rise. This discussion of what we build, where we build it and how we fund it needs to happen quickly. As you might suspect, this is really about zoning.

Much of the city is zoning one or two family. Basically, we’ve zoned ourself into low density housing. Sure, there is nothing wrong with single family housing but not everywhere. Our major commercial streets needs to be denser — excellent locations for multi-family housing.

Stanley is a smart man, he understands zoning and urbanity. Unfortunately, he has no power and seemingly little influence without our ward based politics in this city. Hell, he can’t even get nice urban projects built blocks from his house, much less throughout the city. So while he talk on the need for densification was good I just have to wonder how far he will get in city hall. Good luck.

Auto-Centric Strip Mall in City Adds Pedestrian Access

Just a few weeks ago the curbs were in place for the auto drives/parking at the new auto-centric strip mall, located technically across the street from the Soulard neighborhood (see prior post). As of October 21st, no visible signs of any pedestrian access had been made — it was as if it was assumed everyone would simply drive to this location even if you could see the place from your home a block away.

From another angle we can see, below, the curbs all in place and simply ready for the asphalt.

Myself and others objected to the suburban design, no doubt. But lacking a single sidewalk connection was just too much — people in the city do in fact walk.

Today, above, we see that a short section of sidewalk was added between the public sidewalk and the auto drive. The newly poured curbs were cut out and replaced with accessible ramps. Although I have not checked the ramps for precise compliance at first glance they appear to comply. See there, it wasn’t so hard was it?

Does this new accessible entrance make this project urban? Hardly. Does it make the project minimally tolerable until it can be razed for something worthy of being in our city? Yes! Why something so simply as a few feet of concrete and assumption that people will in fact seek out a walkable environment (although this is not technically a good walkable environment) it not required from day one is beyond me. This is not difficult and for a subsidized project this should be the very minimal that is acceptable.

Thank you to everyone that express their outrage over this lack of pedestrian access and the overall suburban nature of this design.  Hopefully we’ll make enough developers come back and modify their designs to add pedestrian access that at some point they’ll just ask for it up front!  Of course, you’d think their architects and engineers would just include it to begin with —- it is a federal requirement after all.

As of this time the Starbuck’s, a separate structure at the far end, still does not seem to comply with the ADA standards for accessibility.

Downtown Just Gained One More Resident

Last week I teased you that I was moving. And while guesses often focused on the 15th and 7th (Ald. Florida and Ald Young, respectively) I actually moved to the 6th, where Ald. Kacie Triplett was elected earlier this year in a heated 3-way race. I did not move for political reasons, I moved because I got a cool place for a great price in a part of town I wanted to experience.
My first six months in St. Louis were in the fashionable Central West End. I enjoyed walks up and down Euclid and shopping at Straub’s. The year was 1990 and the rent on my 8th floor studio apartment was $330. From there I jumped over to Old North St. Louis, then still officially known as Murphy-Blair. After a few years there, I moved down south to Dutchtown in 1994 and then a few blocks over to Mt. Pleasant in 2004. I’ve actually moved very little and then only because it was want I wanted to do.

So where did I move?

I am in the Printer’s Lofts on Locust between 16th and 17th. Pretty basic loft, no upgrades. A nice spot in the parking garage for my scooter.  Seems like a waste to have an entire parking space for a single scooter. Although I spent the night in the loft last night I have not fully moved in — that will come soon enough.  But, I have enough items to get me through.  As lofts go it is pretty big but it is still a downsize from my 2,642 square foot corner storefront — nearly a 40% reduction in space.

I will have room for my bicycles, which I plan to use often.  I also will get one of those old lady carts to allow me to walk down to the store and do my grocery shopping when wheel everything back.   I might, for grins, bike to MetroLink and head out to Eager to go to the Trader Joe’s at some point.

This will be a good place for me as I finish my masters degree (in Urban Planning & Real Estate Development).  Who knows, in a couple of years I might move on — both Old North and the Cherokee area are calling my name.  Until then, see you downtown.

The End of the Local Video Store?

The age of the video store is coming to a close. Unlike many of you, I’m old enough to recall the VHS vs Betamax fight and the start of the video stores. First they were little local mom & pop stores which become, at times, local chains. Then we saw the rise of places like Blockbuster and Hollywood Video. The demise of the local cinema was predicted by many.

Recently the Hollywood Video at Jefferson & Broadway, next to the ‘can’t touch this’ Schmid Fountain, closed its doors. Earlier, the Blockbuster a tad further South on Broadway closed as well. Blockbuster locations on Chippewa as well as Kingshighway @ MLK have also shuttered their doors. There are probably numerous other examples throughout St. Louis and all across the country.

Perhaps they should have added a drive-thru window?

The choices for the movie fan these days are great, far better than standing in some generic retail space looking at row after row of video cases. First, the cinema is still a special treat with places like the Moolah, Chase and Tivoli. Cable & satellite offer more channels than ever before with new releases coming much sooner than they used to. Online rental models like NetFlix are amazingly fast and the interface is quite addictive. And finally, for a buck, you can rent movies via a machine from companies such as RedBox and MovieCube.

If you’ve not seen RedBox or MovieCube it is an interesting delivery method. Situated inside of places like McDonald’s or Schnuck’s these machines taking all of 5-6 square feet of floor space are quick and efficient.  Today’s retailers need to increase the revenues received on a per square foot basis and large areas with videos simply don’t cut the mustard anymore.

It is interesting to see all these changes in the video market, something that didn’t exist 30 years ago.  Many storefronts, often built for these places, are left scattered around the landscape.  Some will remain vacant while others will find new uses.  This is yet another reason why the building form should be a higher priority over the use of a structure.  The use will likely change over the years but the building form remains in place as long as the building remains standing.  As a society, we cannot afford to change buildings for each and every change of use.