Ramp Makes Sarah Sidewalk Too Narrow

Over the years I’ve posted about new wheelchair ramps & steps into buildings completely choking off the sidewalk. Here’s another.

So a person who uses a wheelchair and lives a block North in the universal design 6 North Apartments must deal with this daily to reach their job at a biotech startup, the new IKEA, or the future MetroLink light rail station?  The problem, repeated too often, is people tasked with adding ramps/steps don’t think about all users of the public sidewalk.

In this example, the new ramp probably should’ve been the full width of the concrete portion of the sidewalk and two-saided, rather than one-sided. Or not have the brick tree-lawn & street tree at this point so the concrete sidewalk could go around the ramp. An inverted-U bike rack needs to installed in the tree lawn. Even an able-bodied person walking past this would be annoyed.

To be a pedestrian-friendly city we must stop placing obstacles in the way of pedestrians!

— Steve Patterson

Developing Vandeventer & Forest Park: IKEA — Exception Or New Rule?

Big box stores with surface parking lots don’t fit in urban contexts — they’re sub-urban. For example, the Menard’s in O’Fallon IL I drove past on Saturday, a MetroBus stop is right out front but there’s no accessible pedestrian route to get to the entrance. See it on Google Street View here.

Decades ago the big boxes were the downtown department stores, but those days are long gone. However, a few big box retailers have taken over some of the vacant space left behind by shuttered department stores.

More often, big boxes have been trying to fit into walkable urban neighborhoods; they’ve been concealed by smaller liner storefronts, stacked, etc. The Target at Hampton & Chippewa is built over parking, but it still has surface parking facing Hampton & Bancroft, with docks & garage facing Chippewa. Inevitably someone says “it’s better than what was there” or “It’s better than the location in [insert any suburban municipality.”  Sorry, but new development will be around for 20+ years, so standards should be higher than simply doing marginally better than  awful suburban development or old derelict properties. Which brings me to IKEA St. Louis, located on the SW corner of Forest Park Ave & Vandeventer Ave.

Opening day I ran into an acquaintance at IKEA — she also arrived via MetroBus — she hadn’t yet seen my post on the pedestrian access points. Upon arriving at the corner pictured above how would a pedestrian know where to find accessible routes to the entry? By big box standards, IKEA St. Louis did an excellent job providing pedestrian access routes from each go the three adjacent streets, but the massive setback from the sidewalks

The big question now is what will happen at development sites around IKEA St. Louis? Other buildings, old & new, within a block of the intersection are all urban — built up to the public sidewalk.

In July 2011 I posted about the building on this very same corner being razed. The Southeast corner, except for the firehouse, is to be retail.

One of the most critical development parcels is immediately to the West of IKEA, at 4052 Forest Park Ave.

This site could be developed similar to new apartments at Forest Park & Vandeventer — a parking garage concealed on all sides by habitable buildings. The difference here is it should have storefront spaces on the ground floor. A boutique hotel, like one of these chains, should occupy part of the upper floors.

Hopefully IKEA St. Louis will be the exception, not the rule.

— Steve Patterson

Sunday Poll: What Should Missouri Do To Solve MoDOT’s Funding Shortfall?

Today’s Sunday Poll question is about funding MoDOT:

The poll is open until 8pm, I’ll share my thoughts on Wednesday.

— Steve Patterson

Historic Buildings West of Saint Louis University Renovated Into Lofts

For many years, two buildings on Laclede Ave., faced uncertain futures.  Both personal favorites, their futures as residential buildings are now secure. They’re located at 3900 & 3965 Laclede.

The S. Pfeiffer Manufacturing Company Headquarters is located at 3965 Laclede Avenue in St. Louis (Independent City), Missouri. The brick, three-story office, lab and factory building was constructed in 1946 from a Modern Movement design by St. Louis architect Bert Luer. The buff-colored, asymmetrical primary (south) elevation features bands of hopper windows that wrap around the southwest corner, emphasizing horizontality while an elaborated, slightly projecting entrance bay on the southeast corner is a strong vertical element. The recessed entrance consists of double wood and glass doors below a grooved, streamlined overhang. Above the entrance, a shaft is embellished by a two-story glass block window with sidelights and three small terra cotta panels accent the parapet. Many of the building’s windows are tinted blue. The side and rear elevations are functional in design, feature red brick instead of buff brick, and utilize a concrete structural system with metal industrial hopper windows and overhead vehicle doors. The interior has an open plan with concrete, mushroom- shaped supports, concrete floors and ceilings, and glazed brick walls. The third level retains the original laboratory sinks and counters. Currently used as storage for automotive parts, the S. Pfeiffer Manufacturing Company Headquarters is in excellent condition. Relatively unchanged since its construction, the building easily retains integrity of location, design, setting, materials, workmanship, feeling and association from its period of significance. (2010 National Register nomination)

From February 2014:

Capstone Development has the building under contract and is planning an $8 million restoration and rehab.

Bill Luchini, Capstone’s president, said today he plans to renovate the 11,000 square feet of ground-floor commercial space and build 17 loft-style apartments on the second floor. Construction will take about a year and begin after he completes the building’s purchase in about 60 days. (Post-Dispatch)

Some background:

The Gerhart Block, located at 3900-3908 Laclede Avenue/1-17 Vandeventer in St.Louis. Missouri, is locally significant under National Register Criterion C in the area of Architecture. The period of significance is 1896. the date of construction. Local architect August Beinke who was known for designing a number ofprominent buildings and fine houses, earned the commission from the Gerhart Realty Company to design this substantial corner retail and residentialbuilding.ThepicturesqueVandeventerfacadeisenlivenedbyaseriesofstorefront display windows, oval-paned entrances, and round arched openings. A pyramidal roofanchoring the corner, a turret on the south end. as well as stepped gables and hipped roofs over projecting bays animate the roofline. This application of the French Renaissance or “Chateauesque” style to a commercial block is skillfully handled, resulting in one of the city’s most picturesque neighborhood commercial buildings. Exterior integrity is extremely good. (2002 National Register nomination)

I’ve never been in the first building, but the second housed various gay bars for years so I’ve been in it many times over the lsat 25 years. I can’t wait to see both inside, the Gerhart work is finishing up now.

Official information:

• Laclede Lofts — 3965 Laclede
• Gerhart Lofts — 3900 Laclede

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Credit Card Technology Changes Today

Our current credit & debit cards are different than they were decades ago. In the mid-80s, during high school & college, I worked at Toys “R” Us and Dillard’s. In those days we made an impression of the credit card to document the transaction, the credit card number was entered manually to get approval. Sometimes we had to call in to get an authorization number.

The magnetic strip on credit cards came later, greatly simplifying transactions.   The technology was developed in the late 60s, but it took a long time to get ir on credit cards and for retailers to be equipped to swipe cards rather than complete an embossed charge receipt. Eventually the magnetic strip became ubiquitous. Criminals also found many ways to exploit the weaknesses.

The magnetic stripe on credit cards — which fraudsters can pull credit card numbers and expiration dates from to make counterfeit cards. (NPR)

NPR continues:

Other countries moved beyond this technology years ago. The U.K., Canada and Hong Kong are already using chip-based cards, which are considered more secure. (Magnetic stripe technology is decades old.) Cards using the chip-and-PIN system have an embedded microchip. Instead of swiping the part with a magnetic stripe, you put the card into a terminal, then enter a PIN or sign your name. It’s more expensive for criminals to forge these cards, says Brian Krebs, a security journalist who writes for Krebs on Security and broke the story on the breach at Target.

Several of our cards have the new chips, called EMV:

EMV chip technology is becoming the global standard for credit card and debit card payments. Named after its original developers (Europay, MasterCard® and Visa®), this technology features payment instruments (cards, mobile phones, etc.) with embedded microprocessor chips that store and protect cardholder data. This standard has many names worldwide and may also be referred to as: “chip and PIN” or “chip and signature.” (Chase)

In 2013 local grocery chain Schnucks was breached, leading many to stolen credit card numbers. National retailers were also hacked. October 1, 2015 — today — was set as a deadline to switch to the EMV cards. However, this wasn’t a government mandate.

After an Oct. 1, 2015, deadline created by major U.S. credit card issuers MasterCard, Visa, Discover and American Express, the liability for card-present fraud will shift to whichever party is the least EMV-compliant in a fraudulent transaction. (CreditCards.com)

So retailers have been updating their credit card terminals to prepare for today’s deadline. Yesterday, at IKEA, the restaurant cashier put my EMV-chip card in the slot rather than swipe it. Later, at FedEx Office (aka Kinko’s) the terminal had the slot but the employee didn’t know when it would be activated. Target recently sent us new EMV RedCard debit cards — but not the RedCard credit cards we currently use.  We just got a new credit card within the last couple of weeks — it didn’t include an EMV chip. Yesterday the issuer said we’d have replacements by the end of October with EMV chips.

Some retailers, in updating their terminals, have added NFC/contactless capability.

NFC (near-field communication) allows two devices placed within a few centimeters of each other to exchange data. In order for this to work, both devices must be equipped with an NFC chip. 

In the real world, there are a essentially two ways this works. 

Two-way communication: This involves two devices that can both read and write to each other. For example, using NFC, you can touch two Android devices together to transfer data like contacts, links, or photos. 

One-way communication: Here, a powered device (like a phone, credit card reader, or commuter card terminal) reads and writes to an NFC chip. So, when you tap your commuter card on the terminal, the NFC-powered terminal subtracts money from the balance written to the card. (CNET)

My husband’s iPhone has been able to utilize this technology for payment for a year, I just got a new iPhone with this ability — ApplePay. Others include Google Pay & Samsung Pay. Confused yet?

Basically you want to avoid your cards being swiped. You want to use cards with a chip by inserting them in the chip readers. Not all retailers have to meet today’s deadline. Gas pumps, for example, have until 2017 to be updated.

If you accept credit cards you need to be working on updating ASAP, and training staff to insert EMV cards rather than swipe them. If you use plastic, be aware of the differences and how to use them, If your smartphone can make contactless payments I’d suggest using that. Samsung Pay will even work with older magnetic stripe terminals.

While we have these new EMV cards, our issuers don’t yet have the PIN number portion set up, so they’re Chip & signature for now.

— Steve Patterson