Competing Visions for Forest Park Avenue Corridor

Forest Park Ave from Kingshighway to Grand (map) is 1.6 miles long with the potential to be a dense urban corridor. Developers, however, would like to make it a typical low-density big box chain retail corridor. I’d like to show you why I believe two big box retail developments at Forest Park Avenue & Vandeventer are out of character, why these will undo the work others have done recently.

I had enough photos of various buildings along Forest Park Ave to write this post, but Saturday I spent about 90 minutes taking around 150 photos as I traveled the entire length in my wheelchair. Why go to such trouble? I believe cities can’t be properly understood driving through in a car, or worse, relying on Google street view. You’ve got to hit the pavement to really get what an area is about.

I got off the bus on Forest Park Ave at the first stop east of Kingshighway and returned downtown from the Grand MetroLink station, about 2 miles of travel.  Don’t worry, I’m only going to show you a small percentage of the images I took.

As you can see each block for the last 1.5 miles from Kingshighway has buildings fronting Forest Park Ave, nearly all 2 or more floors. Seems like every decade since the early 20th century new buildings have followed this pattern. But now Pace wants to change the pattern drastically, a new vision.

Pace Properties wants to build a retail center, called Midtown Station, on Forest Park Ave. between Vandeventer and Spring.

Pace says the site is ideal because of its proximity to St. Louis University and Washington University, as well as major employers like Ameren Missouri, BJC and Wells Fargo. (KSDK)

From the development flyer:

Next to Saint Louis University should be walkable retail shops, not the blank walls of the back of big boxes. I’m not opposed to retail, I’m opposed to the form these developments will likely take. I’m gathering examples of how this could be done much better, look for another post next month.

I don’t want this new suburban big box vision to reverse the urban corridor.

— Steve Patterson

Readers: Downtown Grocery Store Very Convenient

Some people have the attitude if I don’t like Culinaria I should just shop elsewhere and not complain. When regular customers complain to a business they’re helping that business, going elsewhere without feedback doesn’t help the business, or the employes.

Over the last 4 years Culinaria has improved greatly, especially in the last year. Why? Because myself and others have complained, explaining what we like and dislike. The example I mentioned in the post introducing last week’s poll — flour.  When Culinaria opened 4 years ago with the marketing tag line: “Bring out the foodie in you” but only flour offered was Schnucks bleached flour.

Bleached flour has a slightly lower protein content than unbleached flour because of the chlorination process it goes through. Protein develops into gluten, which provides structure in baked goods. Less protein in bleached flour means less gluten and a softer, lighter texture and finer grain, just the qualities you want in more delicate pastries like cakes, pastry dough, muffins and shortcakes.

According to Shirley Corriher, author of Bakewise (Scribner, 2008), there’s “a major difference due to protein content—products are significantly tougher and drier with unbleached flour.” Another reason to use bleached flour is when you want a truly white color, like in a white cake.

Unbleached flour is better for sturdier baked goods, like yeast breads or pizza dough. Its higher protein content allows the yeast to rise and still support the structure of the dough.

If you prefer using only unbleached flour but want a lower-protein flour occasionally, you can create your own by substituting potato starch for 10 percent of the flour. (Source)

Trying to bake bread with bleached white flour will produce disastrous results.

As you can see above they now offer a wide variety of flours.  The gluten-free section has gone from zero to decent as well. Clearly Culinaria’s management didn’t know what to stock early on. They’ve learned by listening to customer requests and seeing what sells.

Q: Thoughts on Culinaria (Downtown Schnucks grocery) – pick up to 3

1. Very convenient 68 [27.53%]
2. Right size 37 [14.98%]
3. Glad to have a pharmacy downtown 30 [12.15%]
4. I still miss the historic Century Building 28 [11.34%]
5. My primary grocery store 22 [8.91%]
6. My secondary grocery store 22 [8.91%]
7. Tried it once or twice, haven’t been back 9 [3.64%]
8. Other: 9 [3.64%]
9. Too small 7 [2.83%]
10. Not convenient 6 [2.43%]
11. I should give it a try again 5 [2.02%]
12. Unsure/no opinion 4 [1.62%]

The “other” answers provided by readers were:

1. More expensive
2. 9pm is way too early to close.
3. Needs more space
4. It’s a good resource for downtown, despite the loss of the Century.
5. obnoxious checkers
6. poor selection
7. Stopped going after they doubled prizes of freshly made salads.
8. AHH! Subsidies. Free parking. Parking in front of store. No one got freebies
9. good to see a local company taking risk

At least the asparagus is in trays with water.

— Steve Patterson

State-Owned Retail Space on 9th Street Finally For Lease

In October last year I posted about a downtown hotel that used a state-owned retail storefront rent-free for a decade. Then in December I noted the storefront was being emptied of the hotel’s stuff, they used it for long-term storage. Since December I kept expecting to see a for lease sign go up. Finally on Monday I spotted the sign!

From the flyer:

Short-term on-street parking is still needed in front of this space, and the retail spaces in the former Board of Education building to the immediate south. Right now the city has the  parking lane marked as no parking but also no driving, I don’t get the logic behind leaving a full lane completely unused.

Hopefully this will get leased soon so the state can get revenue ($54,945/year) and a long-vacant storefront gets activated.

— Steve Patterson

New Walgreens Opens Inside a Historic Bank, Rather Than Raze It

Competition is heating up as retailers try to add locations in an effort to avoid stagnant sales growth. Having saturated suburban markets with their standard formula, they’ve been trying to do the same as they move into the urban core. Cities, more dense and often filled with vacant historic buildings, present new challenges to big retailers with one-size-fits-all formulas.

More than a dozen years ago a small group of citizens, myself among them, helped block Walgreens from razing the South Side National Bank (SSNB) at Grand & Gravois. “Put a Walgreens in the old bank”, we said to Walgreens officials. Unwilling to listen, they built a typical store across Gravois, but not on the corner.

The Lawrence Group bought the SSNB, putting residential condos in the tower. Much of the retail space, including the magnificent lobby, remains vacant today.

A few years after attempting to raze the SSNB, Walgreens tried to raze the Gold Dome in Oklahoma City, located at NW 23rd & Classen.

Walgreens was again met with citizen opposition:

Efforts to save the Gold Dome included picketing and marches, but in September 2001, a couple extended the efforts by writing a song. Also, an Oklahoma based company, Sonic Drive-In restaurants, offered up a billboard, located across the street from the Gold Dome, to the Citizens for the Golden Dome group. On the billboard was written “Stop the demolition of our historic landmark,” as well as the phone numbers for Bank One and Walgreens. (Wikipedia)

Today the Gold Dome is a central part of the neighborhood, now heavily inhabited by Chinese and other Asian nationalities, housing numerous businesses. Across one street is a typical CVS and across the other is a typical Walgreens, on the site of a former Beverly’s “Chicken in the Rough” restaurant.

In both cases a historic structure was saved, but the neighborhood was degraded by a standard suburban box(s). Both St. Louis & Oklahoma City didn’t care about anything besides the historic structure, or they were afraid to require something other than the standard prototype.

Fast forward a decade and we can look to a new Walgreens in Chicago that shows the retailer is willing to rethink their store design rather than forcing their standard box into a neighborhood. On a recent trip to Chicago this Walgreens was our first stop.

In the 45 minutes we were on site I took 70 pictures, my boyfriend quickly understood why a Walgreens was the first place I wanted to visit on our first trip to Chicago together:

The uber-fancy flagship is part of a plan by Walgreens–now the nation’s largest drugstore–to cater to a higher tax bracket while giving its more than 100-year-old brand a dose of modern edge.

Walgreens has recently launched several “upscale” stores, including a multi-level flagship in downtown Chicago and a massive concept store on L.A.’s Sunset Blvd.

According to Crain’s Chicago Business, the opening of the latest flagship, nestled between the Windy City’s trendy Wicker Park/Bucktown neighborhoods, will be followed by roughly 10 more upscale stores stores in locations ranging from Hawaii to the Empire State Building in New York. (Huffington Post)

Now you might be thinking sure, in Chicago…developers are so much more enlightened in Chicago. Not so:

Many many years ago what is the Nobel Bank Building located at 1601 N. Milwaukee Avenue was, in fact, a bank. And more recently the building was the home of Midwest Bank; a full-service library quiet bank filled with friendly staff.

Several years ago, the building was bought by an investor with plans to add retail to that corner. His plans, however, were also contingent upon adding a massive parking garage right at the corner of North/Damen/Milwaukee. You can only imagine what that would have done to the traffic and congestion already filling the area. The end result would have been gridlock. Alderman Waguespak, thankfully, would not approve of the garage. So the investor abandoned the project.

The building sat vacant bordering on foreclosure. (source)

Developers, even those in Chicago, think massive parking garages are necessary in dense urban neighborhoods served by transit. True, even this Walgreens has an off-street parking lot.

Chicago knows to not let auto-centric developers gut their neighborhoods, thereby achieving a balance among users. We’ve had decades of gutting our neighborhoods for parking, we must now reverse course.

Kudos to Walgreens on this store!

— Steve Patterson

Poll: Thoughts on Culinaria (Downtown Schnucks grocery)

Culinaria, the downtown Schnucks grocery store, opened 4 years ago today. Schnucks management originally had very low expectations, but the location has consistently done a very good volume of business, according to managers anyway.

During the last 4 years the store has changed very little, except for trying to squeeze more product by adding displays here and there. They just completed the first major revamp of the store, closing an aisle to add more shelving.

Over the last four years the store has been inproving the foods offered since opening day. I recall early on the only flour they had was bleached white flour, I had to visit Straub’s to get decent flour for something I wanted to bake. After I complained they added unbleached & wheat flour from Gold Medal, but now they also have several varieties of flour from King Arthur. Just took too long for a store with the tag line “bring out the foodie in you” to get ingredients this foodie uses.

I don’t know about you but I don’t look for produce & gourmet cheese at Best Buy, nor do I buy televisions at the grocery store. Culinaria has also sold charcoal, mini grills, & lighter fluid — likely aimed at downtown residents. The thing is, we can’t use charcoal grills! We can use propane grills, but no charcoal.

Eventually I think they’ll figure out how to sell groceries in a compact downtown setting, maybe in another 4 years. Anyway, the poll this week wants to know how you feel about the store. The poll is in the right sidebar, mobile users need to select the desktop layout.

— Steve Patterson