St. Louis Needs CEOs Creating Walkable Shopping Around Their Corporate Campuses

Over the last 6-8 years I’ve watched the corporate campus of Chesapeake Energy Corporation in Oklahoma City grow and grow and grow. But I wouldn’t use the old phrase “sprawling campus” because the site has developed quite dense and walkable.  Most of you in St. Louis have likely never heard of Chesapeake so here is a summary from Wikipedia:

Chesapeake Energy (NYSE: CHK) is the second largest producer of natural gas in the United States, a top 15 producer of U.S. liquids and the most active driller of new wells, according to an August 2011 investor presentation. It recorded 2Q 2011 natural gas production of an average of approximately 3.049 billion cubic feet (86,300,000 m3) of natural gas equivalent, a 9 percent year-over-year increase. The 2010 full year was Chesapeake’s 21st consecutive year of sequential production growth.

The company had a few buildings in an older office park when I first visited an employee. Recently those original buildings were razed.

From such humble beginnings, the company’s Oklahoma City footprint has multiplied an astonishing 450 times. The Chesapeake campus now measures 2.7 million square feet. Employees work in 24 buildings, and there’s another half million square feet of office space under construction. (source)

They even have a page to talk up their campus:

Chesapeake’s 72,000-square-foot Fitness Center is located on campus, and plays host to a wide range of recreation programs, group exercise classes, cardio machines, weight room, basketball courts, racquetball courts, swimming pool, fitness assessments and preventative health screenings. Our adjoining athletic field hosts a variety of outdoor events during and after work, including coed flag football, soccer, kickball, team Frisbee, softball and personal training, and includes a quarter-mile track.

Also on campus are three restaurants, The Wildcat, Fuel and Elements, which offer a wide variety of healthy choices for breakfast and lunch. From a fresh salad bar, to made-to-order deli line and grill, employees have a variety of healthy alternatives to choose from.

The impressive fitness center was one of the first new buildings constructed as expansion began. Even though they have three restaurants for employees on campus they have developed shopping across Western Ave to the west. I posted about ClassenCurve last year.

Last month a new Whole Foods opened at The Triangle at ClassenCurve. Chesapeake is located on the edge of Nichols Hills (map), a small but very affluent suburb of Oklahoma City, their version of our Ladue. Tulsa has had a Wild Oats/Whole Foods for years, located in a space vacated by a former chain grocery. There have been several times I would stop at the Whole Foods in Tulsa to pick up items to eat at my parents house in Oklahoma City.

Now I can stop at the huge new Whole Foods store in OKC when I’m visiting family.  The thousands of workers on Chesapeake’s campus can walk across the street to get a salad, food from the hot bar or pick up a few groceries. Whole Foods is in Oklahoma City now because of Chesapeake.

The campus-adjacent shopping isn’t just intend for Chesapeake’s employees, all can enjoy — assuming they can afford the types of shops locating in the retail spaces. By my standards the retail developments are barely walkable but compared to most of OKC they are a pedestrian paradise.

The architecture of the retail is a complete contrast to the campus. The campus has Georgian red brick structures while the retail is dark, modern and sleek.They compliment without copying. The retail doesn’t have any of the materials, look or logo of Chesapeake.

I can’t think of any Fortune 500 company in St. Louis that has done what Chesapeake has done. A-B? Nope. A.G. Edwards (now Wells Fargo)? Nada. What about institutions with deep pockets like Saint Louis University? Yeah right!

Chesapeake’s campus, like most corporate & institutional campuses, has lush lawns, water features, plantings and lots of parking. It’s edges separate the public from private but it does so in a friendly way. Architect Rand Elliott:

“We’re really fortunate,” Elliott stated “to have a number of CEO’s in this community, including Aubrey certainly, who believe that architecture is a powerful statement, and an important one for our community and for their businesses, as well.”

I was fortunate to have been paired with Rand Elliott on a project in middle schools during my freshman year at the University of Oklahoma College of Architecture. We need CEOs that will create walkable campus-adjacent space in the St. Louis region.

– Steve Patterson

Worth the Wait

In the more than 21 years I’ve lived in St. Louis I’ve made many trips back to Oklahoma City to visit family & friends. Each of those times I visited a number of places to see the positive changes taking place. I also drove by my favorite building over and over hoping to see change.

When I arrived earlier this month my brother had a news story waiting for me:

A Crown Heights property that languished for years — and was referred to by neighbors as the “Moldy Manor” — stands as a reminder that even in a historic preservation district there can always be a black sheep. But it’s not as if the Art Deco fourplex on the southwest corner of Olie Avenue and N.W. 37th Street was an ugly duckling; it was quite the opposite in its day, although it sat rotting for decades. (full story)

Finally, the long time owner (since 1963!) finally sold to a person who will renovate the building! Many had tried to buy the property over the years but the owner was difficult, asking far to much for the property and not maintaing it.

The 4-car garage matched the 4-family’s design.

Sadly the city had  to condemn and raze the garage structure, likely prompting the owner to finally sell.

I’m looking forward to my next trip to Oklahoma City and seeing the completed renovation. I’ll need to time my trip so that I can go into one of the finished apartments.

The Crown Heights neighborhood is a beautiful historic area of single family homes with only a handful of multi-family properties. However, they recognized this particular 4-family was better a vacant eyesore than a vacant lot. Neighborhoods don’t get stronger by razing buildings.

– Steve Patterson

A Decade Ago

A decade ago I was excited about an upcoming 19-day vacation with a friend. Our itinerary would begin in Washington D.C., with a drive through the Pennsylvania countryside to see Frank Lloyd Wright’s Falling Water, on to NYC for a few days and then back to D.C. before flying home. Our flights, car rental and hotel were all booked. We would fly into Dulles Airport on October 19, 2001.

For both os us it would be our first trip to Manhattan, iconic buildings like the Empire State and World Trade Center were on our must-see list.  Then it happened.

The morning of September 11, 2001 I was driving to a client’s house in St. Louis County when I heard the report on the radio of the first plane hitting the first tower. When I arrived they had their television on, we watched the reports…and the second plane hitting the second tower. Like the rest of the world, we were stunned. It seemed unreal, so unimaginable.  Death & destruction like we’d never seen before.

For a while it looked like we would cancel our vacation, but then it became clear these areas needed tourists dollars. We went, and had a great time. Returning to D.C. after New York the Pentagon, still damaged, at least had most of the debris  removed.

Remember the Post 9/11 anthrax scare? A person on NYC’s upper east side died of anthrax poisoning the day we were walking through the area. We visited a friend on the upper west side, a week earlier he could see hazmat crews in the offices of ABC just across the alley cleaning after an anthrax scare.  It was a surreal vacation.

The families of all who died that day, and of first responders who are ill, it was more than surreal. I can’t begin to imagine what they felt then, or now.

On Sundays I introduce a new poll for the week:

The number of Americans who say the government should do whatever it takes to protect its citizens against terrorism —even if it means violating civil liberties — has dropped almost in half since the days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, according to a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll. (Source)

This seems like a good topic, the poll is in the right sidebar.  Those on mobile devices will need to switch to the full site to vote in the poll.

– Steve Patterson

Thirty Years Since the Hyatt Regency Crown Center Walkway Collapse

Tomorrow evening marks the 30th anniversary of the walkway collapse at the Hyatt Regency Crown Ceenter in Kansas City:

The Hyatt Regency hotel walkway collapse was a collapse of a walkway that occurred on July 17, 1981, in Kansas City, Missouri, United States, killing 114 people and injuring 216 others during a tea dance. At the time, it was the deadliest structural collapse in U.S. history.

On July 17, 1981, approximately 1,600 people gathered in the atrium to participate in and watch a dance competition. Dozens stood on the walkways. At 7:05 PM, the second-level walkway held approximately 40 people with more on the third and an additional 16 to 20 on the fourth level who watched the activities of crowd in the lobby below. The fourth floor bridge was suspended directly over the second floor bridge, with the third floor walkway offset several meters from the others. Construction difficulties resulted in a subtle but flawed design change that doubled the load on the connection between the fourth floor walkway support beams and the tie rods carrying the weight of both walkways. This new design was barely adequate to support the dead load weight of the structure itself, much less the added weight of the spectators. The connection failed and the fourth floor walkway collapsed onto the second floor and both walkways then fell to the lobby floor below, resulting in 111 immediate deaths and 216 injuries. Three additional victims died after being evacuated to hospitals making the total number of deaths 114 people. (Wikipedia)

A “subtle” design change resulted in the deaths of many people.

I started architecture school just four years after this accident occurred.  This tragedy, and others, were discussed over and over, especially in structures courses. More from Wikipedia:

Investigators, including David Tonneman (a respected engineering critic), concluded that the basic problem was a lack of proper communication between Jack D. Gillum and Associates, Christopher Willoughby (a University of Michigan engineering student at the time), and Havens Steel. In particular, the drawings prepared by Jack D. Gillum and Associates were only preliminary sketches but were interpreted by Havens as finalized drawings. Jack D. Gillum and Associates failed to review the initial design thoroughly, and accepted Havens’ proposed plan without performing basic calculations that would have revealed its serious intrinsic flaws — in particular, the doubling of the load on the fourth-floor beams.

The engineers employed by Jack D. Gillum and Associates who had approved the final drawings were convicted by the Missouri Board of Architects, Professional Engineers, and Land Surveyors of gross negligence, misconduct and unprofessional conduct in the practice of engineering; they all lost their engineering licenses in the states of Missouri and Texas and their membership with ASCE. While Jack D. Gillum and Associates itself was discharged of criminal negligence, it lost its license to be an engineering firm.

This Hyatt Regency was, and is, owned by a subsidiary of Hallmark.

Hallmark was the driving force behind the Crown Center redevelopment:

Before the First World War, Downtown Kansas City was heavily populated and bustling. The area today home to Crown Center was an extension of the Union Hill historic neighborhood. Gradually, however, the center of population for the metro area moved south, and by the Second World War the area today comprising Crown Center had become dilapidated. Although Hallmark had maintained its headquarters at 26th Street and Grand Avenue since 1922, the headquarters itself and nearby Union Station comprised the only non-slum in the area. Instead, what there was were old warehouses, used car lots, and vacant buildings.

In 1966, Donald J. Hall, Sr. became President and CEO of Hallmark Cards, taking over from his father, Joyce Hall. Joyce Hall had long wished to develop the area around the corporate headquarters, and with his new leadership Donald Hall quickly made it known that he wished to renew the area entirely. Hallmark quietly began acquiring all the property surrounding its headquarters, and consulted with urban planning experts about the possibility of creating an experimental “city within a city” on the property. The City of Kansas City formally approved the plans for Crown Center (named after the Hallmark corporate symbol) by the end of 1967. (Wikipedia)

Crown Center wasn’t Urban Renewal.  Instead it was an early example of an http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_Cities_Program

To city planners, Crown Center is a mixed-use redevelopment, one of the earliest in the nation, on an 85-acre site adjacent to the international headquarters of Hallmark Cards, Inc. It has been a catalyst for change in the city’s urban core, replacing blight with quality working, living and entertainment facilities to breathe life back into the city.

Victor Gruen & Associates of Los Angeles developed the project’s original master plan, which was then modified and implemented by Edward Larrabee Barnes of New York. Crown Center was announced to the public in January 1967, and ground broke on September 16, 1968, for the first phase of the project – an underground parking facility, five-building office complex and landscaped central square. (PDF of Crown Center History)

Victor Gruen is the father of the shopping mall with the open-air Northland Center (1954), enclosed Southdale Mall (1956) and pedestrianization of a street with the Kalamazoo Mall (1959).  I’m not a fan of Gruen’s centralized designs.

I’m also not  a fan of Crown Center. I am a fan of making sure those who must be diligent to protect the safety of the public are checked and double checked.

– Steve Patterson

Tornado Brings Opportunity To Make Joplin More Pedestrian-Friendly

As we all know, the City of Joplin was hit hard by an EF-5 tornado on May 22, 2011, making this the deadliest year on record. I know the historic & walkable downtown barely escaped the destruction. Much of Joplin, like most US cities, was a big ugly mess of auto-centric sprawl before the tornado.

I stayed a night in Joplin in September last year and posted about having to drive to the restaurant next door to the hotel to have dinner. This area wasn’t damaged so making it walkable will have to wait but the areas where every building was leveled is a perfect opportunity to make slight improvements as they rebuild.

Wikipedia has the most detailed account of the path of destruction I’ve found:

The tornado initially touched down just east of the Kansas state boundary near the end of 32nd Street (37.056958°N 94.588423°W) between 5:35 and 5:41 p.m. CDT (2235 and 2241 UTC) and tracked just north of due east. Surveys remain incomplete there so it is possible it may have started in Kansas and crossed the state line into Missouri.

Damage became very widespread and catastrophic as it entered residential subdivisions in southwest Joplin. In addition, St. John’s Regional Medical Center (37.060554°N 94.530938°W) in the same area was heavily damaged with many windows and the exterior walls damaged and the upper floors destroyed. Several fatalities were reported there. Virtually every house in that area near McClelland Boulevard and 26th Street was flattened, and some were blown away in the area as well. Trees sustained severe debarking, a nursing home and a church school in southwest Joplin were also flattened and several other schools were heavily damaged. Damage in this area was rated as a low-end EF4.

As the tornado tracked eastward, it intensified even more as it crossed Main Street between 20th and 26th Streets. Virtually every business along that stretch was heavily damaged or destroyed and several institutional buildings were destroyed. It tracked just south of downtown, narrowly missing it. More houses were flattened or blown away and trees continued to be debarked. Two large apartment buildings were destroyed, as well as Franklin Technology Center and Joplin High School. Fortunately, no one was in the high school at the time. It approached Range Line Road, the main commercial strip in the eastern part of Joplin, near 20th Street. Damage in this area was rated as a high-end EF4.

The tornado peaked in intensity as it crossed Range Line Road. In that corridor between about 13th and 32nd Streets (37.05528°N 94.478452°W), the damage continued to be very intense and the tornado was at its widest at this point, being nearly 1 mile (1.6 km) wide. Some of the many destroyed buildings include a Cummins warehouse, Walmart Supercenter #59, a Home Depot store, and numerous restaurants, all of which were flattened. Heavy objects, including concrete bumpers and large trucks, were tossed a significant distance, as far as 1/8 mile (200 m) away from the parking lots along Range Line. Numerous other commercial and industrial buildings, as well as more houses, were destroyed with some flattened or blown away as the tornado tracked through southeast Joplin. Many fatalities occurred in this area. Damage in this area was rated as an EF5.

The Red Lobster I’ve been to at 32nd & Range Line is still there, although much of that area was heavily hit.  It has been estimated that anywhere from 10-25% of Joplin’s structures were leveled or damaged.  Joplin now has an opportunity to rebuild in a more connected manner, to take walkability as seriously drivability.

Here are my suggestions for Joplin as they begin:

1. Speed up implementation of ideas from your Long Range Transportation Plan, with particular attention to bicycle & pedestrian & public transit planning.
2. Make sure every public street has a sidewalk on both sides. Do quick corridor plans for the commercial streets where damaged occurred, look for simple changes to rebuild the buildings
3. Require a private sidewalk from the front door of each business to each public sidewalk, this will help create a connected sidewalk network just as roads connect places for cars. Roads provide door to door connectivity, so should the sidewalk network.
4. Eliminate minimum parking requirements for businesses. This will allow businesses to spend less money on parking lots and to possibly locate their buildings closer to the public sidewalk.
5. Build to the sidewalk.  Many destroyed buildings were built up to the sidewalk and should be rebuilt that way. Neighboring buildings that had been allowed to push back from the sidewalk should be rebuilt up to the sidewalk.

My heart goes out to everyone in Joplin.

– Steve Patterson