State of the City 2008

Mayor Slay delivered his State of the City address on April 25, 2008.

Conspicuously absent topics?

Blairmont. What's coming?

Transit. What's next?

Pyramid. What now?

That the Mayor has made only one official reference to Paul McKee Jr. and Blairmont is simply inexcusable. This is an issue that deserves attention.

We all know, however, that when Mr. McKee announces Winghaven East on top of St. Louis Place and JeffVanderLou, it will contain townhouse units urban enough to win the mayor's support. He'll be nothing but shocked when the development is announced, of course, because he knows nothing of McKee's plans for over 600 parcels in north St. Louis (which qualify for the new Distressed Areas Land Assemblage Tax Credit).

We all know that when the city sells the former Pruitt-Igoe site to McKee for a NorthPark East, city officials including the Mayor himself will be tickled at all of the new jobs brought to the city in this traditional industrial park layout.

Why not take this opportunity, Mr. Slay, to ease our minds and let us know what is ultimately planned to subsume over a century's worthy of architectural heritage?

Or when/if we'll see a new Metrolink expansion? Or what will happen with that damned Skybridge at St. Louis Centre!?