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Thursday, November 19, 2009

Good Infill...Atop a Parking Lot? Am I Dreaming?

The Lawrence Group has released plans for Phase II of their South Side Station redevelopment. Phase I was the rehabilitation of the South Side National Bank building into residential units, saving the building from the Walgreens wrecking ball.

Phase II, the subject of this post, involves new construction on Grand at Tholozan (just south of Gravois). (Actually, the always-on-top-of-things Dutchtown West Neighborhood Association posted about this development on November 6, but this is the first time I've seen it or heard of it, so it's news to me).

Two things stand out. First, the proposed infill is, I think, quite nice. It's a clearly traditionally-styled building, yet not so much that anyone would assume the design was meant to fool you into thinking this is a turn-of-the-century work. The added density and massing should help make this section of Grand more aesthetically-pleasing and pedestrian-friendly, better matching the mostly intact Grand South Grand district to the north. Check the designs out for yourself.

The site plan:


The Grand elevation:

The Tholozan elevation:


Thanks again to Dutchtown West Neighborhood Association (DWNA) for running such an excellent and often-updated blog!

The second thing that stood out: this will subsume a large parking lot! In the same city where the San Luis Apartments, a fine structure worthy of rehabilitation, was recently torn down for a parking lot, it's great news to observe the reverse!

Make sure you bookmark DWNA's site for ongoing information about the western portion of the large Dutchtown neighborhood.

3 comments:

Chris Cook said...

That's good news. That corner has needed help for quite a while. And it's nice to see that there's a plan for the buildings on the east side of Grand as well.

Unknown said...

The streets themselves really need to be addressed at this intersection. It's on its way! (We'll see additional parking lots/vacant lots used in the near future.)

Chris said...

I was wondering why they needed such a ridiculously large parking lot there. Apparently they thought the same thing.

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