Northside Project Community Benefits Alliance Includes Provision to Modify Preservation Review 5:31 PM

The citizens of the wards affected by Paul McKee, Jr.'s Northside Regeneration project have drafted an innovative document that, if adopted, would certainly alter how the project proceeds and what it does for current residents. Read the Community Benefits Alliance's work here on their website.

Of particular interest to me is the call for residents--not the Building Division--to review proposals for demolitions in all of north St. Louis (not just the project area, even).

Neighborhood Control of Preservation and Demolition: We propose an immediate moratorium on demolition north of Delmar, and meaningful neighborhood control of preservation and demolition. In order to preserve the valuable housing stock and architectural heritage north of Delmar, we believe that all of north city should be put under a revised form of Preservation Review, where proposed demolitions would need to be approved by the Neighborhood Development Advisory Board prior to review by the St. Louis Preservation Review Board. In addition, we expect any emergency demolitions be approved by the Neighborhood Advisory Board prior to approval by the Building Division, to prevent a developer from using this known loophole in preservation planning to demolish salvageable historic buildings which meet community standards for rehabilitation. This will preserve the community’s ability to access the State Historic Tax Credit program as an engine for economic development.

Emergency demolition permits are the easiest way to bypass preservation legislation in the city. Simply let your building precipitously decay (removing boards from windows helps) and watch as the city grants you an emergency demolition permit.

But a lot of the North Side is not in either a local historic district or a National Register District. North Side wards are also basically missing from Preservation Review, a process that ensures each demolition permit is reviewed by the Cultural Resources Office instead of simply going straight through to the Building Division, who almost always approves permits.

This bold suggestion of having the community review what of their building stock is important to them is innovative. It may not be airtight itself (some people, especially without architectural backgrounds, tend to unilaterally favor new construction at the expense of old). But the language in the CBA is still a bold step in the right direction of instituting citywide Preservation Review.

It's unbelievable to me that a city in 2009 would allow for a huge North Side warehouse to be dismantled (for a parking lot? This is getting beyond old.) Yet this demolition sailed through without so much as a notice at a grocery store.

This is simply unacceptable. The NorthSide CBA is one of the only public voices I have heard that has proposed this "radical" solution to our city falling further into an unwalkable, uninteresting, semi-rural haven for the automobile.

Good News/Bad News Round-up 6:48 PM

> Downtown St. Louis Business reports that the southwest corner of 14th and Washington may soon see some actual construction. It's a glassy contemporary building. Though it's built across several old lots, it's still more to neighborhood scale than the cancelled Skyhouse development. Plus, it's nice to see what looked like a useless demo (the old Ehrlich's Cleaner's building) actually be vindicated.

This is Good News!

> The St. Louis Preservation Board approved the demolitions of two structures on the 900 block of Locust Street--for a turnabout for the proposed Indigo Hotel. The city's Preservation Board (repeat that to yourself) allows a developer to demolish two urban buildings in the city's central business district. What decade is this? Our CBD is too tattered, too anti-urban already to be allowing for further demolitions, especially for such an autocentric land "use". This is all around bad planning.

This is Bad News!

> Word is, on the Urban St. Louis forums, that the old industrial building near the Kingshighway Viaduct on Dagget Street in the Hill is threatened with demolition for a new mixed use development. One of the forum members claims the plans, which are to be made public tonight, reflect a development that would be beneficial to the neighborhood. I just hope they'll save the facade of the structure.

I have to Abstain on the Good/Bad declaration until I see the plans.

> Metro's next extension will be from Clayton to Westport. While I think that their priorities should be with the Northside-Southside line, I understand that St. Louis County will be voting on Proposition M next week, and they need to demonstrate a commitment to transit in the County. Any expanded rail service to the region--especially if better planned than the Cross County extension in terms of station design and pedestrian friendliness--is a benefit to the region as a whole.

This is Good News!

That's all for now. I may append later.

St. Louis's Industrial Antiques 9:16 AM

With the housing market downturn and the recent collapse of the Ballpark Village deal, I started to think about other projects within the city, and especially those that have already claimed a piece of our built environment in order to start construction.

Specifically, the St. Louis Army and Ammunitions Plant (SLAAP) site at Goodfellow and I-70 came to mind, as did the old Gasometer in Forest Park Southeast. Both were demolished last year for new developments.



On the SLAAP site, “Goodfellow Crossing,” by Koman Properties, complete with a Home Depot store, is slated. With interstate visibility and a mostly missing urban context south of I-70, there is nearly a one hundred percent chance of this development joining the CSD (Conventional Suburban Development) club. Is a big box better than the industrial landmark that used to be on the site? I’m no engineer, nor environmental specialist, and so cannot assess the safety of living on such a contaminated site, even post-remediation. Even so, the awesomeness of the defunct and demolished SLAAP should have warranted unique redevelopment proposals. I hate to play the naysaying game, but this big suburban box will likely need reformatting in a decade or two. Who knows, though? Perhaps increased rehabilitation activity on the north side will warrant a large Home Depot store?

[Edit (4/2/08): Michael Allen of Ecology of Absence just confirmed that Home Depot has has backed out of this development. Refer to the end of this post and reflect even more ruefully.]

In Forest Park Southeast, the turn-of-the-century gasometer was torn down for a proposed residential development from Jerry King. Luckily, Built St. Louis snapped some photos of the doomed relic of the Laclede Gas Company. While there is a rendering of the development proposed for the adjacent vacant lot along Taylor and Chouteau, not much has been said of the Newstead side where the gasometer once loomed. I hope the housing market collapse has not precipitated a needless demolition of a onetime south side “landmark.”



Since I cannot find a copy of a group project I worked on as an undergrad regarding the salvage of this venerable skeletal structure, I will post my door-to-door quickfire interviews of nearby residents below. These were what residents had to say about the gasometer, circa December 2006.

Denise, waiting at the bus stop on Tower Grove and Gibson, on the gasometer.
"It's an eyesore. Tear it down and built apartments. Something. Anything."

43xx Chouteau
Teenage Girl: I think it should stay
Teenage Boy: What is it?
Me: Well, it's a natural gas tank. But they don't use it anymore.
TB: How long has it been there?
Me: Since 1903.
TB: Keep it up as a monument.

43xx Chouteau:
Martez: It doesn't bother me.
Me: Well you know they're tearing it down, right?
Martez: What are they building there then?
Me: Some apartments
Martez: Gotta get with the change!

43xx Chouteau
Jerry: If it doesn't have no purpose, knock it down

43xx Chouteau
Melvin: Why not tear it down?

43xx Chouteau
Mary explained to me that she had a friend whose house was seized by eminent domain right across the street. She says he did not get reimbursed at market value. She mistakenly thinks the gasometer, too, has been acquired using eminent domain, and she wants to see it stay to spite ED.
Mary is a large woman. Her hanging midriff is exposed as she explains she took so long to answer the door because she has arthritis.
Mary: I think it should stay up. People should have more rights.

43xx Chouteau
Mark: It's of no real consequence whether it stays or goes. In fact, I don't know if you know this since you're in the neighborhood and all, but, the neighborhood residents like to add a couple bullet holes in it come Fourth of July. So maybe it'd be better to see it come down."

43xx Chouteau:
Amy, who seems distracted and wanting to shoo me away: I'd like to see it turned into an art project. I have a couple ideas for it myself.

43xx Chouteau
Dorian: I'd like to see it stay. It lets you know you on the South Side! It's like the Arch, you just know you here when you see it. It's a good symbol. I like seeing it when I wake up in the morning and come outside."

43xx Chouteau
Algnieszka (I suspect this is a last name): I'm used to it.
Me: There are plans to demolish it.
A: Ah, yes. I have lived here for several years. I remember when it used to go up and down. What are they going to put there ... another parking garage?
Me: Actually, they're going to put some apartments and rowhouses there.
A: Well, that will be about the time to move.
Me: Oh? Why?
A: Because the neighborhood will not be the same.
(I suspect she thinks this is low income housing that I am speaking of and is suggesting the neighborhood will get worse.)
Me: Well, they're going to be fairly upscale, I believe, though there will be affordable units.
A: Yes, but I like the neighborhood's feel right now. I think this will change it. Yes, there are gun shots. Not as many as before. But I like it now.

44xx Chouteau
Woman who would not give me her name: It doesn't make me no difference.
Her building is in the shadow of the structure, which has kept a sheet of ice intact and safe from the heat of the sun.

44xx Chouteau
Cozette: It doesn't make any difference to me.

44xx Chouteau
Unnamed person: We really could care less
I peer inside. A whole family is sitting at a dinner table, filled with kids kicking their legs impatiently under the table. The door slams. Again, the gasometer's shadow preserves an icy porch.

44xx Chouteau
Truess: What is that thing? I have no idea.
Me: It is a gas tank. It used to supply natural gas to the city. It was built in 1903.
Truess: I say, keep stuff like that. It's a monument. Is that the word I'm looking for? No wait, it's a landmark. That's it.

44xx Chouteau
Doris: Keep the thing as long as it does not blow up. I mean, let inspectors in so they can make sure. But keep it if it not doing any harm.

Brian Phillips, Executive Director of the Washington University Medical Center Redevelopment Corporation
BP: I wouldn't mind seeing it demolished. It's been sitting vacant for years. Laclede gas company doesn't use that type of technology any more
[Is it entirely due to the gasometer's literal transparency, its bare skeletal structure, that people do not see the history and promise of such a structure?]
I explain to him that a group of gasometers was reused in Vienna, Austria.
BP: That would be highly unusual in the St. Louis market. ... Basically, any quality development on that site would be a boost to the neighborhood. If it brings more residents and businesses to the area, that would be great.

Beverly, 44xx Gibson: It needs to go. Something else could be put there in its place for children...a recreation center or something. People throw their environmental waste in there too. It's just bad.
Me: What?!
Beverly: You know, they beer cars and stuff like that.
Me: Oh.
I speak about memorializing the structure. I ask for her input. She seems skeptical about remembering the tank until I tell her it's from 1903.
Beverly: Well, that could name the new apartments after the gas thing, the...you know...thing.
I am about to walk away.
Beverly: or they could decorate the light poles with the metal!

Unnamed woman 44xx Gibson: it's ugly

Greg, 44xx Gibson: I don't know...it's a landmark...yeah...it's an interesting piece of the neighborhood

Brenda, 44xx Gibson: I really have never thought about it. It's going to look real strange without it. It's been there for what...20 years, 30 years?
Me: It was built in 1903
Brenda: Oh Lord!

Patricia, 44xx Gibson: I haven't seen it yet.
She has just moved in to her new apartment. Boxes dominate the floor space. She's about to leave anyway, so I escort her to the side of her new apartment where she sees the gasometer, she says, for the first time.
Patricia: it has gas!?
I ask her if she'd care if it were demolished for new apartments.
Patricia: You know...all that stuff that they'd be doing will make money, you know.

Celeste, 44xx Gibson: it's not being used, right?
Me: No.
Celeste: I really think they should tear it down.

Tyree, 44xx Gibson: "Oh...it can go...quickly"

Charles, 44xx Gibson: They should keep it up. That's antique. Know what I'm saying?

For more information on and photos of the SLAAP plant or the gasometer (including the other St. Louis gasometers in north St. Louis and Shrewsbury), follow the links.

What will become of the rest of St. Louis's abandoned industry--the Carter Carburetor plant on North Grand and the Carondelet Coke Plant on the extreme south side of the city, to name just two? And will these developments ever get built--and will they be better than what they replaced?