View Full Version : St. Louis' version of C2S??



metro
02-01-2008, 08:23 AM
This just goes to show we can't rest on our laurels and be complacent. We must continue to be progressive, build a new arena, a new convention center, and the C2S area including a "central park", if we are going to want to play with the big boys and become a first class city.


St. Louis seeks to transform green space

February 1, 2008

ST. LOUIS – The city of St. Louis wants to reinvent more than a mile of parks and green space downtown, with ideas that include everything from tree houses designed by renowned architects to the creation of an urban ice skating rink. City officials are hoping that private organizations will sponsor projects for the Gateway Mall, a stretch of land downtown known for its views of the Gateway Arch.

While there’s no time frame or cost estimate for the entire project, backers are quick to point out it’s also not pie-in-the-sky: an organization called the Gateway Foundation has pledged about $25 million for a new urban sculpture garden on two blocks of land, just east of the city’s civil courts building. They plan for the sculpture garden to open next year.“We are on the move. We are beginning the process of making this happen,” Mayor Francis Slay said at a downtown news conference.

The city’s planning director, Rollin Stanley, said the space under consideration is the size of 49 football fields. Less than half of that is park land and it’s not continuous, broken up by downtown buildings and streets.The mall begins at Kiener Plaza, a few blocks west of the Mississippi riverfront and the 630-foot Arch monument. A plan calls for the creation of five distinct areas called “rooms” that continue to Aloe Plaza, a park across from the Union Station shopping mall.One, called a neighborhood room, would create a new recreation space, aimed mainly at the roughly 10,000 downtown residents.

Stanley talked about a play area for children that might include a tree house village, where famed architects could be asked to design a house. At Aloe Plaza, one idea is to create a lake around Carl Milles’ Meeting of the Waters fountain, made up of elaborate bronze sculptural pieces. The lake could offer a place to eat lunch, or skate in the winter.Other ideas include a new dog run or an urban hallway, a path with innovative lighting features that would link all of the green spaces together and give people a place to go for a walk or run.The plan Stanley presented came from Thomas Balsley Associates of New York and Urban Strategies Inc. of Toronto, he said.

The Gateway Foundation paid for the plan. Michelle Swatek, executive director of the St. Louis chapter of the American Institute of Architects, applauded the Gateway Foundation for its work to create the sculpture garden. She had not seen Monday’s proposal for the Gateway Mall, but said the chapter had concerns with previous plans presented in recent years. “We had been hoping for bolder ideas, better space definition, intimates spaces, exciting edges and integration of technology,” she said.Many with her organization had hoped for an interactive feature downtown using technology in a creative way to tell visitors about other attractions and features in the region, she said.In a separate project, a foundation headed by former Sen. John Danforth issued a report last year to obtain part of the Arch grounds from the federal government to better link the riverfront to the city’s downtown. The two areas are split by a busy interstate. That effort, however, would require an act of Congress

stlokc
02-01-2008, 11:40 AM
As a current resident of St. Louis and an OKC native, I was surprised to see this article on this forum. This Gateway Mall project is not anything like Core 2 Shore. Core 2 Shore has the potential to be completely transformative for inner Oklahoma City and is miles ahead of anything St. Louis may or may not be able to do with the Gateway Mall.

For information about a St. Louis-area project that has the potential to be transformative for our inner city, google "Ballpark Village," the new mixed use development about to be under construction at the site of the new Busch Stadium. That is an interesting project that will hopefully develop in the way that Lower Bricktown should and could have. It will have, among other things, a 25 story national HQ tower for Centene Corporation.

In general, though, I fully agree with what Metro said here. Every city is working to transform itself and OKC can not for one year, one month, or even one day afford to rest on its laurels.

bombermwc
02-01-2008, 12:04 PM
Ive only been to STL a few times, but I have to say that it's going to need a whole lot more work than that. Once you get out of downtown, some of the areas just outside of there are mile after mile of abandonded old brick strucutres boarded up and crumbling. And for STL being the status city it is, you would think downtown would be a lot bigger....I mean OKC's downtown is bigger and taller! To me, downtown STL feels more like a city central park than a business district. Nothing wrong with it, it's just weird. That being said, a less urban concept fits in nicely there but they need to spend some cash outside of downtown...cause holy crap.

stlokc
02-01-2008, 12:34 PM
Wow Bombermwc, I'm not even sure where to begin with that comment of yours. You must have been in the wrong places. St. Louis is an old urban city and there are certainly distressed areas, but there are probably a dozen quaint, interesting neighborhoods within 5-10 minutes of downtown that are significantly more lively than anything that OKC currently has in its inner core. As far as Downtown OKC being larger than Downtown STL, that is just laughable...
But you do raise a very subtle point that is more germaine to this forum (since this isn't a STL forum). You obviously have a bad impression of St. Louis from your visits, which is unfortunate. This just goes to prove that OKC, STL, and every city in the country needs to really think about what kind of impression they leave on casual visitors. It's not enough for me to tell you that urban St. Louis is a lively and prosperous place, if you don't see it, you don't believe it. The same can be said for OKC. What kind of impression does Oklahoma City leave out-of-town visitors "when the cameras are off?" (If someone visits inner OKC on a random Sunday or a rainy day or sometime when there's not a sporting event or arts festival, what impression do they get of the town we all love? Do they see bustling sidewalks, loads of retail, lots of activity? I wish they did, but I have my doubts. )

CCOKC
02-02-2008, 08:42 AM
I love St Louis. Probably one of my favorite places in the U.S. I have been there several times for tennis tournaments so I was probably in better areas than bomber was. We also were playing against locals who gave as recommendations of where to go. Whenever I recommend places to people about where to go in OKC I tell them only places that paint OKC in a good light.

bombermwc
02-04-2008, 10:07 AM
Well as many people that live there, obviously they like it. All I can say is that every time I've been to STL, it hasn't been a good experience. Not to mention how paranoid and rude security folks were not matter where you go.

I don't really remember the highway we came in on each time, but that's where the view was so bad and just horrible. Of course, a mile off the highway, it could have been gorgeous, you just get what you see from the road. It just looked like mile after mile of boarded up 3-4 story structures just lining the highway. Buildings that looked like great historic structures that turned into crack houses.

I was a chaperone on one of my trips for a bunch of high schoolers. I've been with these kids all over the U.S. from coast to coast and haven't encountered such ridiculously paranoid and rude security anywhere...and they were like that at each stop. Even I couldn't just sit on a bench for a few minutes in a mall without one of the security "eyeing" me or thinking I was "loitering" It's freaking bench for goodness sake. What the crap do you think it's for?


Now, I have to say that the old train station is one of the most awesome structures I have seen. That is an amazing reuse of something most cities probably would have just tossed. I bet the hotel part of the old station is beautiful too.