Centre Bridge Demo Progress & A Call to Action by City to River

Less than a week after the "Bridge Bash", The east wall of the St. Louis Centre sky bridge over Washington Avenue has been reduced to almost a skeleton.  About three weeks from now, the entire structure should be nothing but a bad memory.

After being hidden for over twenty five years, the facade of the former Stix Baer & Fuller department store reveals itself.  While the facade is largely intact, including original windows still in place behind the mask of the bridge, this view shows how the projecting ornamental terra cotta band course at the third floor window sill level was sawn off to accommodate construction of the mall structure.  This feature will be restored as part of the restoration for the facade of the building, which will be transformed into an Embassy Suites Hotel and apartments.

As the bridge is deconstructed, it has become transparent, allowing the sun to filter through.  Below however, the sun almost never penetrates this space.

Now that the St. Louis Centre bridge is well on its way to oblivion, City to River would like to turn your attention and your actions eastward to the soon to be former Interstate 70 as it hovers ominously above Washington Avenue and extends northward for nearly three quarters of a mile.

As we are currently meeting with area property owners, Downtown & riverfront neighborhood stakeholders, and developers to gain endorsements as well as the Arch design competition finalist teams to urge them to include highway removal in their concepts, we also are reaching out to the general public for support.  

What can I do to help you may ask?  Today, the City to River Blog has outlined a few simple things YOU can do to help make the vision for a New Memorial Drive a reality.  Please click the link above and take a few moments to show your support for reopening the front door of St. Louis.

On Our Way to Reopening Our Front Door: One Down, One to Go

Friday marked a monumental milestone in undoing the planning mistakes of the past with the ceremonial first blows of the wrecking ball to St. Louis Centre bridge over Washington Avenue.  Once the St. Louis Centre bridges are history though St. Louis should continue this momentum of re-connectivity eastward with removal of the final barrier between Downtown and Laclede's Landing, Arch grounds and Chouteau's Landing as is being promoted by the volunteer citizen group City to River.  

The removal of the St. Louis Centre sky bridges will open up a quadrant of Downtown that has seen little revitalization over the last decade as most projects have tended to be concentrated in the Loft District, Post Office Square, or scattered south of Locust Street.  Much potential lies in this once isolated corner of Downtown, especially with the proximity to the convention center and Edward Jones dome.  To truly reopen the front door of a revitalized Downtown St. Louis to the riverfront though replacement of the soon to be former interstate (I-70 will be re-routed across the new Mississippi River bridge) with a pedestrian and retail friendly boulevard is essential.
As our region competes for major conventions, including the upcoming 2012 Democratic National Convention, creating an environment that is an attractive place to visit and walk around is critical.  For decades we have invested in major infrastructure including the convention center, the airport, the dome, etc to attract major conventions, but we have failed to look at at the environment where visitors will spend their time walking around Downtown on their free time.  With the Arch and riverfront as major attractions, it only seems logical that the areas surrounding them should be attractive and desirable places to be.  It is time we reopen the front door of Downtown to these amenities for which St. Louis is known world wide by saying goodbye to the highway.

Finally!

Friday afternoon just after five o'clock, the wrecking ball takes its first hits

Hundreds, if not a few thousand people turned out for Fridays "Bridge Bash"

Its possible that the intersection of 7th & Washington had not been filled with so many people since the day after Thanksgiving in 1968 when one of my favorite images of Downtown St. Louis was captured in front of Stix Baer & Fuller

In about four weeks the view that Pyramid Companies hung on the side of the bridge in September, 2006 will finally become a reality.

Muny Terrazzo to be Restored!

The Post's Culture Club blog reports that the beautiful terrazzo floor in front of the Muny's ticket windows that was destroyed earlier this year will be re-installed in the fall after the close of this year's season of shows.  The work of art by Nancy Day was damaged in January of this year by a ruptured water main that heaved the sidewalks in under the Muny's stone portico.

Nancy Day's terrazzo mural at the Muny prior to removal in February

Thanks to the generosity of the Marilyn Schnuck Charitable Trust, the lost artwork originally installed in 1971 will be re-created in its original location.  In the mean time, the design of the terrazzo mural will be featured on the front cover of the Muny programs.

A Demolition to Celebrate

Its a very rare occasion when a demolition in St. Louis calls for celebration, but this Friday, May 21st at 5:00 pm will mark the beginning of the end of an eyesore as a wrecking ball starts its work on one of two street bridges at the former St. Louis Centre mall that has for 25 years acted as a physical and psychological barrier along the Washington Avenue corridor and brought darkness to the block between 6th and 7th Streets.

Washington Avenue will be closed to traffic on Thursday between 6th & 7th Streets to begin staging for the work and on Friday US Bank will mark this eventful occasion by throwing the Bridge Bash from 4:00 to 7:00 pm on Washington Avenue between 8th & 9th Streets.  There will be food, beverages and yes, dancing in the street.  At 5:00 sharp the wrecking ball will start swinging.

Demolition of the structure actually began a few weeks ago, and a close look through the glass curtain wall on the west face of the bridge reveals that most of the roof, all interior partitions and sections of floor at the 4th floor have been removed.  Demolition of the remaining portions of the bridge is expected to take about four weeks.  

As interior partitions are removed, the windows of the former Stix Bear & Fuller department store building are beginning to be revealed.  While connected to the former department store, fortunately, the bridge was built as an independent structure from it and much of the facade simply remains hidden behind the mall structure.
On the mall end of the bridge the end of the glass barrel vault roof has been removed as well as the roof of the portion of the mall that extends our over the Washington Avenue sidewalk.  Along with bridge and the the white and green metal panel skin of the mall, this skinny portion of the building over the sidewalk will be removed as well.

Darkness at noon.  Even when the lights were still on, the spaces under the mall bridges were dark oppressive spaces.  Like the elevated highway structure that separates Downtown St. Louis from Laclede's Landing, no amount of lighting or artwork can make up for the dismal experience of these confining spaces.
Above the storefront windows of the Stix building are vintage retractable awnings.  These are the same awnings that are shown in the 1959 photo below from the Western Historical Manuscript Collection.  Strangely, the windows under the bridge are the only ones that retain these now rare mechanisms.  They were removed from the rest of the building longer ago than I can remember.

The view west on Washington Avenue from the soon to be demolished bridge.

The glass barrel vault of the bridge looking up at the top of the Stix building

The connections to the department store shuttered permanently in 2001 after Dillard's who had bought out Stix Baer & Fuller in 1983 closed the Downtown store which had already been downgraded to a "clearance center" in the mid-1990's.  By 2003 according to an entry in deadmalls.com, Dillards would have no Downtown locations anywhere.

A rendering by Trivers showing what the former Stix Baer & Fuller building will look like with the bridge removed and exterior restored.  The Stix building, which will be re-named the Laurel, is also starting an $80 million renovation to include a 200+ room Embassy Suites Hotel, 200+ apartments and ground floor retail.  Opening Washington Avenue will have an amazing impact in terms of re-connecting the area east of the former bridge with the rest of Downtown St. Louis.  For the first time in 25 years one will be able to stand at Fourth Street and look west down the street canyon Washington Avenue as far as the eye can see.  With this the only barrier left on Washington Avenue will be the elevated lanes of Interstate 70, which will be re-routed over the new Mississippi River bridge in 2014.  Removal of the elevated lanes would be another cause for celebration and complete the restoration of one of St. Louis' great streets.

Fundraiser for Historic Preservation Saturday, May 22nd

Please join us Saturday May 22nd in historic Soulard to support two great causes and enjoy three great bands for only Ten bucks!  

SLU Trades One Street for Another

Last week SLU announced that construction will soon begin on a boutique hotel to be called Hotel Ignacio that it is developing in partnership with the Lawrence Group.  The project, which involves renovation of a historic building dating from 1905 at the intersection of Lindell Boulevard and Olive Street, hopefully marks a dramatic change in direction from SLU's previous scorched earth techniques of dealing with properties around it's Midtown campus.  

The rendering of the hotel, which was first announced last year, accompanying last Thursday's press release on SLU's website shows a part of the project that is a refreshing surprise: the re-opening of a street that was closed off nearly 25 years ago.  The block of Josephine Baker (historically known as Channing) between Olive and Locust was vacated as part of a historic renovation project in the mid 1980's which transformed the former Drake Plaza Hotel into apartments.  SLU must have struck a deal with Kohner Properties, owner of the Drake Plaza Apartments to purchase the portion of the street which had been turned into parking for the apartments.

The former Interiors Unlimited building at left will be transformed into the hotel.  East of the building is a parking lot that SLU has been using as a through street to access the sea of parking to the north.  This space will become the hotel's front door and drop-off.  Next east, blocked by a couple of planters is the original street that will re-open. 

The opening of this long closed street now is sadly ironic since SLU closed the next block north of the same street between Locust and Washington in 2008 after demolishing the adjacent Locust Livery Stable in 2007.  SLU apparently has no intension of re-opening this more recently closed section of Josephine Baker, as the hotel rendering shows what appears to be a sculpture garden and possibly a pavilion at the north end of this block.  In essance, SLU will be trading one block of the street for another.

East of the to-be re-opened street is the Drake Plaza Apartments which is composed of the former Drake Plaza Hotel and what is commonly known as "the pink building".  Between these two was a strange angled one-block mini boulevard known as the Lindell Cut-off that was constructed in 1915 (photo from The Problems of St. Louis by Harland Bartholomew of the City Plan Commission.)  Unfortunately the mid-1980's renovation project also resulted in the closure and vacation of Leonard Avenue between Olive and Locust.

Also mentioned in the press release is another positive development, the rehabilitation of two buildings on Locust just east of Josephine Baker into 25 apartment lofts and flats (rendering above).  After the demolition of the Livery Stable, many feared that these buildings would be next to fall for additional parking lots.  Like the hotel, this project also is the result of a partnership between SLU and the Lawrence Group.  Both the hotel and apartment building will contain leasable tenant spaces which with the Hotel and apartments will add to the vitality of the Midtown Alley district.  Steve Smith of the Lawrence Group was already well invested in the block that will contain the new hotel with the Triumph Grill and the Moto Museum, which houses Smith's amazing collection of motorcycles.

On the east end of the block where the new apartments will be located SLU had made a major investment in a large one story building at 3301 Locust.  The building had apparently been in poor condition for some time, and the entire roof structure and front wall were re-built in 2008.  Unfortunately, the entire front wall is solid stucco with no windows and only a couple of garage doors.  As the pre-construction photo above shows, the storefronts had already been bricked-in, but instead of opening up the front and creating commercial lease spaces which would have helped extend the amazing transformation of Locust that has occurred along several blocks to the east.  Instead, the building is apparently used only for storage.  

The lifeless re-built facade of 3301 Locust.  Take another look at the historic photo above.  The storefront building with awnings at the right edge of the photo is the same building.

It is strangely ironic that SLU spent so much money literally re-building this building after demolishing the Livery Stable just one block west which was in fairly good condition.

A close-up of the facade at 3301 Locust.  Fortunately, it would be fairly easy for SLU to reverse the decision to create a solid wall here, continue what is hopefully a radical shift in development strategy and put in new storefronts to enliven the street.