How many fully intact urban intersections are there in Downtown St. Louis east of Tucker? By fully intact urban intersections, I mean all four corners are defined by a building that is built out to the corner (or close to it). This means no parking lots, no parking garages, no buildings set far off the street by a plaza, no driveways, etc. This definition of what makes an intersection fully intact and urban is admittedly subjective. While parking garages are found in urban settings, with the exception of ground floor uses other than cars, they don't contribute much to a thriving urban environment.
Looking at a map of the Central Business District, bound by Chestnut, 4th Street, Washington and Tucker, there are only 5 intact urban intersections.
Intersection 1: 9th & Washington bound by the Bankers Lofts, The former Lennox Hotel (most recently the Renaissance Suites), the Renaissance Grand Hotel and the Renaissance ballroom building.
Intersection 2: 8th & Olive, bound by the Laclede Gas Building, the soon to be renovated Arcade Building, the Old Post Office and the also soon to be renovated Chemical Building.
Intersection 3: Broadway & Olive, bound by the St. Louis Place building, Metropolitan Square, The currently empty but very attractive Lasalle Building and the Marquette Building.
Intersection 4: 8th & Pine, bound by the Wright Building portion of the Arcade, the Laclede Gas Building, the Wainwright Building annex, and the AT&T data building. The AT&T building is admittedly not the most urban building, but the corner includes a Metrolink station entrance and a small convenience store.
This intersection at 4th & St. Charles almost made the list, but the Gentys Landing building is fronted on the first floor by a covered drive.
The last on the list is 10th & Locust, which in its present state is perhaps the only intersection in the CBD with the potential to have active retail or restaurant uses on all four corners. If plans by Urban Street Group proceed as rumored (since no real plan has been made public), the former Noonan Kocian Art Company (later Fatted Calf) building and at the northeast corner of the intersection and the adjacent 4-story building at 919 Locust will be demolished and could be replaced with an entry drive for development in the former Scruggs annex near the middle of the block. This would bring the number of intact urban intersections in the CBD to four.
Not surprisingly with many surface parking lots, Downtown south of Market has none, and Laclede's Landing also has none. West of Tucker there are a few with 13th & washington being one of the best Downtown and one at 17th & Locust.
Last week the St. Louis Board of Aldermen Housing, Urban Development and Zoning Committee gave unanimous approval for Board Bill 2, which is a redevelopment plan proposed by Urban Street Group of Chicago for several buildings purchased from the Robert's Brothers. As part of the redevelopment of the buildings along Locust, the two buildings above, at 919 and 923 Locust would be demolished. The board bill gives no details about what is proposed to replace the two buildings, but according to St. Louis Core, 7th Ward Alderman Phyllis Young the area at 10th and Locust would follow "urban design and landscaping standards" including possibly public art, a pergola and other amenities.
Last month NextSTL published a fascinating history of the corner building at 10th and Locust which housed the Noonan-Kocian Art Company from 1912 through 1958. The building shows up in the 1875 Compton & Dry Pictoral St. Louis, and may have been originally constructed in the Antebellum period, making it one of the oldest buildings in the Central Business District. The buildings proposed for demolition are not currently listed on the Nation Register, nor are they part of a larger historic district, so the proposal would not be required to be reviewed by the Cultural Resources Office or the Preservation Board. With its history, the 923 building would likely be eligible for individual National Register listing if the 1970's Tudor skin is removed.
Two Downtown buildings could be replaced by a pergola? Really!???
According to various sources, Urban Street wants to demolish the two buildings in order to get more windows in the tall skinny building in the middle of the block. The tall building at 917 Locust was constructed as an annex to the Scruggs Vandervoort Barney department store which occupied the entire block across Locust in the Syndicate Trust and Century Buildings. Earlier articles had indicated that Urban Street wanted to turn the building into apartments, but the board bill refers to a new boutique hotel at this location.
In either case, getting light into the lower floors of the larger building is a poor excuse for complete demolition of the corner buildings. Many Downtown St. Louis developments, including the conversion of the former AD Brown building pictured above and below, have used interior courtyards cut into the existing structures to let light into apartments, condos and hotel rooms. The Laurel on Washington and the Sheraton on 14th Street are additional examples of hotel/residential buildings with interior courtyards.
While I'm not fond of the doors used at the Meridian, the concept works.
Lame arguments about light, views and giving a building a "proper entrance" are the same excuses that Mercantile Bank (now US Bank) used to demolish the Ambassador Theater in 1995 three blocks east at 7th and Locust.
You may recall that the Roberts Brothers planned to demolish the same two buildings at 10th and Locust in 2008 to create a new entrance to a hotel they planned to open in the 917 Locust building. The Roberts Brothers never received financing for that proposal, so the buildings were spared.
The real question now is what is the current plan and why would the Board of Aldermen approve a redevelopment plan without knowing what the plan really is? A friend at SLDC mentioned that he had seen a rendering many months ago of a new mid-rise building on the corner, but that doesn't seem to jive with the notion of needing light in the 917 building or talk of loading/drop-off areas, landscaping and pergolas. Apparently only time will tell.
The Cultural Resources Office has announced a public meeting to present the results of their survey of modern architecture in the city of St. Louis. Information about the first public meeting can be found here on B.E.L.T. and here at Preservation Research Office.
Some may wonder why this survey is important. B.E.L.T.'s most recent post illustrates vividly how quickly important works of modern architecture can vanish with with little attention.
When the news of Biondi's recently announced resignation filtered through St. Louis, preservationists across the City no doubt cheered and/or let out a sigh of relief. It seemed appropriate though to take a look back at 20 years of demolitions brought about the wave of Biondi's hand. This is by no means a complete summary, and list of buildings that fell under his reign that I don't have photos for is probably as long (or longer) than this post.
While Biondi can be credited with creating in some fashion a more unified campus setting for St. Louis University, the planning or lack thereof and a penchant for the 1960's style "wipe the slate clean" urban renewal mentality has resulted in buildings and a campus, especially south of the valley, that is far removed from its urban context on an isolated island. Hopefully his replacement will see things differently, that a college campus in an urban setting is a positive attribute, not one to fear.
The Olympia Apartments at the northeast corner of West Pine and Vandeventer - Demolished in almost 20 years ago in June 1993. The building was listed on the National Register and would have made an excellent conversion to student apartments. Fortunately SLU decided to divest itself from the much larger Coronado Hotel around the corner on Lindell at Spring.
Vesper Buick Building - Demolished in 1995 for a surface parking lot kitty corner to the surface parking lot on the Olympia site. This National Register listed building by architect Preston Bradshaw was an unusual example of the Spanish Colonial Revival style.
3740 Lindell Boulevard - Demolished in 2008 to provide an open space in front of a proposed expansion of the School of Law that never happened on the main campus. The law school will soon be moving into a donated office building on Tucker Boulevard that is nearing completion of a full renovation for its new use. 3740 Lindell is yet another case for holding the demolition permit until a building permit for the replacement is issued.
Marina Building at the northeast corner of Grand and Lindell - Demolished by SLU in 2002. In 2004 SLU put out an RFP for redevelopment of the site but passed on all of the submissions. It remains a one acre combination sculpture and unofficial dog park at one of the more high profile intersections in the City.
Locust Livery Stable at 3401 Locust - Demolished by SLU in 2007, this historic building built in 1885 fell to enlarge a surface parking lot in an area that has no lack of surface parking lots and is a block away from SLU's huge Compton Garage.
Wagner House at 3438 Samuel Shepard - Demolished by SLU in 2008 and remains a vacant lot just east of the beautifully rehabbed Stockton House.
4040 Washington - Demolished in 1999 and replaced with green space and a small parking lot near the alley (that could have easily fit on adjacent vacant parcels).
4068 Washington - demolished in 2004. Owned for many years and actually marketed by LRA until SLU purchased it... still a vacant lot at the corner of Washington and Sarah today.
4056 Washington - This large mansion had been a run-down boarding house for many years but was purchase and almost completely rehabbed (minus some interior finish work) in 2004. Four years later, SLU purchased the home and immediately demolished it. It is worth noting that the three homes above were less than 500 feet from the homebuilders "Citirama at Gaslight Square", an entire street of new homes that were built and sold (many upwards of $400,000+) starting in late 2004. Many homes in the block of Washington west of Sarah have been fully rehabbed since this development.
Pevely Dairy complex - Demolished in 2012 after the St. Louis Preservation Board denied demolition, but SLU appealed to the St. Louis Planning Commission, who ruled un SLU's favor. The office building at the corner remains as SLU has yet to move forward with the ambulatory care center which it argues absolutely requires every part of the Pevely complex to be obliterated. The complex, which was listed on the National Register had previously been purchased by a developer who planned to convert the buildings into loft apartments. Photo above by Underground Ozarks.
The former Pevely delivery truck garage, one of the buildings demolished.
Single family homes in the 36xx blocks of Hickory and Rutger - Demolished by SLU in 2011 for an initial plan for a new ambulatory care center. When SLU was then able to acquire the Pevely Dairy complex, plans for the yet to be built ambulatory care center moved north. How long will this ground sit vacant? More photos of the homes below.
David P. Wohl Sr. Mental Health Institute - Demolished in late 2011. Just east of the homes above, this was another casualty of the mythical ambulatory care center plan. With its landscaped interior courtyards, this building by architect Gyo Obata was considered cutting edge for the treatment of psychiatric patients when it was opened in 1962, and still served this purpose well until just a few years ago.
The Book House is holding a rally this Tuesday, May 7 at 6:00 pm to save the historic Gothic Revival house that has been threatened with demolition this summer. Please come show your support for this rare structure that has stood on Manchester Road since the Civil War and for the independent book store that has been housed here for over 27 years. RSVP for the rally on Facebook here. Also, a Save the Book House Facebook group has been created.
U-Gas Hill (Rock Hill) is at it again! The city that approved having it's historic namesake, Rock Hill Presbyterian reduced to a pile of rubble and shipped off to Warren County, where it has yet to be re-built, is poised to possibly eradicate another piece of it's history just down the road from the new U-Gas station.
The Book House is an independent book store that for 27 years has been located in an circa 1863 Gothic Revival style house, one of the few surviving in the St. Louis area. The Book House is located at 9719 Manchester, about a third of a mile west of the intersection of McKnight / Rock Hill Road where the U-Gas went up last year. The house faces Manchester but is located on a parcel off of Leonard Avenue and is as accessed off Manchester through another property.
The Book House is designated as a historic landmark by the City of Rock Hill, but next Tuesday, May 7th, the Board of Alderman will consider approval of a proposed redevelopment by Great Northern Land Co. of Michigan that would demolish the historic Book House and several surrounding properties and replace them with a self-storage facility.
Unfortunately the Book House does not own the historic house. Michelle Barron, owner and founder of the business said they had tried to buy the house in recent years, but with tightened lending standards they were unable to get a loan to do so.
A supporter of the Book house started a petition on change.org to save the Book House, which is where I first learned of the issue this past weekend. Please sign the petition and share it with friends. Please email the Mayor of Rock Hill and members of the Board of Alderman asking them to preserve their heritage and to oppose demolition of this historic house. If you are able to, please attend the Board of Alderman meeting on Tuesday, May 7th at 7 pm at Rock Hill City Hall, which is located at 320 W. Thorton Avenue, east off Rock Hill Road just south of Manchester. Also, please like the Book House page on Facebook to stay updated.
UPDATE: A story on stltoday.com is now saying that Rock Hill's Planning & Zoning Committee may not see the proposal until June. Another story on examiner.com has Rock Hill's assistant city planner saying that the developer has not yet applied for re-zoning. It is never too early to email and call Rock Hill officials though to let them know your opinions.
