Remembering the Good Years at St. Louis Centre

When St. Louis Centre finally had its grand opening after over a decade of planning in August 1985, there was great anticipation by the City's civic leaders that shoppers would return to Downtown St. Louis. For the first several years of its existence, they were right. The siphoning of shoppers away from Downtown to newer sprawling suburban shopping centers had been occurring for over three decades, and now the table had been turned. It had been almost 10 years since a major mall debuted in the St. Louis region (Chesterfield 1976), and most of the area's other major shopping centers were approaching 20-30 years of age and had lost their luster (Westroads: 1955, Northland 1955, Crestwood:1957, River Roads: 1961 South County 1963, Northwest Plaza: 1966, West County 1969). St. Louis Center was the place to shop whether you lived in St. Louis, its suburbs or were just visiting from out of town.

Comedian Bob Hope was featured at the opening festivities.

When opened, St. Louis Centre was claimed to be the largest urban shopping center in the U.S. in retail square footage, rivaling even Chicago's giant Water Tower Place. A local reporter compared the mall to a luxurious "ocean liner" due to its almost all white interior and exterior finishes. The mall's enormous barrel vault skylights and walls of glass at the entrances reminiscent of the Crystal Palace or Milan's Galleria Vittorio bathed its interior with daylight. St. Louis Centre even made the cover of the book Interior Pedestrian Places, which features great public interior spaces throughout the world.

Cover and image below from: Interior Pedestrian Places

1985 was a year that had St. Louis flying on a high that was unmatched since the mid 1960's. Not only was the $95 million dollar St. Louis Centre opened, but Union Station, which had been closed in the early 1970's was renovated into a festival market and hotel by the Rouse Corporation. Between 1981 and 1985 St. Louis led the nation in the use of Federal Historic Tax Credits with $436 million in renovation projects including over 1600 units by the Pantheon Corporation in DeBaliviere Place and dozens of buildings in Laclede's Landing. A glowing article in Fortune Magazine lists these achievements and much more, declaring St. Louis "a place with a future".

Many people have said that St. Louis Centre was detrimental to street-front retail in Downtown St. Louis. The vast majority of the stores that opened in St. Louis Centre however were new to Downtown St. Louis. Many including Abercrombie & Fitch, The Sharper Image and others were brand new to the St. Louis retail market. While the shoppers that patronized the stores in the enclosed St. Louis Centre for the most part did not did not add any vitality to the streets, it is hard to argue against the fact that the Centre attracted shoppers who had not thought about coming Downtown for years.

August 11th, 1985 (this and photos below from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch)

Beyond the expansive skylights and bright clean interior, St. Louis Centre had many design flaws that did not help its fate. When the Mercantile Center was planned a decade earlier, the first main retail level was to be at street level, with all of the service areas and loading docks located out of the way in a basement level. This would have drawn a lot of cut-through pedestrian traffic. Instead, to cut construction costs, the large loading dock and service area of the mall was built in the middle of the ground level, forcing potential shoppers coming in off the street to go up the second level to the stores. There were a few stores on each end at street level, but sacrificing the center of the first floor to service areas seriously hampered the ability of the mall to be integrated with the streets around it or adapt to changing needs of the Downtown market.

November 22nd, 1985

In 1986 the first section of the St. Louis Galleria opened in Richmond Heights, replacing the old Westroads Center. With only a remodeled Dillards in the original 1955 Stix Baer & Fuller and a relatively small number of stores, the Galleria barely made a dent in St. Louis Center's retail supremacy. Five years later in 1991 however the Galleria was more than tripled in size, with a new Famous Barr, Lord & Taylor and another 100+ stores, moving the region's retail center of gravity to Brentwood and Clayton Road. Even downtown Clayton, which had established a strong retail presence in the mid-1950's suffered. After the Galleria expansion opened, foot traffic and sales at both St. Louis Center and Union Station, which was reopened as festival market / mall just three weeks after the Centre, dropped significantly. Instead of encouraging people to stay Downtown to shop, busloads of conventioneers were regularly sent via charter bus to the Galleria. For St. Louis Centre, which had lost its newness factor, the future from this point on was only downhill.

Even Fredbird thought St. Louis Centre was the cool place to be.

Missouri Tax Credit Public Hearing set for September 21st

Governor Nixon's Missouri Tax Credit Review Commission announced yesterday that one of five public hearings being held as part of its analysis of Missouri tax tredits will be held here in St. Louis on Tuesday September 21st. The beautifully restored courtroom above of the Missouri Court of Appeals at the Old Post Office - 815 Olive Street will be the venue for the meeting at which public testimony will be taken regarding the future of all Missouri tax credits including the Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credit. According to the agenda of the 6 hour session, two blocks of time from 4:00-6:00 pm and 7:00-9:00 pm will opened for public testimony.

As most everyone reading this knows, the Missouri Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credit since its inception over 10 years ago has been largely responsible for the dramatic re-birth of Downtown St. Louis and the continued restoration of dozens of St. Louis neighborhoods. Nixon's Tax Credit Review Commission is under orders to look at all Missouri tax credits and establish a plan for drastic cuts by Thanksgiving. For the Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credit this could mean a lower cap, or worse, a limited allocation system similar to the Low Income Housing Tax Credit which would politicize the process and result in a dramatic drop in the number of buildings that are renovated along with the jobs and tax revenue that are created in the process. This would be a self defeating move for Missouri, but one that is very much on the table for implementation.

This is YOUR chance to stand up and be heard. Please come to one of the public testimony sessions and tell the Commission that Historic Tax Credits are crucial to Missouri's economy and must not be slashed.

Central Library Renovation will Destroy its Most Interesting Feature

This past June the St. Louis Central Library designed by Cass Gilbert closed for a $79 million dollar renovation which is scheduled to be complete for the building's 100th birthday in 2012. The renovation will restore historic ceilings that were altered to install fluorescent and recessed can lighting, provide new HVAC and plumbing systems, introduce a new auditorium as well as several other improved spaces. 

The week before it closed I took a brief tour of the spaces beyond the bronze doorway at central desk of the great hall. Here was housed the central stacks that while generally closed to the public contained a structural system making it possibly one of the more interesting features of the building.

Upon entering the stacks you immediately experience that made this off-limits area so interesting, the glass floors! The glass floors were designed to let natural light from the exterior windows filter deep into the rows of shelves. According to library history, when originally built the stacks had one light bulb for every other row of shelves, which meant that making every allowance for day-lighting was of great importance.

The thick glass slabs are supported on a grid of steel Ts and angles.

An engineering feat themselves, the stack shelves rise the full 7 levels of the stack tower and support the glass and steel floors at each level.

While unique to St. Louis, the Central Library's system of glass floored stacks was used in many larger municipal and university libraries in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The fluorescent lights near the exterior wall are left off during the day as daylight fills the aisles.

Unfortunately with the Central Library's renovation this intriguing feature will be removed to open up the former stack space for a new atrium and entrance facing Locust Street. The library already has two original accessible grade level entrances on Locust Street, so why a third is needed is to me beyond comprehension. 

Two renderings show the new atrium and entrance that will replace the stacks.

The Central Library's great hall. With an amazing space like this, who needs a new atrium?

Those who argued for eliminating the old stack tower say that the stack tower was a fire hazard. While the design of the stack tower with openings between floors could be an issue, any time you have a high density concentration of books, you have a potential fire hazard. Employment of modern fire suppression systems are the safest and best way to prevent devastating fires.

Another feature of the Central Library that will disappear with the stacks is the pneumatic tube system. 

Requests for books were presented at the central desk in the great hall and sent via the pneumatic tubes to the stacks where librarians retrieved the books and brought them to the patron at the desk.

I can understand that this system requires more employees to keep running and that there are probably other benefits to an open stack system, but having someone else find your book was pretty nice. Librarians: please weigh-in.

These dumbwaiters were used to ferry piles of books back to their appropriate level for re-shelving upon return. They will also be removed with the stack tower.

Below is a video from KETC Channel 9's Living St. Louis series that gives a good synopsis of the Central Library's history and features.

Near the end of the video are a sequence of historic photographs showing the construction of the seven story stacks and glass floors.  If you could play this in reverse you can imagine how the demolition crews equipped with cutting torches will soon disassemble the stack tower, cutting the steel into pieces, tossing the glass into a dumpster and destroying this unique structure (for St. Louis) forever.

Bowood Farms Preserving Front Half of 4604 Washington

Last month I did a post showing some major alterations going on at 4604 Washington, a circa 1900 owned by Bowood Farms. The roof and back half of the house were gone and it was somewhat unclear what was happening. Bowood had previously completely demolished a similar house next door to the west at 4608 Washington, which did not exactly give me confidence about what could be going on currently.

Michael Allen posted a comment that Bowood was trying to save part of the house, and it is now clear that this is indeed the case. The front half of the house remains, and a new parapet wall has been constructed at top of the front elevation where the former sloped roof containing a partial third floor was removed. A new flat roof will likely be built behind the parapet as well as a new rear wall to enclose the remaining portion of the building.

A streescape view shows a new wood structure that has been added to the east side of the existing former auto repair shop at 4612 Washington. The east edge of this new structure partially rests on the remaining foundation of the demolished house at 4608 Washington.

A close-up of the new parapet with limestone cap. The variation in brick used in the new parapet is an indication that the front of the house will remain painted.

This photo from April 2009 during the demolition of 4608 Washington shows the former shape of the roof at 4604. The demolition of 4608 was unfortunate, losing all of the house next door would have been awful for the streetscape of an already tattered block. Is it possible that a flurry of bad press last year about the demolition above and one across the street had some influence on Bowood's decision to preserve part of 4604 Washington?  Partially infilling the space left behind with the new structure will help this stretch of washington maintain some continuity. 

I-70 will be GONE from Downtown St. Louis in 2014

In february 2014, Interstate 70 will be officially be removed from Downtown St. Louis. Yes thats right, I-70 will be GONE south of Cass Avenue once the New I-70 Bridge across the Mississippi is complete just north of Downtown. The map from City to River above shows how Interstate 70 will be diverted across the new dedicated bridge into Illinois. What will be left will be an orphaned stretch of highway along the route shown in blue.

The New I-70 Bridge over the Mississippi River is under construction right now. In fact, work north of Downtown on the Missouri approach to the main bridge structure is underway right now. You can check out the progress in this video below (complete with cheesy music!)

Construction of the new bridge is not new news, but at the City to River event Wednesday night at the Tap Room, I was surprised to learn how many people do not realize what this does. The new I-70 bridge is not simply a reliever for the interstate, it is a total relocation of Interstate 70. This relocation makes possible the removal of the stretch of highway between Cass Avenue to the Poplar Street Bridge because this orphaned and aging infrastructure will become redundant. Replacement of the elevated and depressed lanes highway with an at-grade boulevard transforms a significant barrier into a great connector. 

As you are likely aware, on Tuesday the proposals of the five finalists in the City+Arch+River Design Competition were revealed. Four out of five of the design teams call for removing the elevated and depressed lanes of what will be the former I-70 as the ultimate solution to reconnecting Downtown St. Louis with the Arch and riverfront!

The public has only one week, ending Monday the 23rd to submit formal comments to the competition jury before they begin their deliberations to choose the winner. 

Please go to the official Competition Comment Form today and let the jury know that they should select a winning entry that supports reconnection by removing the highway and replacing it with a pedestrian friendly boulevard.

My last post began with one of the most depressing photos of St. Louis that I know. Today. I leave you with one from a year later on March 9th, 1965 from a recently posted Post Dispatch gallery called "The Arch as Art". It reflects the unbounded optimism for the future that was shared by St. Louis and the nation at that time. I share that optimism now that St. Louis can overcome the planning mistakes of the past, reconnect to its river birthplace and reopen the front door of the City for next millennium. I hope you do too.

Now its Time for YOU to Help Un-build a 46 Year Old Mistake

Construction of the Gateway Arch and Interstate 70 in 1964

Photo from the Western Historical Manuscript Collection

I still find this photograph one of the most depressing images of St. Louis. Our beloved stainless steel monument to westward expansion is not even halfway complete, and it is already being cut off from the City. Since it was built, the Gateway Arch and surrounding park have stood on an island surrounded by tangles of infrastructure. St. Louis' front door was closed before it was ever finished.

However, with the convergence of two events: the construction of the new Mississippi River bridge which will carry I-70 across to Illinois north of Downtown and concurrent The City+The Arch+The RIver Design Competition, the opportunity exists to reopen our front door and re-connect St. Louis to the Arch, the riverfront neighborhoods north and south and to its birthplace, the river itself.

Next Tuesday the 17th, at 8:00 am, the designs of the 5 competition finalists will be unveiled to the public. For ONE WEEK only, the public will be able to submit comments about the designs that will be given to the competition jury for consideration as they select the winning team.

The following night, City to River will be hosting an event at the Schlafly Tap Room. We will have visuals of the finalists designs available as well as laptops so you can make your comments directly on the competition website. Comment cards will also be available that will be delivered to the competition exhibit at the Arch.

City to River will be encouraging everyone to comment favorably toward design proposals that call for highway removal and replacement with a boulevard. City to River feels that replacing the soon to be defunct section of I-70 from the PSB to Cass Avenue is the only way to truly re-connect St. Louis to its riverfront. 

The event will also feature St. Louis trivia to make for a complete evening of fun! We have a Facebook event and encourage you to RSVP and share the invitation with all your friends.

If you cannot attend, please visit the The City+The Arch+The River Design Competition website, take a look at the designs and leave some comments. You can also see the designs in person and fill out a comment card in the underground lobby of the Gateway Arch daily from 8:00 am to 10:00 pm. Remember that public comments to the jury are only being taken through Monday, August 23rd. This is your chance to make a real difference in the future of St. Louis for the next 50 to 100 years! Please take time to participate.

An Elegant Feature in the Middle of an Urban Planning Disaster

This elegant floating helical stair was located near the entrance to the Courts Building of the St. Louis County Government Center in Clayton. It was completed in 1972 and was probably the only redeeming element of the brutalist styled complex consisting of the County Administration Building, the Courts Building and a large elevated plaza that had been designed by Murphy, Downey, Wofford & Richman in 1968. 

The elevated plaza spanned across Carondelet Avenue connecting the new Courts Building with the St. Louis County Police Headquarters building on Forsyth by Preston Bradshaw that had been completed in 1950. The original county courthouse dating from 1877 was demolished just prior to construction of the new complex.

Although the helical stair was elegant, its surroundings were bleak at best. Much like the space underneath the elevated lanes of Interstate 70 that divide Downtown from Laclede's Landing, the underside if the plaza resembled the lowest depths of a parking garage. No amount of lighting or decoration could improve the cavern-like space. Driving on Carondelet Avenue was like going through a tunnel. Both the County Administration Building and the Courts Building greet the surrounding streets of Clayton with blank walls.

At the top of the staircase, conditions were not much better. The plaza level was isolated and typically barren and lifeless except for the occasional smokers venturing out of the surrounding buildings. I was always amused and somewhat bewildered that St. Louis County would set up its Christmas tree on the elevated plaza directly over the street below.

A 1976 aerial view of the elevated plaza and government buildings from the book Clayton: A History. 

Fortunately in 2000 the elevated plaza, which had been steadily deteriorating, was demolished and replaced with an attractive at-grade park and plaza space designed by HOK as a memorial to police and firefighters that have died in the line of duty (photo from St. Louis County's website). Unfortunately, Carondelet Avenue was closed and removed between Meramec and Central as part of the process. The elegant floating helical stair also met its demise and was replaced with a very plan switch-back stair to 2nd level entrance of the Courts Building.

Elevated plazas were a favorite scheme of modern-era planners and architects who used them liberally government centers, civic spaces, and urban renewal projects such as the Mansion House complex which was begun in 1962. A plaza at the second level connects the various buildings of the complex and is almost always devoid of life or activity. That there is an interstate highway just to the east separating the complex from the Arch grounds and creating an endless deafening roar at the plaza level could be a partial explanation for its failure, but generally, the fact that the elevated spaces are sequestered from street level activity dooms them to desolation. 

In the 1960's a series of elevated plazas was considered for completing the final blocks of the Gateway Mall east of the Civil Courts Building. Fortunately this plan never left the drawing board. Amazingly however almost 50 years later, some are calling for raising the level of Luther Ely Smith Park east of 4th street and building a block wide plaza or bridge to connect to the Arch grounds across Memorial Drive and the interstate below. While not elevated on the east and west ends, this block would have similar isolation issues shared by the urban planning disasters of the 1960's due to the fact that this new plaza or park space would disconnected from its surroundings to the north and south. Worse though would be the dark dreary tunnel like space created underneath the bridging plaza just like what existed at the County Government Center.

As has been clearly pointed out by City to River, the cost associated with adding another layer of infrastructure to the problem of connecting Downtown to the Arch grounds far outweigh the benefits. Spending large sums of money on a new block-wide bridge that would be a maintenance issue in the future and only connect one block of Downtown to the Arch just doesn't make sense. What makes sense is removing the deteriorating infrastructure that is the soon to be former I-70 and replacing it with an urban boulevard which would provide restored connections along its entire 1.4 mile length.