Monday, March 31, 2008
Sad fate of a house on Hebert
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Archdiocese wants to create a "campus" in the CWE
This morning at the CWEA Planning and Development Committee meeting, the architect hired by the Archdiocese of St. Louis explained that the Archdiocese wants to create a "campus" by demolishing the San Luis Apartments at Lindell and Taylor and building a surface parking lot in its place. Yes that's right they used the "C" word! As if that was not bad enough, the next words spewed from the architect's mouth were that the "campus" would make the Archdiocese collection of buildings "not a hodge podge that happened over time"!
WTF! "a hodge podge that happened over time"!!?? uh... most of us call that a CITY! To complete the campus look, for "security" purposes, the surface parking lot would be surrounded by a SLU style black iron fence. So... will they eventually want to fence the Catholic Center, the Cathedral, and Rosati Kain?
The parking lot would have 150 spaces (although about 20 of these would be lost to a request from the CWEA Planning and Development Committee request to respect the Lindell building set back line) as compared to 180 spaces that exist in the 3 levels of structured parking in the San Luis building... not exactly a net gain.
The architect pointed out that the existing apartments that were originally hotel rooms are only 240 square feet. If these were combined to create actual one bedroom apartments, with some two bedrooms mixed in, the unit count could reduce from 226 to about 100. If one parking space were allocated to each still relatively small unit, there would be 80 spaces left over for daily use by staff at Rosati Kain.
A representative of Rosati Kain explained their need for additional parking by staff and students. To gain additional parking without demolition, the Archdiocese could put some parking for students on the large grounds of St. Elizabeth Hall, which is directly north of the cathedral across Maryland. To minimize the effects on the grounds, they should use a product called Grasspave2, which uses interlocking plastic rings in real grass to provide the structural capacity to park on the grass. A double loaded row of parking along the Newstead edge of the property could yield about 70 spaces. The combination of this with excess parking at the San Luis would provide more parking than the current demolition proposal.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
The Central West End Deserves Better! Public meeting about the proposal to demolish the San Luis Apartments Saturday March 29
The owner of the San Luis, The Archdiocese of St. Louis is proposing to demolish the building and replace it with a SURFACE PARKING LOT! This proposal is an insult to everything good happening in the Central West End and the City in general. The CWE is one of the most vibrant, dynamic and walkable urban neighborhoods in the City and one of its most visible blocks is in danger of giving way to the WORST possible use imaginable. Until recently, the San Luis housed over 200 senior citizens, who have since been kicked out and forced to find other living arrangements. The likelihood that these seniors will find comparable housing in such a convenient walkable area are slim.
Please come to the meeting next Saturday and voice your opinions. Let the CWEA and the Archdiocese know that the corner of Lindell & Taylor deserves better than looking like its part of a second-rate city with no respect for itself and no aspiration to become a great city and a great place to live. Just one block south and west, the "Doctors Building" parking lot, is about to be replaced with a mid-rise apartment building with ground floor retail. While I am less than thrilled with the design of the new building, at least an eye sore that has been around for 30+ years will be gone. The Archdiocese has given no indication of any desire to build anything new at Lindell & Taylor, so please remember, that if this proposal goes through, we could be faced with a new eye sore for another 25 years or more, so please show up next Saturday.
Sunday, March 16, 2008
SLU Strikes Again! Destroying the Wagner House at 3438 Samuel Shepard

Monday, March 3, 2008
Vandeventer Viaduct


Like the viaduct, this building is now gone, and the BIG empty wasted space left where this and other buildings stood acts as a suburban style front lawn for SLU's new research building. I would like to think that eventually some of this blank lawn will be built upon with more research buildings, but I have a feeling I will be waiting for quite a while.
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