Major League Soccer Expansion in St. Louis - 2016 St. Louis City Talk Favorite

This is the second of two sports related favorites from 2016. The first was the Cardinal/Cordish proposal for a mixed-use development at Ballpark Village.

The next is the potential for MLS soccer in our fair city. The league is expanding and they indicated that St. Louis is one of the top cities under consideration for a team.

Per MLS' official website:

MLS Commissioner Don Garber announced Thursday that Teams 25 and 26 will be announced during the second or third quarter of 2017, at an expansion fee of $150 million each, and begin MLS play by 2020. Teams 27 and 28 will be announced at a later date, at a price delivered in conjunction with the timeline.

The league acknowledged ownership groups from 10 markets have publicly expressed interest in securing an MLS expansion team: Charlotte, Cincinnati, Detroit, Nashville, Raleigh/Durham, Sacramento, St. Louis, San Antonio, San Diego and Tampa/St. Petersburg.

Interested expansion owners must submit applications by Jan. 31, 2017. After review, a series of in-person meetings will take place during the first and second quarters of 2017.

2017 is going to be a critical year for St. Louis when it comes to this burgeoning sport. 

Let me first say, I love sports. Really all sports, but I'm not an MLS soccer fan to date. That would change if we got a team. My kids love soccer. They are into it, they understand it, they play it in the CYC and SLPS. They would beg to go to games just as they do to Blues games.

Secondly, I have had the pleasure of working with people from all around the world. Argentinians, Colombians, Mexicans, Chileans, Belgians, Spaniards and Brazilians, they all have hard core fans. I've never seen such devotion to a team or a sport. It is infectious to be around. It is exhilarating just to be around them and hear them talk about their teams. The chanting, the songs, the colors, the pride...it is like nothing we have here...maybe college football, but Illinois and Missouri aren't those kind of teams.

I think soccer is one of the growth sports for the next century in the U.S. MLS in the most international sport and could help retain and grow our Latino, African and Eastern European populations. I think it could help to attract and retain the next generation of people who will consider living and working in St. Louis.

So when an ownership group of wealthy suburban businessmen floated a stadium proposal just west of Union Station in the Downtown West Neighborhood, I was excited.

If any of these owners actually live in St. Louis, I apologize, but my guess is they are County residents who are not being asked for public $ at the city/county level and not expected to own the stadium if the team decides to pull a Arizona Cardinals/Los Angeles Rams move.

Now remember, some of these same well-meaning folks were behind building a second NFL stadium for the Rams. No offense, but they don't understand what people who live in St. Louis need. It is not stadiums, it is $ for schools, neighborhood stabilization, potholes, and cameras, cops, investigators and prosecutors to combat the out of control crime we have to deal with. It's always easier to spend someone else's money.

The group includes St. Louis Cardinals President Bill DeWitt III, World Wide Technology CEO Jim Kavanaugh, prominent hotelier Bob O’Loughlin, UniGroup President Jim Powers, St. Louis Blues CEO Chris Zimmerman and former NFL task force co-chairman Dave Peacock.

Jim Woodcock, global sports co-lead and senior vice president at FleishmanHillard, said the group — which is dubbing itself MLS2STL — came together naturally as several of its members, including Woodcock, began asking about MLS ownership following the departure of the St. Louis Rams. (source)

But the pretty pictures and potential for the city were a bit tarnished by the need for massive adjacent and on-site surface parking lots that are not needed 348 days out of the year, and financial support of public tax money from St. Louis only. No St. Charles, St. Clair, Madison, Jefferson or St. Louis County support has been asked for to date, just good old money bags St. Louis. Yeah right. We are broke and need the money more than any city in the region. But we're supposed to bankroll this thing for 17 professional sports games a year (more if you make the playoffs). The Blues bring 41 games and the Cards bring 81.

Oh, and they want the city to own the stadium. Remember how this works Rams fans? It is not smart investment. 

I want MLS soccer here, but we should not be the only city paying for it.

However, I expect in any negotiation the first offer is the one that most benefits the party making the offer. This is how most negotiations work. It is now up to the leaders in the city to pass the napkin back across the table with a better offer.

And hopefully the voters can decide if the public money from St. Louis should go to another sports stadium that we own.

Remember how this played out with the Rams? It is happening again. 

As a citizen and voter in St. Louis, I am willing to pitch in some for this team. The terms have to be reasonable and the ratio of public funds should match the wealth of the region. If it does, this could be a great regional effort to bring a popular and growing sport to St. Louis.

The region can play together nicely and bring a team here. St. Louis would be a great location, we just need to not get completely screwed over financially.

It can work, but will it? Look no further than Great Rivers Greenway or the Zoo Museum District to see the amazing things we can do when we pool our resources.

It will be fun to watch it all play out in 2017.

Viva St. Louis. 

New Medians, Curb Appeal and Other Updates in Lafayette Square

It's been fun watching the Lafayette Square Neighborhoodgoing through a monumental upgrade of their infrastructure along Lafayette Avenue from Jefferson Avenue to Truman Parkway and Park Avenue from Mississippi Avenue to Truman Parkway as well as in the park.

Per the Lafayette Square Restoration Committee (the non-profit neighborhood association) several improvements to the streets and sidewalks were planned:

Starting mid-2015 SWT Design developed plans for five areas:

Lafayette at Jefferson

Park Avenue at Truman Parkway

Park Avenue at Vail / Plaza Area

Dolman at Lafayette

18th Street at Lafayette

Design focused on slowing traffic, pedestrian safety, and beautification.

As noted above, the plan is from SWT Design, a firm located in the suburbs west of St. Louis.

I'll share the images of the original plans as well as some of my photos of the progress along the way. As of publishing, the new columns being installed do not have the globes on top, I assume they will eventually be installed to match the original columns around the park:

Park Avenue at Truman Parkway:

Decorative pavers and concrete work at the intersection of Park and Doleman including ADA accessible corners:

It's hard to believe the beautiful brick building, a former mop factory circa 1910 has remained undeveloped. Back in July, 2012 the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that a developer had proposed a renovation to apartments and offices.

Opposition to this project was loud and clear from the neighborhood, as the proposal included 42 income-restricted apartments. This aspect of the story was reported by NextSTL in August, 2013.

Now, one of the city's marquee neighborhoods is set to vote up or down a proposal for a complete historic renovation of the long vacant Zittlosen building. If approved, the 1910 Zittlosen Manufacturing Company building fronting Park Avenue at Dolman (1322 Dolman address) would be renovated to the stringent specifications of the Lafayette Square Local Historic District Code. So what's not to like? The project would produce 42 income-restricted apartments. If chatter from the Lafayette Square neighborhood listserve is a true reflection of neighborhood sentiment, the project doesn't stand a chance. Neighborhood support is helpful and public notice is requred for the project to receive the full package of tax credits being sought. In practice, this means the proposal likely needs support from the mayor, local alderperson and neighborhood to bolster chances of success.

Then, per meeting minutes from the Lafayette Square Restoration Committee's November, 2014 meeting, demolition was considered:

Richard Stockmann presented a resolution which stated that the LSRC would entertain the proposal of demolition of 1322-32 Dolman so long as there would be new construction to replace the existing building on the site. A discussion about the resolution included understanding that the LSRC would entertain a proposal to demolish and construct as opposed to just “demolish.” Mr. Stockmann proposed that the resolution be adopted with the omission of a partial sentence. The motion was seconded. A comment was made to table the motion to allow time to review and consider all options - President Negri allowed a motion to table the resolution until the December membership meeting (source).

Presumably, there will be decorative fencing connecting the columns at the corners of Park and Truman. As of publishing, these sections appear incomplete.

 columns on the southwest corner of Park and Truman

                    columns on the northwest corner of Park and Truman

Park Avenue at Vail Plaza:

Impressive rain gardens, easement plantings including perennials and trees and new crosswalks and pavers were part of this section:

Lafayette Avenue at Doleman Street:

The plantings on the easement by Lafayette appear to be bald cypress trees and the cul-de-sac will have perennials.

bump outs provide protected parking spaces along Lafayette

new trees

no sign of fencing at date of publishing

I can't figure out what these are, but I'm curious.

Lafayette Avenue at 18th Street:

Pedestrian bump outs to ease with crossing traffic lanes and allowing for trees and perennial plantings.

clump river birch and perennial grasses in the median

planted bump-out near the I-44 exit from Lafayette

 columns being installed

upgraded cross-walks

bump-outs providing protected parking lane

cul-de-sac near Clementine's Creamery

bike lanes and crossing made much safer at Lafayette and I-44 exit

Lafayette Avenue at Jefferson Avenue:

medians have grass sod vs. mulch at publishing

grass at time of publishing

massive bump-outs widened the sidewalks

protected parking lanes now exist

As you can see the execution is a bit different from the SWT plans posted on the LSRC website. There appears to be no addition of a column south of Lafayette at Jefferson, and no plantings nearest Jefferson. The design at publishing simply has a large concrete and composite bump out and widened sidewalk with no tree or perennial plantings.

You have to give credit to the successful, organized neighborhoods driven to improve their neighborhood.  The designs are welcoming and add some much needed sidewalk improvements and curb appeal to passers by and neighbors alike. The pedestrian experience is improved and the green elements of porous concrete and native plants will likely abate runoff and provide interest to the street.

Undeniably, these upgrades are a major step change for the curb appeal and pedestrian experience in several high profile parts of the neighborhood; yet, it misses on one critical and probably highly controversial element:  permanent street closures and removal of the rectilinear street grid at Doleman and Lafayette and 18th Street and Lafayette.

Doleman has not been closed for long, there is still evidence of when it was a through street, but as time marches on, it is easy to forget this part of the neighborhood was accessible and not a dead end cul-de-sac.

former entry from Lafayette, now a cul-de-sac

We pay for streets as a city to help get from one place to another, to connect different places, not too isolate them.  But, it is a common occurrence here in St. Louis, even in the wealthiest, most stable places to develop cordoned off spaces vs contiguous, flowing spaces.  See St. Louis University's recent attempt to close Laclede Avenue between Grand and Spring.

Reopening the streets is a tough nut to crack.  Neighbors think it will bring increased crime, auto traffic and higher speeds on residential streets.  There are enough old timers here to remember the days when drug dealing was still big in this part of town and the street closures were meant to curtail the drive thru dealer situations.  Lafayette Square is by no means the only neighborhood investing in permanent street closures.  

The Shaw Neighborhood has doubled down on their street closures to isolate them from the neighborhood to the north, Botanical Heights (formerly McRee Town).  See the Slay balls recently installed at Thurman Avenue and DeTonty Street as an example (a slight upgrade from the Schoemehl pots that previously existed).

Slay balls: no passage

Schoemehl Pots: image from Google Streetview

The neighbors who have lived in these areas remember when this part of the city hit rock bottom with McRee Town and Peabody Darst Webbe bringing some real problems to a part of the city they were investing in. So, their voices continue to be loud and the streets remain closed in an era where those problems of the past have largely subsided.

An interesting question:  who owns the road, who paid for it and who gets to decide how it is used?  I think in my utopian city, streets would be meant to get you from one place to another providing flow.  Not dead ends and cul-de-sac's creating a maze of dead ends and one ways making navigation frustrating and confusing, nowhere is this more evident than in the Skinker-Devaliviere Neighborhood.

Alas, so it goes.

All that aside, the investment in Lafayette Square is appearing in other parts of the neighborhood as well. There is plenty to be optimistic about.

The park itself, which I documented back in February, 2014

 is seeing some major upgrades. Largely through grants and fund raising, the Lafayette Park Conservancy has proposed the following projects:

Historic 1869 Fence Restoration

The 4,100 foot long iron fence with its large stone gate posts and massive iron gates is the most distinguishing feature of the park. Its spear point was chosen as the symbol of the neighborhood and the Lafayette Square Restoration Committee. The list of its problems with the fence is very long. There are many broken, wobbly and missing fence posts, parts of the 15 foot long fence sections are broken or missing, fourteen gates are missing and weather has damaged the stone gate posts. Missing and broken fence posts must be replaced and the anchoring system has failed. “Saving the Fence” will be the Conservancy’s major project for the next few years. 

UPDATE: The Conservancy has selected Robinson Iron of Alexander City, Alabama to undertake the test phase of the fence restoration project. Robinson Iron will take six sections of the fence from the southeast corner of the park to their workshops where they will be taken apart so patterns can be made to replace broken and missing parts.

The "mending fences" project is underway with a section nearest Lafayette and Mississippi removed now and posts and fences being reproduced to match the Victorian era fencing.

You can donate to this project by clicking HERE.

Revolutionary War Guns

The second of the three guns from the British warship HMS Actaeon, sunk in the Charleston, SC harbor in 1776, is set to be restored in 2015-16.

Grotto Bridge Handrail

The grotto bridge was built around 1900 by the Koken Iron Works. It replaced a rustic wooden bridge built over the Grotto in 1865. That bridge was blown away in the Great Cyclone of 1896 which devastated the park. In time, the Koken bridge became unstable. The bridge would shake to such an extent that some of us feared a large wedding party posing for photographs might collapse into the lake below. Delahanty Construction Services LLC stabilized the bridge in 2012 and Steve Coffey, AIA, was the architect for the project. The project entirely consumed a generous $75,000 grant awarded to the LPC by the Whitaker Foundation intended for pathway renewal. The original handrail would be too low and open to meet the standards set by the Americans with Disabilities Act. The LPC consulted Classic Metal Craft and they have designed a handrail which would satisfy the requirements of the Act and be elegant and appropriate for this bridge. 

Pathways Renovation

About one quarter of the pathways in the park were resurfaced in 2012 thanks to a grant from the Darden Foundation. The year before the Grotto Bridge was reconnected to the pathway system for the first time in decades thanks to a grant from Alderman Phyllis Young. The gravel surface had become worn and uneven. The smooth asphalt surface was instantly popular with the persons who use it most frequently: walkers, children on bicycles, parents pushing strollers and dog walkers. Just hours after the Grotto Bridge was connected to the pathway system a wheelchair was seen on the bridge. This would have been nearly impossible before then. The LPC asked Steve Coffey, AIA, to prepare a set of detailed drawings on ways to upgrade the rest of the pathway system and his plans have been delivered to the Parks Department. The Board of Public Service will select a contractor and construction should begin in mid-2015.

Music Stand

Preliminary drawings are complete and a bid of $500,000 has been received to recreate the 1876 Music Stand in the spot where the original base now stands near the center of the park. When completed, this music venue will support larger music groups than the Elizabeth Cook Pavilion. currently used for summer concerts, in addition to providing a distinctively Victorian centerpiece that can be easily seen by motorists passing the park on Lafayette Avenue. The Conservancy is currently seeking grant providers or other lead donors as it begins raising funds for this high-impact project.

Today, all that's left of the music stand is the crumbling foundation.

Here's a picture of what it looked like in its heyday:

Also of note are the re-striped dedicated parking lanes, bike lanes and angled parking along Lafayette.

parking spaces, bike lanes both east and westbound and a single traffic lane on Lafayette Avenue

dedicated bike parking station off of Park Avenue

Angled parking in front of the 1928 German cultural center called Das Deutsche Haus

As reported by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in 2010, this vacant building where the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra recorded in the 1950s was slated for renovation by the Church of Scientology, but that fell through. So dreams of Beck and Juliette Lewis coming to town for the silver shovel photo opp were all for not.

New construction is underway at Lafayette and Mississippi with the addition of a new home on a former vacant lot:

The stringent new construction guidelines make for some high-end, nicely matching buildings, as evidenced by a recent new home near Park and Mississippi:

New left...old right

And at the southeast corner of Mississippi and Lafayette, a new location for a charter school is in the works. In March, 2015 NextSTL reported on the ~$2.1M project to convert the former Lafayette Baptist Church to a 20,000 square foot school for Lafayette Preparatory Academy, a public charter school currently operating in the Downtown West Neighborhood.  The school conversion is managed by impressive local firm UIC and is slated to open in 2016, accommodating ~270 students in grades K through 5.

UIC image of planned renovation

Progress at publishing

These are good times for the Lafayette Square Neighborhood. Go check it out!

Street Trees And Re-establishing An Urban Canopy

In part one of my posts related to curb appeal and environmental sustainability, I discussed a "Milkweed for Monarchs" project undertaken by the Fox Park Neighborhood Association in 2015.

In this post, I will share my personal connection to a street tree project recently completed in the same neighborhood. I joined the Fox Park Neighborhood Association for a one year term through 2015. The board was looking for projects to bring to the general membership that would benefit the neighborhood in a meaningful way.  Several proposals were weighed including the median project mentioned previously, a sidewalk replacement project and finally a street tree replacement project.

The neighborhood had been seeking upgrades to the medians for years, so that was a no-brainer. The other two options took some research.

It started with some simple observations of the neighborhood.  Walking the streets and auditing the sidewalk situation and the largest contiguous stretches of streets without trees.  The sidewalks were ruled out after receiving a couple cost prohibitive bids, so we focused on street trees.

Why are trees an asset to the neighborhood?  Well, the benefits to the public, property owner and pedestrian along the sidewalk are indisputable and well documented.  One of my favorite reads on the subject is from Dan Burden's "22 Benefits of Urban Street Trees" published in 2006.  Burden is a Senior Urban Designer at Glatting-Jackson Architectural and Design Firm in collaboration with Walkable Coummunities, Inc.

In short, here's the list of 22 reasons urban street are a benefit to any city:

1. Reduced and more appropriate urban traffic speeds. 
2. Create safer walking environments
3. Trees call for placemaking planting strips and medians,
4. Increased security
5. Improved business
6. Less drainage infrastructure.
7. Rain, sun, heat and skin protection
8. Reduced harm from tailpipe emissions
9. Gas transformation efficiency
10. Lower urban air temperatures
11. Lower ozone
12. Convert streets, parking and walls into more aesthetically pleasing environments
13. Soften and screen necessary street features such as utility poles, light poles and other needed street furniture
14. Reduced blood pressure, improved overall emotional and psychological health
15. Time in travel perception
16. Reduced road rage
17. Improved operations potential
18. Added value to adjacent homes, businesses and tax base
19. Provides a lawn for a splash and spray zone, storage of snow, driveway elevation transition and more
20. Filtering and screening agent
21. Longer pavement life
22. Connection to nature and the human senses

Pretty impressive, eh...there is something on that list for everyone from the environmentalist to the staunch libertarian.  As I said, these benefits are pretty universal and many are backed by empirical data vs. subjective or academic reasoning, which adds to the rock solid line of evidence that street trees are a benefit to all.

Take for instance #6:

"Trees absorb the first 30% of most precipitation through their leaf system, allowing evaporation back into the atmosphere. This moisture never hits the ground. Another percentage (up to 30%) of precipitation is absorbed back into the ground and taken in and held onto by the root structure, then absorbed and then transpired back to the air. Some of this water also naturally percolates into the ground water and aquifer. Storm water runoff and flooding potential to urban properties is therefore reduced."

You can read up on all 22 reasons HERE.

Anyhow, here is how we went about our project. Each year the various wards throughout the city are allotted funds that can be spent largely at the discretion of the elected alderperson. In our case, we have a great working relationship with the alderperson, Christine Ingrassia, and she helped fund a street tree audit of the city's sixth ward. This will go a long way in understanding where to invest in trees in the future. We asked Ingrassia to help us navigate the system and make contact with the correct departments in the city.

For this particular project, the neighborhood association had some funds saved up from various fund raising campaigns and we wanted to show our commitment to getting Fox Park back in the tree game by making a purchase of trees directly from our organization's treasury.

Next we had to do some homework to bring a plan to the Board and then to the general membership for a vote.

We started by investigating available species. We went to the Missouri Botanical Garden's wonderful website to select species that are low maintenance, drought resistant and have low pedestrian trip-causing debris (e.g., acorns, gumballs)

The city also has a list of trees that they recommend:

We narrowed it down to three species including the ginko, Freeman maple and blackgum. Ginko's were voted down on the off chance that female trees (you only order males) could find their way into the supply chain and females produce the 

butyric acid-laden fruits which are quite foul smelling (that doesn't stop my dog from eating them like Skittles).

So we set a meeting with the city's Forestry Department to share our intentions and develop a game-plan to help us identify the species, associated cost, locations within the neighborhood and the logistics of ordering the trees and getting them planted.  So, our alderperson, the head of Forestry, the Urban Forester and two other certified arborists on staff were kind enough to sit down with us in April and talk trees and help plot out our path. We had the following questions:

1. species availability

2. height and trunk diameter available

3. planting instructions/location suggestions within Fox Park

4  what is needed from us?

5. next steps and other feedback from forestry

Turns out the arborists liked our choices for species and said either would work. We decided upon the blackgum as it is a hearty native that does well in clay soils and has colorful fall foliage and  has very little debris.

Blackgum:

 Nyssa sylvatica 

Per the Missouri Botanical Garden, blackgum are a "plant of merit" and categorized as low maintenance and "tried and trouble-free".  The species selection was a go.

Forestry explained the process. They would be responsible for:

• site assessment
• recommendations for any box cuts (taking a saw and cutting ~6 inches off the sidewalks) to create more space for the tree
• receiving and holding the trees from the nursery until time for planting in late 2015
• planting

The cost for each 2-2.5 inch diameter tree was $140.00, all above labor included.

Forestry agreed to send out a staff arborist to help us identify ideal planting locations.

Now that we had an understanding of the process and associated costs, we took the details back to the board who agreed to propose the purchase of 20 trees to the neighborhood's general membership for a vote.

We then took the plan to a neighborhood meeting for a vote. The general membership voted unanimously in support of the project.

We were on our way.

In July, on what must have been one of the hottest days of the year, we met with one of the city's arborists to walk the neighborhood and select some good sites.

There was some heavy construction throughout some parts of the neighborhood, including Oregon Street and Magnolia Avenue, so we avoided those areas.  We also had to avoid some obvious obstacles such as utility lines.

We expresses an interest in having this first planting be in a high profile, high traffic zone. We wanted a large contiguous stretch that currently had NO trees to help make the biggest impact of a planting. The 2700 block of Russell Boulevard immediately came to mind as this is likely one of the most traveled east-west corridors in Fox Park.

Dan the arborist made his recommendations, a small group of board members concurred and we marked twenty planting sites with orange spray paint for the next step in the process: box cuts.

Depending on the width of ground between the street and the sidewalk, cutting the sidewalk could be necessary to give the trees enough space to grow.

This work was carried out by the city:

Then, we just had to wait for the weather to cool off, typically around October or November.

Well I was lucky enough to be on Russell and Ohio the day the Forestry Dept. workers delivered our trees to get some photos and thank the guys that did the truly hard work...the digging.

Here's the result of their hard work and the dedication and support of our local alderperson and neighborhood association.

Hopefully the neighborhood has shown that we are committed to reaping the benefits that urban street trees provide and we'll see the next generation of neighborhood leadership continue this worthy pursuit.

And if you were one of the lucky neighbors to have a tree planted in front of your abode, please consider helping establish these beauties by providing plenty of water.

Cheers, Fox Park! You are better looking and healthier today than you were a year ago.

Why I Think A Second NFL Stadium Is Bad For St. Louis

With a pending vote by the Board of Alderman on whether to fund the construction of a second NFL stadium in the city, I wanted to cobble together my thoughts here at the last minute as to why I think this is a bum deal for residents of St. Louis. I usually keep my mouth shut as it is endlessly frustrating to constantly disagree with decisions that local leadership make. I find myself in the minority when it comes to what we need and what is considered progress. Why even bother? Maybe a Hail Mary pass is in order; whatever, this time it feels like the vote could be close enough to reject this public money going to billionaires. Maybe people need to speak up more...who knows.  I don't think the state has much appetite to fund this stadium either, so who knows what could happen.

Either way, it'll be interesting to watch these next few days play out.

Before I share my thoughts I want to make some things perfectly clear:

I'm not anti-football. I love all sports from the Olympics to the NFL. Just like the arts, sports are a spectacle of human accomplishment, and I don't discount its beauty, history or place in society. I am not sitting on a high horse on this one. 

Secondly, I respect people who work for the Rams and those who think St. Louis needs a team. I disagree with them on the stadium issue as you'll see below, but I will listen and I feel no malice toward anyone on the opposite side of the argument...but, we've been down this path before with the Dome. And you can see where that got us.

Thirdly, I do not seek to point out differences between St. Louis and the many cities in the suburbs to perpetuate the divisiveness that exists in this region. In fact, if I were voting on it, I'd go for a full merge of the county and the city a la Kansas City, Louisville or Indianapolis so we can all act like one big region and voting/taxing block as opposed to 100 different cities all building walls and tiny empires and acting selfishly.  But, I know that won't happen anytime soon and therefore when I speak about our region, I am using facts based on tax bases, electorates and boundary lines that do indeed divide us up into cities which are distinctly separate from each other by all measures. At times these boundaries must be considered if you are to realistically break down the situation.  Think Ferguson after the Michael Brown events; the world became very clear that St. Louis and Ferguson are different if every conceivable measure other than proximity: different voters, different police departments, different set of problems, different way of raising tax money. I don't mean to come across like I hate the suburbs because I don't; I'm fully aware of the charm and pressures of suburban living. My hometown is one of those suburbs albeit on the Illinois side.

Finally, I'm not anti-tax subsidy where it makes sense for the majority of residents. If the return is there and it helps create a more functioning city that attracts decent jobs and more people and solid funding for schools and everything else a city has to offer, then it's worth it. 

So that said, here's why I think spending public money on

a second

 NFL stadium is bad for St. Louis:

1. We already have a perfectly good stadium that was built in 1995. It is only 20 years old and functions perfectly as a football stadium. Trust me, people LOVED the Dome when Warner, Faulk, Pace, Zahir-Hakim, Holt and Bruce made magic there. It was insanely hard for the opposing team to hear and the place was electric...and I'm saying that as a baseball fan...it was the hottest ticket in town. NFL football was insanely entertaining and people came to the Dome in droves. Furthermore, the Dome provides multiple stadium configurations that can seat up to 70,000 people. Seating levels include: a private luxury suite level with 120 suites, a private club seat and luxury suite level with 6,400 club seats, a concourse level (lower bowl) and terrace level (upper bowl). The city leaders in the 1990s negotiated a bum deal that put the city on the hook for upgrades that couldn't realistically be met. The Rams ownership used this stipulation in the contract to demand crazy terms and unrealistic upgrades. We don't have that money. So a group of suburbanites chose to draw up plans for a second NFL stadium, not in their city of residence, rather within walking distance from the current one. The Dome is perfectly fine and will hold more fans than the proposed stadium. Instead of realizing the city is under true pressure financially, the Rams chose to gouge us on the Dome vs. work with us.

2. I don't know for sure but I don't think Dave Peacock, the leader behind the new stadium plan, is a resident of St. Louis. Per wikipedia, he was born in the small town of Webster Groves, just outside the city limits of St. Louis, I presume he doesn't live here now. I know there are eyes rolling after reading this.  But when the chips fall and tax dollars and electorates come into play, city boundaries become crystal clear and accuracy and facts must trump "feelgood regionalism".  This will become important in point #8 below. Peacock is however an investor in local startup LockerDome which does have a St. Louis office, so props are given there.  But yet again, we have outsiders who can't vote here and don't care about our schools, streets, alleys, parks, street lights, sidewalks, police/fire pensions, etc.  Those things are paid by taxes and voted on by residents. Some will cite Peacock as a leader and a savior of St. Louis. It's hard to canonize someone with that title when they aren't a true resident with skin in the game. You want to spend our tax dollars? Come live hear and send your kids to our schools and drive down our alleys and visit our firehouses to see what we really need. I imagine those things look very different in Webster. I think leadership needs to come from within. It's always easier to spend someone else's money.

3. The Rams are not a good franchise. Their owner's net worth is $7.6 billion per

Forbes, 2015

. That means he is the 62nd richest person in the richest country in the world. If anyone can afford a football stadium it is this guy. He is a horrible leader, non-existent to the fans and frankly people can't stand this guy. He is so shrewd and driven by $ that he has no face or personality that you can latch onto and support.  If we are going to pony up tax dollars to help a billionaire make more money, we should have it be a lovable leader. Isn't that one of the pluses of sports? Communal love for a team? The Rams are not that team. They are horrible and people have not gotten behind them in recent years for this reason as much as the deplorable level of play/coaching. I went to the Pittsburgh game this year and walked past the hard core tailgaters just north of the Dome and saw this effigy of Kroenke:

4. Some will say that St. Louis needs to be relevant and being an NFL city is part of that relevency.  Well, you have to take a look at the numbers to understand that being an "NFL city" hasn't translated into much success for St. Louis. A vibrant city means lots of people and lots of jobs...wealth.  St. Louis has neither and it continues to drop precipitously; I'll elaborate on this point in reason #5. Now remember, when I say St. Louis I mean it literally as in, the City of St. Louis. There is no doubt in my mind the County benefits more from the Rams than St. Louis does.  Why? Because the Rams chose to locate their corporate HQ in the suburbs in Earth City, MO avoiding property taxes and job creation in the city. So the Rams leaving St. Louis for Maryland Heights or Earth City or Carson or Inglewood have the same impact on our tax base...I suggest moving the team to the suburbs so you don't eradicate our architecture further and build another deadzone on the door step of our city. I realize the Rams do pay gameday earnings taxes, so that would go away if the Rams played their game in the burbs or California.

5. Speaking of people leaving St. Louis, let's see how we've done since we became an "NFL City", first from 1960-1987 with my childhood team the Big Red and then again with the Rams starting in 1995. So, when the Cardinals first started playing in St. Louis in 1960 the Census counted 750,026 residents. Since becoming an "NFL City" in 1960 and the Cards eventual move to Arizona in 1987, we lost 353,341 people and by 1990 we were down to 396,685 tax payers, citizens, voters...you know St. Louisans. Sure this brutal loss was not the direct result of the Cardiac Cards or NFL or pro sports in general. But the point I'm trying to make is that NFL football and the 2nd Busch Stadium (that is now bulldozed) did nothing to "save St. Louis" and it was active ~100 days per year since the baseball and football Cardinals played there. People vote with their feet and they continue to do that to this day in St. Louis...I wish it weren't that way, but it is. In fact, since the Rams moved from Southern California to St. Louis in 1995, we lost another 58,000 residents. We are down to a paltry 317,419 people in a once powerful, dense city of >800,000. NFL football has done nothing for the city of St. Louis. No one who moves to Kirkwood, MO or Maplewood, MO or O'Fallon, IL citing average game-day experience at the Dome as their reason for leaving St. Louis for suburban pastures.

6. St. Louis, as a result of devastating population loss, has become poor. Per our comptroller, our credit rating is at risk of being downgraded and our tax dollars continue to disappear as the region's largest corporations double down in the suburbs and former great employers/tax payers like AB send high paying jobs to cities with direct flights and better global access (read NYC and Chicago). The median income in the suburban county immediately west of St. Louis, called St. Louis County has ~90 cities and vast swaths of unincorporated land has a pleasant median household income of $53,482. Break that down to a city that most, if not all people know, say Kirkwood and you get a median household income of $77,420. St. Charles County, one of the fastest growing cities in the next county to the west is at $56,622. The U.S. median household income is $53,891. Where does St. Louis stand? $34,800 (

source

). Friends, we are poor and the last thing we need to be using our dwindling tax dollars on is a second NFL stadium and a team with a horrible owner.

7. The new stadium will not generate property taxes. Do you know why people continue to leave St. Louis? The answers I hear are crime or schools. Do you know how those are funded? Racism is the third reason, but it tends to get buried in the crime or schools reasons, so you won't hear many people say that out loud. But it is there. This is a bad financial deal for the city, generating little to no money to go back to our schools, infrastructure and bills that we have to pay.

8. St. Louis was asked to go it alone, without the financial help of the wealthier suburbs chipping in. Only St. Louis was asked to pony up at the local level for this $1 billion stadium. Again, I don't make these distinctions about our region to pull us apart and point fingers. But the fact of the matter is the County Executive (kind of like the Mayor of the suburbs) did not want to fund the stadium, so the wealthier suburbs are out. Dave Peacock (wealthy suburbanite) and his stadium team do not live here (my assumption, sorry if he does live here), yet lobbied a judge to deny St. Louis citizens a right to vote on this use of taxes to fund billionaires. Then in a blow to the residents of the city, a small group of alderman chose to vote against a bill (albeit a sacrificial lamb) to bring stadium funding to a vote of the people. This has made folks in my small circles increasing disenfranchised with the process and the pitch for a second stadium. Shut up and pay we are told; we know what you need and we don't even live there!

9. We have a perfectly good stadium within walking distance from the proposed new one. The last thing we need is to further demolish the history of this city with a horrible use of land. A deadzone is what NFL stadiums are. This plan is a so-so stadium surrounded by a sea of surface parking that will get used ~10 times a year. People come here, tailgate for a couple hours, go to the game, and drive back home. This NFL fanbase has done little for St. Louis. We need businesses that operate all year, jobs and residents. This stadium will do nothing to keep Schnucks Culinaria open or get us a Walgreens/CVS or City Target that we so desperately need Downtown. AT&T is not going to reverse course and fill up the tower with employees all of a sudden. That ship has sailed. Trust me, the Bissinger's rehab of a former warehouse/factory on the North Riverfront is what we need 10 more of, not stadiums. Deadzones...it'd be so much better in the suburbs and office parks which are already soul-less deadzones.

10. I'm going to keep my commentary on the Rams and Kroenke to a minimum. But, they are horrible on every level. Nothing is fun, no one is lovable, they hate the city and treat us like we're lucky to have them here. You chose the suburbs to set up your HQ and you come down here only on game day. Lease some office space here for your corporate operations. Be part of St. Louis not Earth City, MO. But they don't do that. And people will say it is a blow to our self esteem if we lose our football team. It'll sting a bit at first, but we got through the Big Red leaving and nothing changed. The Rams coming here in 1995 changed nothing. Personally, I think ugly wake-up calls like Ferguson have the potential to slap the region in the face and merge and start making meaningful changes that will grow our region and reverse our trend of poor leadership and less investment than any football team winning or losing could ever do.

We don't need another NFL stadium in St. Louis. We can't do it, we can't afford it. We need our money for our bills and our schools and our infrastructure, which no one else will pay for but us. If Kroenke and Peacock want to build a new stadium, I suggest the wealthier suburbs as a location. They are in a better spot to afford it. The corporate HQ is already there, build a stadium in Maryland Heights or Earth City and let us off the financial hook and abandon St. Louis in full. Don't worry, we can work out a deal to license the naming rights of the "

St. Louis

" Rams back to the team for a small fee. We can use the money.

Curb Appeal and Infrastructure in the Shaw Neighborhood

The Shaw Neighborhood caught my attention recently with some noticeable infrastructure upgrades along Shaw Boulevard. I'll start with the decorative cross walks at the intersections between Grand Boulevard and Tower Grove Avenue; but there is more.

The crosswalks welcome you to the historic Shaw Neighborhood:

The crosswalk below gives tribute to the beautiful Mullanphy Investigative Learning Center that has served the neighborhood at Klemm and Shaw since 1915.

The intersection at Lawrence Street recognizes the presence of St. Margaret of Scotland Catholic grade school:

St. Margaret's recently completed a new middle school building to accommodate their growing enrollment. The building has an urban form and was built atop a former surface parking lot.

The good news doesn't stop with handsome crosswalks. There were also some much welcomed pedestrian infrastructure and traffic calming improvements as well. Bump-outs were installed at several intersections. Why are these important? I looked to the invaluable Urban Landscapes blog to find out:

Bump-outs (also known as “curb extensions“) have become commonplace in many subdivisions across the country. They are also common in the existing neighborhoods as a means of traffic-calming. The purpose is to provide an additional element in protecting the vehicles parked on the street and enabling shorter, safer crossing for the pedestrian at the intersection. (source)

Bump-outs also provide additional permeable ground between the sidewalks and the street that can serve to reduce storm runoff lightening the burden on the sewer system, all the while affording an opportunity for native landscaping vs. asphalt. Notice the young tree planted in this bump-out and the added protection the row of parked cars get:

Trash receptacles were strategically placed at high volume pedestrian intersections:

The crossings are ADA compliant:

Shaw Avenue was also repaved from Grand to 39th Street. Hopefully we will see painted bike lanes and protected parking lanes.

So where did the money come from? Who came up with the design and executed the work?  Why Shaw Avenue and not another street in the neighborhood?

To help me answer some of these questions, I reached out to the Tower Grove Neighborhoods Community Development Corporation's executive director Sean Spencer. Who gave me some great background information and a taste of what is ahead for his organization.

First a little background on the Tower Grove Neighborhoods Community Development Corporation (TGNCDC) history and mission:

Established in 2013, the TGNCDC is a consolidation of the former Grand Oak Hill Community Corporation, Southwest Garden Housing Corporation, and Shaw Neighborhood Housing Corporation. The three organizations served the Tower Grove South, Southwest Garden, and Shaw neighborhoods, respectively, for over 30 years. Recent changes in community development funding allocations from the City of St. Louis and a renewed focus on outcome-based community development initiatives necessitated that these three organizations combine resources and service areas to more effectively serve the community and leverage existing resources.

To view the full service area for the TGNCDC, click here.

The work I've highlighted above is part of a goal within the 2015-2019 Strategic Plan set forth by TGNCDC through comprehensive community input. This goal is to 'Revitalize and Strengthen the Long-term Stability and Growth of the TGNCDC Service Area (Area-Wide Improvements)'.

Specifically, what I've described above falls into the Infrastructure Improvements bucket, set up to:

• Improve public spaces, infrastructure, signage and landscaping

• Work with Neighborhood Association and Alderperson on infrastructure improvements

• Promote commercial facade, 50/50 sidewalk, LED lighting and ADA improvement programs

How about the actual crosswalk pattern and design?  Per Spencer, the scalloped mosaic design and fonts for the crosswalks were selected by the Shaw Neighborhood Improvement Association's beautification committee. These are not just the temporary decorative painted crosswalks you see across the city, these are the longer lasting (~8-10 year lifespan), reflective types. The technology is called DuraTherm®:

DuraTherm® is a specially-designed preformed thermoplastic material that is inlaid into an imprinted asphalt surface and thermally bonded using specialized infrared heaters. Engineered to lie slightly below the asphalt surface, DuraTherm® is protected from wear, ensuring effective service life while maintaining its attractive contemporary look for years. A specialized pavement heater softens the existing asphalt. Templates are pressed into the surface to create the imprinted pattern. Pre-cut sections of DuraTherm® are set into these impressions. The specialized heater is used again to bond the material to the asphalt surface. (source)

Why was Shaw Boulevard the focus for this project? Spencer explained that through neighborhood charrettes and surveys, the participants wanted to focus energy on Shaw Boulevard and DeTonty Street as target areas for reinvestment. This makes perfect sense, because if you've lived here for more than 20 years, you are well aware that many properties on these streets had seen better days as time wore on. With the high visibility of DeTonty Street from I-44 as well as Shaw being a major east-west street connecting Grand to Kingshighway, it is easy to understand why these two streets would be target areas to uplift and invest with new brain power, volunteer/grant writing efforts and city investment.

The crosswalks and infrastructure upgrades described above were largely paid through Ward 8 funds allocated annually across the city with spending typically through the discretion of the publicly elected alderman.

I'm told that other upgrades are in the works providing more fodder for continued excitement including replacement of the dim cobra head street lights with high efficiency LED lights through a community development block grant as well as a group working hard to consider landscaping options for the streetscape through a grant from a large bank.

There are plenty of reasons to be optimistic for DeTonty Street as well, with the recent plans proposed for a $4M 8,000sf education center focused on urban food production, nutrition, and science education for elementary school students at Lawrence and DeTonty.

This educational effort will be led by local private, charter and public school leadership and faculty at St. Louis University and will serve thousands of students at Mullanphy Investigative Learning Center, St. Louis Language Immersion School, Tower Grove Christian Academy and St. Margaret of Scotland School. It is great to see such collaborative efforts among the various schools in the area. NextSTL reported on this proposal in October, read the full story HERE.

NextSTL also reported earlier this month on a proposed $10M 84,000 square foot development that will bring apartment and town homes to a long vacant stretch of land along DeTonty Street between Thurman and Klemm. Read the full story HERE.

So keep your eyes on Shaw, Southwest Garden and Tower Grove South for future improvements and excitement.

Cheers to all those working hard to make St. Louis the great place it can and should be.