Geography of St. Louis

ABOUTST. LOUIS: GEOGRAPHY

LOCATION

The City of St. Louis is located on 61 square miles just south of the "Meeting of the Rivers," where the Missouri and Illinois Rivers join the Mississippi River. The City is at the center of a 12 county, 7,000 square mile metropolitan area that includes approximately 2.5 million people. The area is a relatively short distance by airplane, automobile or train from such other cities as Kansas City (250 miles), Chicago (300 miles) Indianapolis (250 miles) and Memphis (300 miles).

PHYSIOGRAPHY

Much of the City of St. Louis is described as rolling upland, but is really more flat than rolling, with a few gentle rises, and steeper slopes adjacent to the River des Peres valley in Southwest and Southeast City. The highest points in the city include "Hi-Pointe" at Clayton Avenue and Skinker Blvd./McCausland Ave., and the Grand/Olive intersection. The low-lying Mississippi riverfront areas, both north and south of downtown, are protected by floodwalls and levees that withstood even the 1993 floods. The Riverview Drive strip north of Baden also lies in the floodplain. The downtown core is not flood-prone, but the levee and Leonor K. Sullivan Blvd. itself do periodically flood. The River des Peres floodplain includes portions of the Carondelet, Patch and Boulevard Heights neighborhoods, as well as parts of Willmore and River des Peres Parks. Although the City does not have many rocky bluffs over the Mississippi, locations like Chain of Rocks Park, Bellefontaine Cemetery, O'Fallon Park, the Archgrounds, and Bellerive Park are positioned high enough to provide panoramic vistas of the Mississippi and the American Bottoms in Illinois. Besides the River des Peres, very few open streams flow through the City; most have been converted into sewage tunnels as part of the citywide combined stormwater-sewage drainage system.

GEOLOGY

Most of the City of St. Louis rests upon sandstone and extensive solution limestone. In general, the limestone formations extend from the Mississippi bluffs west to Kingshighway Boulevard, and further west in some areas. These limestone formations contain many caves and sinkholes. Over the years, many of these sinkholes were filled in; some were used as landfills as the city expanded. Some sinkholes lead into underground springs, resulting in the formation of sinkhole ponds. Clifton Park Lake in the Clifton Heights neighborhood is one notable example. Carondelet Park also contains many sinkholes. Also, the development of clay mines and coal mines in South City resulted in occasional cave-ins and sinkage, because of the relative instability of limestone when it is undermined. The portion of the city west of Kingshighway and generally north of River des Peres, as well as the Baden and North Pointe areas, rest upon the more stable sandstone. The lower River des Peres valley in the Patch neighborhood and the lowlands near the Mississippi River east of Hall Street in the North Riverfront area rest upon alluvial deposits formed from frequent flooding.

DEVELOPMENT PATTERNS

The City of St. Louis is 100% urbanized. However, as a result of abandonment, dereliction and contamination of properties, there are many opportunities for redevelopment of small sites within the city limits. More challenging is combining small sites -- some publicly-owned by the city's Land Reutilization Authority (LRA) or other agencies, and some privately owned -- to create substantially sized sites for new residential and industrial development.

Office Space: Downtown St. Louis is the largest concentration of office space in the metropolitan area. Dominant office uses in downtown include telecommuications (primarily Southwestern Bell Corporation), banking (Firstar and Bank of America, among others), and government (federal, state and city). The downtown office core includes generally the area between 14th Street, Delmar Blvd./Convention Plaza, Memorial Drive, and Spruce Street. Outside the core, several major corporate campuses are located on the periphery of the downtown area. These include A.G. Edwards at Jefferson and Market, AmerenUE at 18th St. and Chouteau, Ralston Purina near 7th St. and Chouteau, various office developments around Union Station, and Laclede's Landing. Outside downtown, various medical office buildings are concentrated near the Washington University Medical Center in the Central West End, and a new office park -- the Highlands at Forest Park -- is being developed adjacent to I-64 on the former St. Louis Arena site.

Retail: Traditionally, downtown St. Louis was the premier retail center of the metropolitan area. Although that role has declined, downtown retains a substantial selection of unique shops, as well as two department stores (Dillard's and Famous-Barr) and two enclosed shopping malls (Union Station and St. Louis Centre). Outside downtown, City retail generally consists of corner stores and strip development along major arteries. Significant retail strips include the Central West End shopping and restaurant district along Euclid Avenue, the Grand South Grand area just south of Tower Grove Park, and Cherokee Street with its Hispanic businesses west of Jefferson Ave. and "Antique Row" east of Jefferson Ave. A few major auto-oriented shopping centers are located in the City. They include the Hampton Village Shopping Center at Hampton and Chippewa, Lindell Marketplace at Lindell and Sarah, and City Plaza at Union and Natural Bridge.

Industrial/Warehouse: Industry in St. Louis generally followed the linear pattern of railroad lines, rather than the more common pattern today of large parcels for industrial 'parks.' Industrial development is generally concentrated along the Mississippi riverfront, both north and south of downtown St. Louis, and in the Mill Creek Valley railroad yard corridor adjacent to Highway 40 from the riverfront to Vandeventer. The Mill Creek corridor then splits into the Central West End industrial area, along the MetroLink line, which merges gradually into the Washington University Medical Center complex. The main railroad yards continue to the southwest, with a low-intensity industrial strip extending from the Vandeventer/Chouteau area, along Vandeventer Ave. to Tower Grove Ave., where the railroad line splits again. From the Vandeventer-Tower Grove area, one railroad line and accompanying industrial development extends along the Located in northwestern downtown is the Martin Luther King Business Park, a redevelopment area for modern warehouse and distribution center facilities. Near Union Blvd. and I-70, at the former General Motors assembly plant site, is the Union Seventy Center, also a warehouse and distribution facility.

Residential: In general, there are three residential sectors in the City: the northside, the southside, and the west end. Within these general areas, there are a variety of distinct neighborhoods. The near southside and near northside generally consist of rowhouses, flats, and other multi-family housing types. Public housing complexes were also built in these areas in the 1950s; today, those public housing developments are being replaced by mixed-income low-rise apartment complexes. On the southside, the development pattern becomes increasingly single-family as one travels west from the riverfront. The northside is predominantly multi-family, but the far north areas of Walnut Park and Baden are primarily single-family. The west end is heavily multi-family, with a large concentration of high-rises near Lindell and Kingshighway adjacent to Forest Park. However, this same area has blocks of large single-family houses on private streets.

Institutional: Major institutions are generally clustered in the central corridor from downtown to Forest Park. These include hospitals, government facilites, non-profit agency headquarters, the Cathedral of St. Louis, St. Louis University, and Washington University Medical Center. Within Forest Park are several other institutions: the Science Center, Art Museum, Zoo, and Missouri History Museum. On the Northside, there are few major institutions, but there are many landmark churches (St. Alphonsus Ligouri, St. Matthew, etc.) and social service facilities like the Annie Malone Children and Family Services Center, and Grace Hill Neighborhood Services. On the Southside, the Missouri Botanical Garden is the most prominent institution. Also on the Southside are Alexian Brothers Hospital and Lutheran Hospital.

Parks and Cemeteries: Forest Park is the largest park, and is even larger than Central Park in New York City. Forest Park includes major institutions within its area, as well as recreational spaces like the Aviation Field ballfields and Eisenhower and Triple-A golf courses, and passive use areas including the John F. Kennedy Forest and the Jewel Box floral conservatory. On the northside, the major parks are O'Fallon Park, on the Mississippi bluffs with a newly restored lake and boathouse; Fairgrounds Park, once the site of the annual Agricultural and Mechanical Exposition; Penrose Park, with its "velodrome", a bicycle racing track; and Sherman Park, home of the heavily used Wohl Recreation Center. Major southside parks are Tower Grove Park, a Victorian-era monument to Henry Shaw, founder of the Missouri Botanical Garden located adjacent to the park; Willmore Park, on the River des Peres in southwest city; and Carondelet Park, an area of tranquil lakes and sinkholes. Over 100 smaller parks and playgrounds serve neighborhoods. In downtown, the Gateway Mall and the Archgrounds constitute a substantial, albeit underutilized greenspace. The largest cemeteries in the city are Calvary and Bellefontaine, located on the Mississippi bluffs between Walnut Park and Baden. Several smaller cemeteries are located along Gravois Avenue in the extreme southwestern part of the city.

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