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Dear Main Street Committee People:
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The Forest Park Southeast Community Council is grateful for your
work, for Marti Hamilton's and Marcella Palmieri's presentation at
our June meeting, and for an opportunity to read the draft plan.
We offer comments on three points: (1) parking and traffic-pattern
plans; (2) the contrast between Manchester's present character and
the design proposals; and (3) the plan's emphasis on upscale at the
expense of economic diversity.
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We agree with the draft to the extent that it calms vehicular traffic
(the corner bump outs, for example). Eliminating north-side parking,
however, we believe is wrong. Residents and businesses should not
have to give up that convenience. We note that limiting parking
to gain traffic lanes is not a strategy of South Grand, Euclid, or
the Loop. Indeed, on South Grand, there is one lane each way and
limited turn opportunities from Arsenal to about Utah. That is were
the street life is. Then, from Utah to Gravois, there are four lanes
of traffic, more turn capacity, and less parking. That stretch is
moribund.
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The turning issue is different for FPSE because of the industrial
and commercial activity surrounding the neighborhood. Unless the
suggestions in earlier planning to shunt all truck traffic away from
the center of the neighborhood are completed first, the bump outs
are a bad idea. Judging from the Metropolitan Sewer District's
continuing
need to replace corner catch basin covers, our corners are already
too sharp for our traffic.
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We are troubled by the many shalls, shall nots, shoulds, and should
nots in the draft design guidelines.
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First we have the uneasy sense that the guidelines are cloned from
other city programs. If we follow the guidelines, we will be like
everywhere else. FPSE's main street will not be an identifiable
destination.
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Next, we see the dainty concern in matters such as coordination
of the colors in the bulkhead and the vertical architectural elements
and the rhythm of the window patterns as out of character with the
rough-and-ready, sweat-equity approach that characterizes our surviving
businesses and residents.
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We doubt that the City of St. Louis can afford all the gap financing
mechanisms needed for the planners, architects, designers, lawyers,
accountants, managers, and consultants that go into industry-standard
historic restoration and gut rehabilitation that the design guidelines
promote.
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The eighth principal of the 1999 draft plan for the neighborhood
is to "[p]rovide opportunities for retail uses and economic opportunities
at appropriate scale and form to revitalize Manchester Avenue as
a focus of neighborhood and business life." Within the context of
the acknowledged and valued economic diversity of FPSE, we take "appropriate
scale and form" to advocate maintenance and development opportunities
for all economic classes.
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Thus, we are particularly troubled by the proposal for a mixed-use
building on the northwest corner of Boyle and Manchester. The planned
disruption of the N&M Market (with your perceived need for a change
in the stock at Manchester Market, as presented at our meeting) makes
us believe that the draft plan wants to "regulate exterior scale,
massing, design, arrangement, texture, and materials" (page 1 of
your draft) in a strictly upscale way. The Community Council, however,
remains committed to diversity in the neighborhood, including economic
diversity. After all, the first principal of the 1999 draft plan
is "[r]einforce and revitalize Forest Park Southeast as a traditional,
mixed-income St. Louis neighborhood."
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Thus we encourage you to expressly declare that your regulation of
exterior scale and so on shall be subordinate to reinforcing FPSE's
character as a mixed-income neighborhood.
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Sincerely yours,
Bob Babione
President
Forest Park Southeast Community Council
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