Quote:
Originally Posted by The North One
I don't want to harp on investment in north STL but this is just utterly insane to me.
Tore up all that grid, all that infrastructure just to build an exurban style office park in the middle of the city in 2019...
Why couldn't this have been a high-rise downtown? Or even just a more compact campus somewhere else in the city? There is no way that doing this is less expensive. Who made this planning decision? And it's going to take over half a decade to finish?
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it's a high-security government intelligence facility, and will now likely involve a new HQ for the FBI as well. the setbacks were non-negotiable. take a look at the NGA East counterpart in northern VA. building a high-rise somewhere else in the city just wasn't an option. you could argue that it's more appropriate for the suburbs, but the institution has been in St. Louis city since 1952 and wanted to maintain proximity to partner institutions like Washington University at the western edge of the city and Scott Air Force Base in southern IL. IL was fighting to get it moved across the river, which would have been a not-insignificant hit to the city's earnings tax revenue, as would a move to the county.
the loss of grid isn't ideal, but there's no shortage of empty grid in north St. Louis and about half of the site's grid had already been torn up (also in 1952) when the Pruitt-Igoe housing complex was constructed.
a few homes in the footprint were taken through eminent domain but the majority of the handful of homeowners in the footprint accepted fair compensation. most of the remaining buildings were in very poor condition. one historic home was moved. the saddest loss, in my opinion, was that of the Buster Brown Shoe Bldg. it's demolition seemed completely unnecessary as it wasn't even in the NGA footprint:
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