Quote:
Originally Posted by meh
And speaking of parasitic property owners, the Church of Scientology has owned this beauty in Lafayette Square for decades now, and they just fucking refuse to do anything with it.
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I was wondering about this building, since Lafayette has clearly been seeing a lot of rehab/development and there was quite a bit of new construction just up the street. That's a damn shame b/c it would be a great addition to the area if it were in use again. Do you know any of the history of it before that by any chance?
Also, I had originally heard about St. Liborius b/c of the skatepark conversion and that is a massive loss. That was a truly unique landmark and I'm sad that it's gone. When researching history about the city, I saw a quote something like "We don't cry over lost buildings in St. Louis because otherwise our tears would reach the Mississippi and overflow the levies" and sadly that still seems very relevant
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And to kind of touch on the city/metro/state divide, it is sad to see the state have an openly antagonistic approach to the city, even as KC has become a darling of urban development in the last few years. The city has the necessary infrastructure and consolidated services to constitute a very solid ROI if investment were done properly which would benefit the state tremendously as well, instead of spreading resources thin across a bunch of low density sprawl like you said
I agree that it does seem like an uphill battle though, and I second your frustration. The metro does seem very intentionally disconnected from the city in my experience. I took the train out to Clayton at one point and while the rail system does provide a pretty useful transit backbone for the city/metro, it seems uninterested in providing service anywhere outside of the main East/West corridor, which itself felt very disconnected from the neighborhoods where people actually lived. In a better world, the green line would have started to tie all the pieces back together again, but ffs i hope they AT LEAST build the Rapid bus line to replace it. Its way less of a win, but at least maybe it'll be something.
Just out of curiosity, from a (I'm assuming) local, if you could do any few things to spur development in STL what would they be? On that long train trip back I spent some time thinking about it and have a few 'armchair urban planning' takes but I'm curious what someone with more familiarity with the region would prioritize