Save the 1900 Block on Olive Street
Date Posted: September 10, 2020
Posted In: Ideas, Organizations,
From Change.org: St. Louis used to be a very dense city, and each block in downtown was packed to the gills with wall-to-wall historic buildings. Over the past few decades, we have lost so much of that historic fabric to urban decay; the vast majority of which we turned into surface parking lots. St. Louis declined, and downtown emptied out.
We found out that all these demolitions and parking expansions didn’t make downtown a better place, nor did it make it attractive. Turns out that ripping down destinations downtown to make it more convenient for people to go there, doesn’t make them want to go there!
Recently, demolition permits were issued for a group of historic buildings on the 1900 Block of Olive Street. We haven’t heard any word of redevelopment or new construction for this block, which leads us to assume it will be replaced with surface parking for the new MLS stadium being built to the southwest. This is unacceptable!
There is already an abundance of cheap parking and vacant lots in Downtown West. If the developer wishes to redevelop the block, there’s already plenty of underutilized parking space elsewhere on that block to work with. If they’re looking to rip it down for parking, there’s absolutely no reason that we need any more parking than we already have.