The Expo at Forest Park – An Analysis
Date Posted: March 30, 2023
Posted In: Discussion,
From NEXTSTL: The Expo at Forest Park might give a glimpse into the future of the neighborhoods just north of Forest Park. On St. Louis’ west side, DeBaliviere Avenue tells the history of St. Louis from the early 20th century through the present day. What began as a street that operated as an extension of the World’s Fair in 1904 and home to businesses serving new middle class residents in the following decades had, by the 1950s, become one of the most significant cultural districts in St. Louis. A jazz historian called it St. Louis’ mini Harlem.
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But white flight, institutional divestment, and a number of other macro trends hit the strip hard and by the mid 1980s few buildings remained on the once bustling street. Over the next few decades, the intersection of DeBaliviere and Pershing was dominated by car-oriented land use – a single-story restaurant with a parking lot, a strip mall set back behind a parking lot, a park-and-ride, and a three story remnant of early neighborhood development.
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The New DeBaliviere
Today, that intersection looks radically different. DeBaliviere received a street diet in conjunction with the build out of the St. Vincent Greenway and the Loop Trolley. The single-story restaurant replaced by a six-story 150 unit apartment building with ground floor retail, the strip mall replaced by a five-story apartment building with a grocery store below, and the park-and-ride replaced by an eight-story apartment building with retail bays below. It’s an exciting time for DeBaliviere, and St. Louis, but it’s worth it to pause and consider the triumphs and missed opportunities of The Expo at Forest Park.