The Word on the Street… Work is about to Begin!
The final piece of the Crown Square redevelopment of the former 14th Street Pedestrian Mall is finally about to be put in place. After more than a couple years of work rehabilitating 27 buildings spread over 8 blocks and countless hours in construction meetings and coordination of work with scores of contractors, subcontractors, investors, city, state, and federal agencies, the only thing left to be done is putting the street back in. As of this week, the Missouri Dept. of Transportation has issued their long-awaited ”notice to proceed” - which means that early next week construction crews will get started on the work of building new sidewalks, installing street lights, planting trees, and paving a new street!
We’re all a bit reluctant to project a completion date since the weather remains a factor beyond our control, but the sight of construction crews hard at work will be a great relief for all of us in Old North St. Louis who were getting tired of answering the daily question of “when’s the street coming?” Rest assured that a huge celebration will be planned for the grand re-opening and, whether complete or almost-complete, the Old North St. Louis House & Community Tour on May 8 will feature the tremendous progress on and off the street.
While residents and visitors alike may be growing tired of this view, it still is better than the abandoned mall lined with deteriorated and collapsing buildings not too long ago (below).
Almost three years ago, this was a typical view of the buildings along the 2600 and 2700 blocks of N. 14th Street.
So, once again, thank you all for your patience - but we especially want to express our gratitude for all who are making this phenomenal transformation possible, including all current and past staff at Old North St. Louis Restoration Group and our development partners, Regional Housing & Community Development Alliance (RHCDA), architects at Rosemann & Associates, contractors at E. M. Harris Construction Co. and their many subcontractors, the new contractors on the block from R.V. Wagner, and too many funders/investors and public officials to list here (we’ll get to that in a future post) — and special thanks to all at MODOT for approving this final and crucial piece!
This entry was posted on Friday, March 19th, 2010 at 5:16 pm and is filed under 14th Street Mall, Crown Square, Development Team, Historic rehabs, Life in ONSL, Old North St. Louis Restoration Group, RHCDA, Renovation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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2 COMMENTS:
"The Word on the Street… Work is about to Begin!"
My Dad was a physician whose office was next door to Park’s Drug until around 1977. He used to park his car out front to keep an eye on it. When the street was blocked off he was forced to park out back. Within a week his car was stolen. Taking out the street was the worst mistake ever made about the area.
Thanks for your comment, Stephanie. We hope you’ll get a chance to come by to see the redevelopment in progress - and join us in celebrating the return of the street. And if you have any old photos or artifacts from the time when your dad worked there, we’d love to see those (or get copies for display in our Old North Community History Museum).
WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS?