Kirkwood is set to apply for a Surface Transportation Program (STP) grant funding for the final phase of Grant's Trail extension to Downtown Kirkwood. The application will first go before City Council at tomorrow's meeting (Jan 18) and then will be submitted to East-West Gateway (EWG) for consideration. EWG is expected to announce the applications… Continue reading Final Phase of Grant’s Trail Comes Into Focus
The natural way neighborhoods have traditionally developed was as follows: People decide to live in an area and then a smattering of businesses that cater to those people open up shop nearby. Or perhaps the opposite happens: Some place is well-suited for business (maybe a canal is built, or gold is discovered, or, as in… Continue reading Urban Villages: A Vision for a Quainter Kirkwood
Kirkwood has issued a request for proposal (RFP) for two prominent city-owned lots in Downtown Kirkwood according to a newsletter from Council member Liz Gibbons. The two lots, 107-115 W Jefferson, and 125 E Jefferson are both zoned for B-2 General Business, the city's most intensive use. The eastern lot sits right next to the… Continue reading Lots Leveraged: RFP Issued for Downtown
Early this summer, Kirkwood released the fruits of a multi-year effort to study the extent of our attainable housing crisis and propose some solutions for how to fix it. That effort, known formally as the Attainable Housing Study , was developed by PGAV and URBRNRX, presented to the Council for comment and review, and ultimately… Continue reading Attainable Housing Study: 19 Solutions Examined
Update 10/02/2023: New Renderings were made available in Monday's Architectural Review Board agenda: Additionally, in an interview with the St. Louis Business Journal, the developer stated that price ranges for non-penthouse condos would range from $750,000 to $1.5 million. That's a lot of dough, but if Kirkwood can stockpile 42 rich families on a single… Continue reading 42-Unit “Aria” Coming to Downtown
This piece is part two of a series on workable policy solutions to address the shortage of attainable housing in Kirkwood. Part one, on reforming our minimum lot size regulations, can be found here. I've been working on Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) policy a lot for my day job recently and the more I've delved… Continue reading Attainable Housing Part 2: ADUs
This is Part 1 of a series on politically-workable ways to add housing in Kirkwood and make living here more attainable. This piece covers the topic of minimum lot sizes and lot splitting, while Part 2 covers ADUs (Accessory Dwelling Units). Last August, Webster voters killed the two-family zoning provision that their elected representatives on… Continue reading Attainable Kirkwood Part 1: Minimum Lot Sizes
Update: 03/03/2023 New renderings have been made available for 60 apartments coming to 300 N. Kirkwood Rd. Of greatest note is the inclusion of balconies for the first time, a change that Kirkwood's City Council encouraged the developers to explore during the hearing. We also have gotten our first rendering of the building's pool deck:… Continue reading Kirkwood Apartments Coming to Downtown
Kirkwood has finally settled on a route to extend Grant's Trail to the city's downtown core. To sum it up, I think the city has done a really nice job with the whole process. The route is the right amount of direct, enjoyable, flat, and practical (by which I mean: I think the city and… Continue reading Grant’s Trail and Our Industrial Wasteland
