Grant’s Trail and Our Industrial Wasteland

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 its partner, Great Rivers Greenways, will actually be able to acquire the land required and get the thing built). Kirkwood has applied for two STP grants from East-West Gateway to fund the projects. We should hear back on those applications in early May, but until then, I figured now is as good of a time as any to start talking again about how Kirkwood can get the most out of this project.

The thing about this particular route that has me the most excited is its potential to spur development. Similar linear-parks —the High Line in New York City, the Beltway in Atlanta, the Cultural Trail in Indianapolis or the 606 in Chicago— have all spurred a tremendous amount of growth in the under-developed parts of town that they’ve run through. Time and time again we’ve seen that people want to live alongside these types of amenities, but first we have to allow them to.

I1-Light Industrial

That’s because the route winds its way through some of Kirkwood’s most underutilized land: Land that is currently set aside for strictly industrial uses.

Development is Not the Current Plan

During one of the open houses I attended, I asked whether Kirkwood had any knowledge of environmental contamination that would have to be remediated before the industrial zoned portion of the project’s footprint might be suitable for other (read: residential) uses.

Kirkwood’s chief planner, Jonathan Rachie stated that this project had no connection to any potential re-zonings in Kirkwood and largely dismissed the question out of hand before adding that he wasn’t aware of any hazardous contamination. The lead consultant quickly added that the site would be tested for any hot spots as part of the environmental review that would take place.

Now of course I knew that the project didn’t explicitly come with a plan for a large-scale re-zoning. I also understood why Rachie would be inclined to reject the question quickly. You can’t have local neighbors mobilize in opposition to a project as a result of one tough question at the very first open house. But all I wanted to know is how big of a hurdle we might be looking at for such a move in the future.

Our “Industrial” Land is Not Chernobyl

Industrial-exclusive uses protect residents from the harms of industry. You don’t want people living on land that is contaminated with heavy metals or radioactive waste and so you say: this land is already contaminated so no one can live here anyway; we might as well put industries that are likely to do more contamination of their own in the future here. But our industrial zone isn’t like that.

According to Kirkwood’s zoning code the light industrial district is explained as follows:

“This district seeks to encourage light industrial uses and small-scale craft manufacturing which create a minimal amount of nuisance outside the structure and which is not noxious or offensive by reason of the emission of smoke, dust, fumes, gas odors, noises, or vibrations beyond the confines of the building and the premises upon which the building or buildings are situated.”

City of Kirkwood Zoning and Subdivision Code §25-34(m)

So we’re not talking about nuclear waste or heavy metals. We’re talking about ice carving businesses and pottery studios. This zoning hasn’t made the land unlivable, but maybe the reasoning is financial rather than public health-oriented.

Industrial Real Estate is Hot Right Now

The Post-Dispatch reported a few months ago that industrial rents and property values had exploded in the wake of the higher demand for goods (compared to services) and supply chain issues that resulted from the pandemic. Industrial rents in the region had (as of November 2021) “risen to $4.91 per square foot [compared to $4.32 in 2019]… according to commercial real estate firm JLL’s St. Louis office.” But these record-high figures of $4.32 per sqft still pale in comparison to the productivity of other potential uses.

There are seven apartments listed for rent on the Kirkwood Station website as available or coming on the market soon. They average $23 per sqft. A quick glance at the listings of office space in Downtown Kirkwood shows leases going for $23.07 per sqft at 201 N. Kirkwood Rd and $18 per sqft at 215 S. Kirkwood Rd. Both of these are much higher that $4.32.

A Kirkwood Specific Example

If we look at tax assessment data, we can see this discrepancy in even more detail. Let’s take a look at Roton, a screw, bolt, and nut manufacturer located in the industrial zone along the proposed Grant’s Trail extension.

According to the St. Louis County assessor’s website, the I1 industrially zoned Roton building brings in just $1.69 of property tax revenue per sqft. Meanwhile the Kirkwood Glass building (B2-General Business) brings in $4.10 of property tax revenue per sqft and Kirkwood Market (B1-Neigborhood Business, about equidistant from downtown) brings in $3.14 per sqft. $1.69 per sqft is again a lot less tax revenue than $4.10 or $3.14.

And I didn’t really cherry pick Roton. In a random sampling of Kirkwood’s industrial zone: Arrow Box Company had a tax bill of $1.17 per sqft, Industrial Shelving Systems paid $2.55 in taxes per sqft, and Wagner Engraving paid $1.78.

So What Gives?

Why are Kirkwood industrial businesses this inefficient at using their property to generate value and why are they allowed to get away with it via low taxes? Why has the county assessor looked at the property and determined that it’s inherently half as productive as the property Kirkwood Market is situated on and less than one third as productive as Kirkwood Glass? Why hasn’t a more efficient business offered Roton or Wagner engraving a handsome payday to sell the property and move their operations to Fenton?

Because we’ve decided, for some reason, that despite the inefficiency and the lost tax revenue, we still prefer to use the land industrially. In fact, we’ve decided so subsidize industrial uses and say that it is the only thing we’ll allow here. And under that paradigm, Roton doesn’t have to be more profitable than a restaurant or an apartment building to make sense financially. Those businesses are locked out. Instead, it just has to be more profitable than another light industrial business.

So if we’re subsidizing industrial uses because we think the market outcome would insufficiently supply them, the question is what positive externalities do these industrial uses provide to the community to justify that subsidy?

Positive Externalities

Even if industrial land isn’t the most financially productive use for Kirkwood’s land, as Rachie noted to me in the meeting, there are several rationales for why a town might want to preserve some industrial uses within its boundaries (i.e. positive externalities).

Some economic analysis suggests that industrial uses add higher-paying low-skill jobs. Manufacturing jobs with less appealing work conditions or more physically demanding work typically attempt to attract workers with higher wages (and the promise of more predictable hours). So maybe industrial uses offer higher paying options for lower-skill workers, that could be good.

Or perhaps having some industrial uses might just be more convenient. Maybe having an Amazon distribution center in Kirkwood means we get same-day delivery. Or maybe a body shop in Kirkwood makes getting your car fixed less of a hassle. These are legitimate amenities that benefit a lot of people and aren’t reflected in a simple measure of how much tax revenue a place is likely to bring in.

But Kirkwood’s industrial land as it currently exists isn’t fulfilling any of those goals: Here’s what is currently in our Industrial Zone:

1. Talkingink Custom T-shirts (screen-printing)
2. Arrow Box Company (cardboard box manufacturing)
3. Wagner Engraving Co (trophy engraving and assembly)
4. Roton Products Inc. (screw, bolt, and nut manufacturing)
5. Rock Hill Mechanical Corporation (pipe and sheet metal fabrication)
6. Industrial Shelving System Inc (shelves)
7. Edgebanding Services Inc. (sink, counter, veneer, and edge-banding manufacturing)
8. Platinum Tinting (car window tinting)
9. NJL Custom Homes
10. Agape Construction
11. RIGGS Company (home remodeling)
12. Richards Roofing & Exteriors

Let’s See If Industrial Can Compete!

Of course, I could be wrong about all of this. These businesses might still might win out over residential uses if they are more profitable! Perhaps Kirkwood is an especially good staging ground to move goods in the St. Louis area because you can hop right on 44 or 270 and get them to the Port of St. Louis or Lambert quicker and at a lower cost than other locations. And perhaps those savings are enough to out-weigh how much the land would be worth as homes or apartment buildings.

But we can’t know until we eliminate the unnecessary regulations and open the land up for anything a developer might want to do with it (within whatever bounds we might give them).

Traffic is a Challenge

The primary issue with converting the existing industrial land to a more inclusive designation is probably the significant increase in transportation capacity that would be required. While I’m never one to freak out about traffic increases (more traffic means higher cost of driving means more people bike, walk and use public transit), I don’t think it’s wise to put 100-unit apartments at the end of cul-de-sacs either, and given the current street alignment that’s essentially what we’re looking at. So it’s a tough problem and you’d have to think about some solutions.

5 Solutions:

1. You could reconnect Clark Avenue through the trail to improve vehicular circulation;
2. You could set a parking maximums to encourage development targeting people less interested in driving;
3. You could add retiree-only residential so you attract people who want access to downtown but have no need to drive into work or school during peak rush hour;
4. You could build-out my proposed Friso Trail to make even more locations walkable and bikable and further cut down on the need for driving;
5. You could incentivize one of the developers to put some amenities in the development that would reduce the number of trips you’d have to make: a gym, a pharmacy, a neighborhood grocer

The Juice is Worth the Squeeze

Make the developers play by whatever (reasonable) rules you come up with figure out, but if they can find a way to make it work, we should let them! Even if you assumed Kirkwood’s current population density (a calculation that divides our 27,000 people by a square milage that includes the current industrial uses, parks, roads and other uninhabitable lands), and multiplied it by the ~0.11 square miles that is the industrial usage flanking the future, path, rezoning could eventually yield over 330 homes, or more than two James. According to some research it takes a 10% increase in housing stock to achieve a 1% decrease in price, but every little bit helps.

Now, if I had my way we would develop more densely than that, use the lack of existing back yards in the area to overcome the not-in-my-back-yard mindset that prevents residential infill in much of the rest of town, and build apartment buildings along the whole damn thing. But I’ll take what I can get. And if that means townhomes, or even single family homes, every little bit helps control the exploding cost of living and we should do it.

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A Quick Note

If you’ve read this far, I want to quickly say thank you. In December, I started a brief stint as a freelance online editor for NBC’s Boston affiliate. Then, in early January, I started full-time as a “Quantitative Data and Policy Analyst” (lol) for New York State’s housing agency. The NBC gig really was a crash course on journalism and the housing policy job has been a dream come true so far (I’ve worked on Governor Hochul’s Transit-Oriented Design and ADU proposals, we’re coordinating an effort for a state-wide zoning map, and a ton more, I actually can’t believe this is my job). Between these two experiences I’ve learned a ton and have gained access to a bunch of tools that will hopefully help make the content here even better.

But I’m also still in the process of figuring out how to fit writing Kirkwood Gadfly into my schedule now that I’m working full time. I really love writing for you guys and for Kirkwood and St. Louis, so I’m highly motivated to figure it out, but I just wanted to say thank you for sticking with me while I do.