Jefferson Ave Re-imagined:
8 Steps to Making a Better Street

Two years ago today I published my first blog post on this website. That post was Kirkwood Road Re-imagined, an analysis of the street that is the heart and soul of downtown and the city as a whole. This time I want to look at what is perhaps Kirkwood’s most underrated street: Jefferson Ave.

Context

Jefferson is what I think of when I think how Kirkwood must have felt in the 80’s. It’s quiet, quaint and largely unaltered. But that, it seems, is about to change. Within the past two months four different businesses have announced their pending arrival along the street’s two block jaunt through downtown (from St. Peter’s at its western edge to the library at its eastern). Winston Churchill once famously said “Never let a good crisis go to waste.” Well, similarly, I’m of the mind that you should never waste small changes by not pushing for larger ones. What follows is what is changing and what still needs to.

Four New Businesses

Veg Girl STL

131 W. Jefferson Ave “The Center for Plant Based Living” by STL Veg Girl is now open and offers services such as cooking classes, private and group instruction and lectures on health and nutrition. So, you know, I think vegetables are pretty cool. I’m a little less sure that eating them means you won’t get cancer… but hey! its 2019, Kirkwood needs some kooky shit. It also seems that businesses in DTK that aren’t restaurants or clothing boutiques are a dying breed so hopefully this place can generate some unique foot traffic as well. (Also, Editor’s Note: the world is burning and the ice is melting and the bees are dying and everyone needs to replace the beef they eat with veggies like asap rocky or, ya know: we’re all fucked. So yeah, count me as a fan: more power to you Veg Girl!)

Gelato Di Riso

151 W. Jefferson Ave I’m legitimately psyched about this. While Downtown Kirkwood is seemingly saturated with frozen dessert vendors, both Andy’s and The Custard Station very specifically do custard. As a result, very little variety actually exists. Serendipity is a short drive away in Webster for more traditional ice cream lovers, but a search for the nearest gelateria will likely take you all the way to The Hill where Di Riso’s primary store is located. On top of the diversification of Kirkwood’s frozen dessert scene, this gelato is apparently legit: their website lists Cafe Napoli, Lorenzo’s and Grand Tavern by David Burke as purveyors of their product. On the other hand it makes obsolete my plan to take over The Custard Station and rename it Gelato Junction :-/.

Britt’s Bakehouse

137 W. Jefferson Ave Britt’s Bakehouse is a gluten-free bakery which hopes to both fill cake and other baking orders as well as serve walk-in customers coffee, cookies, pastries and more. Kirkwood needs more indie coffee hangouts and this will bring some diversity to the already strong Kirkwood baking scene. I’m excited.

Mission Taco

105 E. Jefferson Ave The former Kirkwood Station Brewery building is about to become the latest outpost of a pillar of StL food scene: Mission Taco. While it was originally rumored that the project would include a 4Hands Brewing collaboration, I’ve heard nothing of their involvement since. Instead it seems that Mission Taco might use the light industrial space for its corn grinding and tortilla making operations according to the Webster-Kirkwood Times. The western half of the building, used as a private event space and concert venue by Kirkwood Station Brewery will transformed into a retro arcade. While I’m not going to mourn the loss of the micro brewery as they have become a dime a dozen, I do think that the erasure of any sort of local music venue is a big loss for Kirkwood whether said venue was well managed or not.

Plans also call for this location to host the Mission Taco test kitchen: a space for food and drink experimentation and public feedback before these recipes are potentially spread to the other locations, further cements the culinary impact this opening will have. When it’s all said and done Mission will, in my opinion, be topped in Kirkwood only by Nathaniel Reid Bakery as far as significance. (Mission will join NRB as the only Ian Froeb’s STL 100 restaurants located within our boundaries)

It is my great hope that the opening of Mission Taco will spur a renaissance of innovative restaurants much as Webster has seen the last few years. The most immediate impact perhaps though, is the pressure this will put on Club Taco right next door. Hopefully the competition will push both restaurants to greater heights and each will carve out their own niche but if that’s not to be the case and Club Taco can’t make it, it will mean the availability of a very attractive location with an awesome patio for anyone with a new, and hopefully exciting, plan.

To Do List:

How to capitalize on Jefferson Ave’s potential

1. Fill in the Missing Teeth

The single biggest hinderance to Jefferson being a truly great street are the gaps along its street front where buildings should be. Instead of people watching who’s eating at at some cool new restaurant or window shopping as you pass by boutiques a solid half of your journey down Jefferson end up being a stroll along that monotony that is parking lots. So the solution? Easy: Infill.

PJ’s Lot

Some lots are easier than others, obviously. The site of the former Mel Bay Music Store, just to the East of PJ’s, the middle blue square in the rendering above, for example is city owned and is therefore a Request for Proposals away from a credit on the books to a debit. In fact, when city council voted to raze Mel Bay (including a “yes” votes from current Mayor Tim Griffin and 2020 candidate Bob Sears) it did so with the expressed intention of future development on the site. It, instead, has sat empty, costing the city money ever since. As you can see in the drawing above, DPZ recommended that this lot be used for a parking garage fronted by a mixed use (retail & residential) 3-4 story structure but I’d take almost anything at this point. 3 Steps: City sells the lot, invests the proceeds from the sale on improvements to downtown and then starts collecting tax revenue. Easy move.

Duffy’s Lot

The two other most prominent infill candidate lots would require a more ambitious vision. The first of these, the lot that fronts Duffy’s, would serve as especially effective infill as it would add to the street walls of both Clay and Jefferson. While Duffy’s would lose the car-accessibility of its ample parking, it seems an agreement could be fairly easily reached with St. Peter’s to take advantage of its underutilized lots. A two story (or more!) mixed-use structure bookending Jefferson here would do so so much to help the transition Jefferson towards the taller urbanism of Argonne and Clay. For more on why adding height to the Jefferson streetscape is important, jump down to #8 below.

Mission Taco Lot

The final currently unoccupied candidate for infill is the massive lot adjacent to forthcoming Mission Taco. While I’m sure Mission will require a decent amount more of parking than Kirkwood Station Brewery did, the northeastern corner of this block already contains a significant lot presumably owned and principally used by First Presbyterian-Kirkwood on Sunday mornings. Additionally, a small lot across Jefferson adds even more capacity. One of these lots needs to be a boutique hotel; for now we’ll slot in here.

2. Reform Parking

Format

The so called parking shortage downtown is more perception than reality according to DPZ, (the urban planning consulting group that conducted the DTK survey and masterplan) so I’m less concerned about getting rid of parking than your average bear. But I also understand that given Kirkwood’s current biking infrastructure and housing density that this would be a large shock if all three major surface lots were to be eliminated at once. In reality, the most logical solution is to build structured parking (i.e. a parking garage) as we mentioned DPZ suggested above. This lot likely works best out of the available three for a parking structure because it is roughly centralized along Jefferson and would provide for minimal walking times from businesses East or West of it.

Fee

All parking in Downtown Kirkwood should be paid parking regardless of whether it is on-street parking or parking lot. Obviously privately owned lots are free to do what they want (even if it is in their best interest to charge for parking) but the city has the ability to install meters and charge a fee to park in the PJ’s lot until they get around to selling/developing it.

Side Note

If we were to keep the current angled parking on the eastbound side of the street, I will note that best practice is for it to be back-in, right wheel to the curb parking (i.e. it should be angled the other way.

3. Connect to Great Alleys

After I put this bullet point I decided to write an article dedicated to alleys but while I’m on the subject of Jefferson I’ll throw in a couple points about their importance here. First, with regards to the idea of developing on the Duffy’s lot. A likely argument against developing this lot is that it would mean Duffy’s and its patio would effectively be facing the backside of the new building. Honestly, I’m not sure how preferable looking at a parking lot is to looking at the back of a building but for the sake of argument, let’s say it is. I think this is an opportunity rather than a drawback, however. As long as good design is required on all four sides of the building rather than just the two street facing facades, a real opportunity exists to develop the resulting alley, like so many in Europe New York and Japan, into a people oriented, intimate space: string lights, tables and chairs.

4. Make Better Sidewalks

This section is for all the little things that when added together make for a great pedestrian experience. The things? Bury telephone wires, add street trees, add benches, activate the street front.

Okay so burying wires is probably not priority number one, but they are pretty ugly. They especially stand out here and on Clay because they have been buried on Kirkwood and Argonne. More practically speaking, fewer telephone poles means wider sidewalks and more room for street trees: a category in which Jefferson is severely lacking. While the southern side of the street is fairly well covered, trees are completely absent from the northern half from Clay all the way to the former Kirkwood Station Brewery/soon to be Mission Taco. Trees offer a semblance of protection from traffic as well as temper weather extremes. Throw in a more level sidewalk and all of a sudden PJ’s sidewalk dining becomes a much more viable option. Sidewalk tables/diners , in turn, make for a much more activated street-front and therefore a much more interesting walk.

I know I said the South side of Jefferson was pretty solid tree-wise —and it is!— but I like to point out easy fixes where I see them: Every bump-out that’s missing a tree in the middle of it is a missed opportunity. (Don’t worry, there’s plenty of room for flowers too!)

5. Make The Side of This Building Great Again

Essentially, the side of the above building, is trash. (minus La Dee Da, that thing’s hella cute). Someone at some point decided to brick over the door and first floor window on the Jefferson side leaving a vast expanse of blank wall. Without a street tree, this contributes to a pretty stark visual. So the options for improvement are: narrow the traffic lane and plant a tree, add a bench to the side of the building, re-open the window/entrance, or, finally, hop on the “hip neighborhood trend and add a mural (if you were to take this route, I personally am a fan of hosting a competition among KHS students for a mural’s design). Better yet, do some combination of the above.

6. Make the Jefferson Ave-Kirkwood Rd Intersection Great Again

The various corners of Jefferson Ave and Kirkwood Road have great bone structure. Sure: it’d be nice if the southwest corner had a second story; it’d be awesome if the northwest building had the signs it used to. But the framework for the best damn corner Kirkwood has to offer is in place, it just needs a few tweaks. First, if there was ever an intersection in Kirkwood at which pedestrians should be given the priority, this is it. Hopefully the new traffic signal coming to the intersection will implement some of these changes. I don’t really want to go into the weeds of all the best practices that could and should be implemented but here’s a preliminary list of them: Pedestrian lead crossings, curb bump outs, and probably most importantly, a new damn paint job (or better yet, brick paver crosswalks (lined with reflective paint) to tie in with the brick sidewalks already present at this corner).

7. Bulldoze This Building

Okay so the headline might be a little sensationalistic but like, I stand by it. Don’t get me wrong, I love Mid-Century Modern architecture as much as the next guy but it will always be impossible for this building to contribute to an urban environment. It’s set back a solid thirty feet from the street, its surrounded by underutilized parking lots and it’s main entrance is randomly below ground level. What’s more, the structure is currently owned by a recent mover and shaker in the Kirkwood real-estate game, the developer behind the likes of The Madison and The Barclay condos, Savoy Properties. So Savoy, I put it to you, stop effin around and just bulldoze the thang. Build more fancy shit, build affordable shit, make it mixed use with ground floor commercial use, I don’t really care; all I know is that thing has got to goooo.

8. Institute Urban Building Codes

A Question of Height

While the most important factor in improving Jefferson is filling in the gaps in the street wall, the most uniquely bad feature of Jefferson Ave is the fact that almost all the buildings along it are one story tall. The only exception lies at the Northwest corner at Kirkwood Rd. Of course advocating height for height’s sake doesn’t make any sense, so what I’m really arguing for is adding mixed use development (residential above the first floor). Streets come alive when people live on them. Instead of being inhabited almost exclusively at dinner time, add some residential and Jefferson suddenly livens up from sunrise to bar close.

Build to the Street

The two buildings (at right in the picture above) are not built to the street. While not a huge deal, the lawns that front them are regrettable. When DPZ presented their plan for Downtown Kirkwood, they offered an easy way to remedy this more residential form. All setbacks should be made into mini plazas for public use. Imagine, for example, that the small middle building was fronted with a small tree-lined patio. All of a sudden it goes from insurance office to viable small restaurant, coffee shop, etc, or at the very least, even when the business itself is closed, a place to stop and rest for a while.

Thank Ya

Well, that’s it. You made it to the end. Before you go, I just want to say, whether you’ve been here from the beginning or you’re a recent addition to “The Swarm” (the name of my Gadfly reader/fan group that doesn’t exist and which I definitely just made up), thank you for two great years. It’s been beyond fun for me and I’m hopeful that it’s maybe made the tiniest of differences too. In the speech from “Any Given Sunday” Al Pacino says that all life is about is the six inches in front of your face. So here I am, clawing away. Thanks for clawing with me.