Starbucks, Flats, and Banks, Oh My!

Well, it’s been a while, but we finally once again have news on the development front. Next week, after more than a three month layoff, Kirkwood’s Planning & Zoning Committee will meet for double session: once on Tuesday and once on Wednesday. They will have a jam-packed agenda to take on when they do so. On it? The return of a new and improved Kirkwood Flats, and Commerce Bank developments joined by a proposal for a new stand alone Downtown Kirkwood Starbucks. What follows is a summary of the most important items on each day’s agenda including projects we’ve already covered (with links to the more detailed original stories) as well as some deeper dives on the big changes to the Kirkwood Flats proposal and the brand new Starbucks project.

Tuesday 07/14

Link to Virtual Meeting: https://zoom.us/j/98481055616?pwd=ZUNKaE5FRWxlS1hRRFJRaVJVRUV6dz09

Password: 182761

The James

The Kirkwood Flats proposal by Altus is back with a revised and vastly superior plan to what I already considered to be a pretty good one. It also has a new name: (“The James” after James P. Kirkwood). The project is now 500 units and ten stories tall. Hahahah just kidding. The new plans feature a reduced height (76.5 feet down to 60 feet, the height allowed by code) and a reduced number of floors (the old proposal called for six while the new one calls for five). All this is accomplished while only losing four units (from 178 down to 174) and keeping the retail space (12,5000 SqFt) the same. Most of this has been accomplished by extending the southern end of structure to the curb at E Washington, further improving the quality of its urbanism through its contribution to the street wall in the process.

If pedestrian safety is more your thing, we have some great features for you there as well. Included in the project are curb bump-outs at the northwest and southwest corners of Taylor & Washington (corners that are home to Walker Park and the YMCA, respectively), and a HAWK (high intensity activated crosswalk) on Kirkwood Rd.

And if there is to be opposition to the Kirkwood Flats it will have to be, at least officially, on more obscure points than the question of height, as the structure in now in compliance in that regard. The code variances it still requires amount essentially to nitpicks, like the fact that only seven street trees are provided for instead of the required nine (the site, as it currently sits, has just one) or that the minimum frontage on Kirkwood Rd is required to be 75% and the plan only provides for 57.7% frontage. Even the reasoning for those requested variances, however, is to make the project more appealing to the community rather than some sort of concession it is being asked to make. If the public courtyard was eliminated (at the northwest corner of the building and in the bottom left corner of the picture below) the project would be in compliance on both these fronts. Of course the most popular stalking horse to those opposed is that the project will increase traffic. While traffic studies have indicated this is largely not true, even on this front the project has been improved as the Kirkwood Rd. vehicle entrance and exit has been converted to strictly right-in, right-out access.

Taken together these pedestrian improvements, added retail, and new homes constitute a massive win for Kirkwood even before you account for the property and sales tax revenue it will generate —revenue that is essential for improving our roads, maintaining our top-notch school district, expanding Grant’s Trail to downtown and any number of other projects that would help contribute to the appeal of living in Kirkwood in the first place. All we have to do is convert.

BP Gas Station on Manchester

On a different note, the gas station is also back. You can read more about it here but let me give you a quick summary of the proposal: It sucks. Not only does building yet another gas station maintain Manchester Road as an auto-centric, pedestrian hell-scape, but this particular gas station also requires homes to be destroyed in the process. We absolutely should not do it.

Wednesday 07/15

Link to Virtual meeting: https://zoom.us/j/97837495214?pwd=dHExUHQrZ0l1Lzc2K25KdDRCVWxPdz09

Password: 878326

Commerce Bank Senior Living

Whereas the Kirkwood Flats are back with a revised plan, the Commerce Bank mixed-use plan by Opus located one block South at 300 N Kirkwood Rd. is finally getting its first crack at the process and remains unchanged. The project consists of 122 units (65 independent units, 55 assisted) and 7,800 SqFt of ground floor retail. The aesthetics of the structure, especially on Kirkwood Rd. facing elevations, leave a lot to be desired (the heavy use of brick makes it look dense and dated) and I think the committee should encourage Opus to revise their drawings as part of the process, but beyond that, the project is pretty much a home run. Preserving the mobility of older adults by building homes for them in walkable place like our downtown is not only incredibly appealing for those adults themselves, but also for our local businesses that would receive a huge boon from the patronage of these new residents.

As one further note on this project, it is not actually one project but two, as the new Commerce Bank branch itself would be house in a stand alone building at the corner of Kirkwood & Washington and will be voted on separately. See link above for renderings of the bank building and the linear park that run between it and the mixed-use structure.

Starbucks

Starbucks is the only one of these projects that I have not written about in a previous story so let’s throw the truck in grand-daddy -low, start spinning the tires and see if we can’t get a little deeper here.. The proposal calls for the Starbucks currently located to move across the road to a stand-alone building at 300 S. Kirkwood, where Kirkwood Glass now stands. It remains unclear what would happen to Kirkwood Glass.

While the building looks fine —good, even— the successes are completely hijacked by the inclusion of a drive-through that wraps around the entire building. This drive-through serves as a moat of traffic separating the structure from any pedestrians wishing to patronize it. The inclusion of this drive through forces the building further back from the sidewalk and furthermore necessitates not one but two concrete walls separating the structure from passers-by. All of this is to say the plans, as they currently exist, are much better suited for Chesterfield Valley than the heart of our downtown.

The project is salvageable (the outdoor patio is a great addition to the streetscape), but it remains unclear whether Starbucks is willing to agree to the concessions it would take to get there. I’m not even saying you need to completely eliminate the drive through (although that would be ideal), just that it can’t separate the entire corner building from both of its adjacent sidewalks. Push the building and patio towards the Kirkwood-Monroe corner, eliminate the parking lot entrance/exit on Kirkwood Rd (a feature that seems primed to cause a congestion nightmare), and I think we’re pretty close to being in business. If this was one of my student’s assignments, I would give this project a “Not Yet”.

Of course the most obvious pushback is that “it’s not exactly like Kirkwood Glass is doing much to activate the street-front in its current form either.” Which is definitely true. But while this proposal is the first one in recent memory for this property, it assuredly won’t be the last. With the Kirkwood Performing Arts Center nearing completion one block away, the appeal and value of this lot is about to get a huge boost. For me, the most exciting part about that performing arts center project is the complete pedestrian-oriented redesign of the intersection of Monroe & Taylor right outside its front doors. To invest that kind of money in pedestrians only to make a place almost exclusively designed for use by cars one block away, is insane.

The Big Picture:

Tuesday and Wednesday represent the first steps of the process in what could be a great leap forward for our community. Beyond simply making a more equitable place —a place that would allow more families to make a home here and be our neighbors and love the hometown we love— the projects are simply exciting. None of these projects require destroying any of our quaint downtown. No beloved landmarks are to be demolished, no long time residents forced out. Instead, what is being proposed is an expansion of that beloved downtown and what we are being asked to sacrifice in exchange is incredibly small. Build on some empty parking lots, take out a couple of sad bank buildings, and replace them both with places where people can gather and community can be found. The Kirkwood Flats may be home to your family’s new favorite restaurant, the Commerce Bank site home to your new favorite boutique, and Starbucks perhaps where your son or daughter finds their first job. And in these ways, the proposals in Tuesday and Wednesday’s agendas represent not a lessening of the place we know and love on our watch, but instead, perhaps our generation’s small contributions to that place. I hope you’ll consider helping that process along, because if Kirkwood is going to fulfill its promise and its potential, we’re going to need ya!

Thanks for reading.

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Shameless Plug:

While I have you here, if you could sign my petition to convert the intersection of Clay & Madison from a 2-way stop to a 4-way stop, the particular hill on which I have decided to die, that’d be sick: http://chng.it/vxfDBYzsNZ