Update: 05/02/2025 The Kirkwood Apartments are dead after a construction permit expired earlier this spring. Cause of Death (presumably): Stubbornly high interest rates (a policy response to stubbornly high inflation) made the project unprofitable at its current scope. It's a shame that the lot will continue to sit empty and unused, but I doubt we… Continue reading Kirkwood Apartments: Dead on Arrival
The area around Madison and Monroe, for a while now, has seemed to be the hotbed for development in Kirkwood. As far back as 2004, with the construction of the massive Kirkwood Plaza development, all the way through to today with the development of the Hutton, the final of Savoy's three condo developments along Madison,… Continue reading The Birth of Downtown North
A couple of weeks ago, I reviewed some of the insights that could be gleaned from the failed Proposition 1 vote. This week, I want to offer some ideas to fill the funding hole Prop 1 left. As I said then, Kirkwood still has potholes to fill, bike lanes to stripe, and trails to construct.… Continue reading Leverage The Lots, Balance the Books
Update: 10/11/2022 4 Hands has announced that they now plan to open their Kirkwood location in the Spring of 2023, presumably to give themselves a chance to start out on the right foot in warmer weather. The space will have a gorgeous outdoor patio, but the indoor space is more limited. Peacemaker Lobster & Crab,… Continue reading 4 Hands to Downtown Kirkwood: A Ticket to Ride
Update 05/22/2025 After a very long wait, work finally seems to be underway on 144 W Adams. The lot has been leveled and the site shed is in place. Here’s to hoping things go vertical soon! The site as of May 2025 Update 06/07/2023 The fourth unit is back, and the design has changed as… Continue reading West Adams Missing Middle Set to Rise at Last
Update 01/07/2021: The Starbucks was unanimously voted down upon first reading. I'll keep you updated if Starbucks comes back to the drawing board as I suspect they will. Previous Story: First of all, I just want to say sorry for going AWOL for a couple months. The end of the semester got sort of busy… Continue reading The Starbucks Project is Really Bad, Actually.
Update 11/20/2020 Last night, a proposal recently redubbed "The Hutton", Savoy's twelve unit condominium proposal for 134-138 West Madison was approved 6-1. Pitched as the"last of it's kind" by Savoy, this project completes their rapid transformation of this block long stretch that up until very recently had been dominated by small businesses located in small… Continue reading The Hutton
Update 05/22/2025 After a very long wait, work finally seems to be underway on 144 W Adams. The lot has been leveled and the site shed is in place. Here's to hoping things go vertical soon! The site as of May 2025 Update 06/07/2023 The fourth unit is back, and the design has changed as… Continue reading 144 W Adams Set to Start at Last
Background The Open Streets project is an initiative to return the 30-35% of cities that are composed of streets to the people that live there to use as they please. The international open streets concept is not new to St. Louis: on June 2nd 2018 a fourteen block stretch of South Compton from Cherokee to… Continue reading Sundays in the Streets
Kirkwood Gadfly often, almost exclusively, focuses on hypotheticals and things that should happen rather than things that actually are happening. That's for a variety of reasons I guess but mostly its because I don't know anything more than you do. I'm really not sure how other people that are good at this, buildingstlnews.com and nextstl.com,… Continue reading The Madison: A Mid-Summer’s Update
