Culinaria was Slay promoting his friends --
as with the destruction of the Century Building.
It wasn't free market competition. It was huge corporate interests capturing elected officials, using state power (tax credits, threatening competition as with McGowan/Heller) to stymie and end competition. Obviously this happens with politics in the fight over resources determining who gets what, but we should consider the impact of such egregiously hedonistic decisions and resulting inane outcomes that render Downtown ultimately less diverse thereby less attractive.
A 24/7 City requires diverse choice -- a mixture of uses. The impact of Culinaria has limited choice and decreased economic diversity.
Culinaria was a huge mistake. With the closing of Espresso Mod,
having been Downtown for 4 years and the eventual decline of City Gourmet, it's omnipresent we've made a mistake ever undermining Downtown's diversity and sense of place. Downtown cannot thrive as a monoculture. Seeking to import Chesterfield at the expense of our small businesses will destroy the identity of Downtown which attracts and encourages residency.
Now I shouldn't only blame Slay, as we have this underlying fetish of trying to attract large corporations under the misguided front of luring suburbanites (as if they will live here simply disregarding our plethora of parking and decades of being behind the ball on residential development Downtown). This occurred with Real Estate Row as Pride of St. Louis Corporation ousted the small businesses residing in those buildings in order to promote their own office buildings -- under the argument that it was economic development promoting the City, attracting new corporations keeping us competitive with suburbia. It didn't and many firms which were here for decades left entirely ironically to the suburbs.
I've been here since 1966, and I think its a shabby way to treat people. It was a straight cold business way of doing things...Palmer says he would like to stay downtown, but like other tenants he may be forced out because of the higher rentals in the newer, more modern buildings, and he may not be the only one.Charles Vago has the unfortunate distinction of being the newest tenant in the Title Guaranty. I spent a lot of money on this place to rehab it. I don't know how the little guy is going to stay downtwon or come dowtown with these kind of rents. - Would you like to see this sort of thing destroyed? The Riverfront Times. January 12, 1983.
This project was disguised as promoting choice for Downtown residents -- but in reality we already had a grocery store Downtown. In fact Heller wanted to
expand City Grocers into the Syndicate Trust, whereas another grocery store was opening on Washington Avenue. Culinaria was really about enrichment of Schnucks' bottom line. If they cared about economic choice for Downtown residents -- and the success of Downtown -- then why
did they close their store immediately north of Downtown in 2000?
Diversity -- not parking garages, bland single use office buildings, and re-packaged chain stores trying and failing to appear unique -- attracts worthwhile corporations and residents.
Culinaria is Schnucks. It has no soul. It wasn't entrepreneurial risk taking as Craig Heller and others
did more than a decade ago. It has no unique identity, a story to tell, it adds nothing to the collective diversity and place of Downtown. Small businesses do this while their authenticity and scarcity of experience -- like our historic buildings -- attracts because
you can't get them everywhere. Employees and corporations from out of town, those we need, don't want a bland Downtown with a surplus of parking and singular economic choice. Downtown devolves into essentially a hybrid; neither a strict office park nor a dense central business district or neighborhood. It falls into neither category with the insufficient critical mass to form an urban residential community, while lacking the true idyllic suburban office park environment categorized by seas of parking, minuscule malnourished foliage, and limited minority presence. Those who want strict urban or suburban really find neither.
We must decide what we want to be because we can't chose both and expect to grow. We can't claim to promote residency then demolish adaptable historic buildings, erect parking garages where condos should be, and drive out businesses which residents supported. St. Louis, if it wants an actual Downtown with life, must then categorically throw out the old model of excessive parking and promote that which provides the 24/7 environment -- what critics have been saying we needed for decades. It's insane. I'm essentially reiterating arguments made in 1975.
Why should this even be up for debate! The recycling of older buildings is important, not because of sentiment, but because it would strengthen the very fabric of downtown. Recycling would reinforce the variety of choice and diversity which is so basic for downtown design and would help create round-the-clock usage of the area. If we allow the leveling of architectural resources for more auto parking and other short-term facilities, we only dilute the heart of this great metropolitan area. -
Preservation and Downtown Design. Walter L. Eschbach. U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development St. Louis Area Office. July, 1975.
The downtown area's greatest need is a middle and upper income resident population of abut 30,000..You can't beat Clayton by aping Clayton...Clayton wants a rather sterile, boring kind of place while downtowns offer a certain untidy ferment...downtown areas provide an irreplaceable resource as the center of activity for a metropolitan area -- an estate to which no shopping center can aspire.-
Edmund K. Faltermayer. More People, Not Projects, Are Favored For Downtown. Post Dispatch. April 29, 1975
If Culinaria puts all competition out of business they have
market power controlling price --
thus undermining the original arguments for inviting them Downtown (that City Grocers was too expensive). If the City creates political barriers protecting their monopoly over the Downtown market then the situation exacerbates. This was a bad economic decision for consumers and the City, but we all seem to believe Room 200's
effective issue framing.
This is an epic failure. We had an organic Downtown developing which offered an experience that my exurban mother commented, and really anyone with capacity understands, didn't exist in our Region. We destroyed our
comparative advantage,
architectural history and the opportunity for more residents and a lively Old Post Office District, for the careerist ambitions of a Mayor who desires to be another Richard J. Daley. Four consecutive mayoral terms should not come at such a high price which we cannot suffer.
Aforementioned articles appear in Larry Giles' Gateway Mall Scrapbook