In The Community | SLUP St. Louis

In The Community of St. Louis

"This city has so

much potential!"

- St. Louis Resident

Community Engagement

St. Louis Resident

"[We] should further humanize the spaces, make them spaces everyone feels safe and comfortable to live in."

County Resident

"We need to be more inviting as a city and focus on making places more lively. Everyone thinks of the city as a dangerous place and downtown as well as its surrounding areas should at least not SEEM very dangerous."

St. Louis Resident

"We need to be one cohesive city for future success while celebrating the individuality or identities of unique neighborhoods."

Neighborhood Walking Tour:
The Ville

Earlier in this project our team met with Aaron Williams from 4theVille - an organization that develops programs and encourages preservation of The Ville. Aaron took our team, city staff, and members of the steering committee on a walking tour of The Ville neighborhood and shared with us some of the area’s history, and showed us what areas are working well currently, and what areas have a lot of potential.

THE VILLE is a historic African-American neighborhood located in St. Louis, Missouri with a rich history of African-American education, business, entertainment and culture. The neighborhood is bounded by St. Louis Avenue on the North, Martin Luther King drive on the South, Sarah on the East and Taylor on the West.

Riverfront Development Tour

On this tour, we explored some of the near-south and near-north Riverfront. Along the way, we heard about the plans and ideas that have been proposed for some of these areas in the past, some of the challenges with connectivity, flooding, and adjacent types of land uses. This tour included staff from the Planning and Urban Design Agency and the St. Louis Development Corporation who shared details about the stops along the way

Why did we going to the Riverfront?

Across the City, people have pointed to the Riverfront as one of the greatest places of potential for St. Louis. They want to see opportunities for both visitors and residents to (safely) interact with the river. They want to see the history of St. Louis as a river city remembered and reflected. They want to see benefits to the ecological systems and natural processes that happen in, along, and above the river. And they want to see the powerful economic force of the Mississippi continue to drive St. Louis’s economy. Along the Riverfront there are a variety of areas that are highly visible, underutilized, or hold potential for opportunities— but there’s a lot to consider about how these different visions interact with each other and are thoughtfully prioritized and located.

Neighborhood Flooding Tour

On this tour, we visited a number of locations within neighborhoods that have experienced flooding. At each site, we heard about initiatives and partnerships that have sought to reclaim areas that flood and mitigate future flooding, as well as the range of types of uses and maintenance.

Sites include:

Dickman Park, located in Baden. The site includes land owned by Parks Department, LRA, MSD, and a neighborhood church, Our Lady of the Holy Cross. There has been both flooding and basement back-ups at the homes located near this site, including four homes that are located between several different types of infrastructure. This site is currently NPA, IPDA, and ROSPDA.
Carter Park Extension (Walnut Park), located on lots adjacent to Carter Park in Walnut Park East, which hosts a site for Throwing and Growing, a youth summer program. The site was prepared through demolition of 8 vacant buildings, vacant buildings were cleared, and land was regraded. This site is currently NPA.
Harney Ave & Beacon Ave, also in Walnut Park East, which was hard hit in the 2022 flooding event. The site is owned by the Metropolitan Sewer District (MSD), and has been improved with stormwater infrastructure. The surrounding neighborhood is hilly, and there is a mix of LRA-owned and privately-owned lots. This site is currently NPA.
Hermitage Ave, Ellendale, which was the location of substantial flooding during the 2022 flooding event. Twenty properties in this area were eligible for FEMA hazard mitigation, which will create permanent green space, but not all owners have opted to participate in the program. These sites are primarily Opportunity Area (OA).

"[The] future of land use needs to prioritize making communities livable - safe and affordable housing, good schools, green spaces for flood water retention and recreation, and usable public transit. We have enough entertainment districts."