I am honored to serve as Co-Chair of the ULI St. Louis TAP program with John Langa of Bi-State Development. The TAP program helps local governments and community organizations think through complicated land use and development challenges by convening a multi-disciplinary and creative team of subject-matter experts to provide tangible solutions to tricky problems. The TAP program is a service offered as part of ULI St. Louis’ commitment to leveraging its expertise to advance real estate, planning, and development throughout the St. Louis region.
The recent Grand Station TAP is an exciting example of this commitment in action!
The 2021 TAP program revisited the outcomes of the 2012 Grand Station TAP to evaluate implementation progress based on the previous recommendations and redefine new plans for the area in the future. Today, the Grand Station is the link between the highly traveled north-south #70 Grand bus line and the east-west MetroLink. Significant development has taken place since the 2012 TAP, leading to new goals related to connectivity.
In order to reimagine the station as a true community mobility hub providing multi-modal access and connectivity to the surrounding development district and beyond, the areas of focus for the 2021 TAP included overcoming the barriers to access and connectivity created by the grade separation, designing an enhanced Grand Station to integrate the Brickline Greenway with surrounding development, and exploring the development identity and mix of uses that will best serve the district and surrounding neighborhoods.
The Takeaways
We need to change the perception of public transportation in St. Louis. Why don’t residents, workers, or visitors see public transit as an amenity? How can we change this perception?
We need to redefine mixed use development beyond a mix of land uses. Sustainable development must include things that appeal to mixed demographics (age, income, affordability, abilities, etc.). This is particularly important in this area.
How can we change the narrative from seeing actual and/or perceived crime as a barrier to the use of public transit into a focus on putting actions and resources toward addressing root causes?
We need to balance bold, transformative change with slow, incremental steps. Only with both of these will be really be able to build toward the vision.
Who are we building for? We need to constantly be asking this question to ensure that the development meets the needs of existing neighborhoods and attracts new target demographics from outside of the neighborhood. What is this balance?
Planning is key. Establishing and implementing development and design standards that build upon the vision will shape future of this unique district.
View the Grand Station TAP Report.
About the TAP Program
The Technical Assistance Panel (TAP) program provides organizations and municipalities with a cost-effective approach to early-stage planning of site-specific project areas or public policy issues. The TAP program draws on ULI’s membership to assemble an interdisciplinary team of professionals with expertise in the areas of real estate, planning, or development. The panel reviews relevant background information and data provided by the TAP sponsor to gain familiarity with a project or public policy issue. The Panel then devotes one full day’s work to site visits, stakeholder interviews, verbal and graphic collaborative brainstorming, and ideation. The panel concludes the work day with a series of recommendations to present to the TAP sponsor. Finally, ULI issues a formal report detailing the panel’s findings and recommendations. Visit ULI’s website for more information about the TAP Program: https://stlouis.uli.org/resources/taps/