Governor backs Chouteau Lake and port authority projects
Hard to say what good it will do but Gov. Jay Nixon has sent Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood a letter urging federal help for the proposed Chouteau Lake and Greenway project in downtown St. Louis.
The governor’s office says the letter expresses Nixon’s support for a Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (or TIGER) grant for the project. Plans for the Chouteau Lake project include the moving of some railyard tracks to make way for a shallow waterway. Nixon’s office notes that the Chouteau Lake site is near a terminus of the proposed high-speed rail line between St. Louis and Chicago. (The new Amtrak station is near 14th Street, south of the Scottrade Center.)
Nixon’s letter also says the Choteau Lake and Greenway plan would connect St. Louis parks through a system of urban lakes, wetlands and trails, adding that it’s a key part of the region’s greenways system.
Another letter from Nixon to LaHood backs a TIGER grant for the St. Louis Port Authority’s project to modernize and expand the municipal river terminal. The port authority wants to build a modern intermodal hub equipped to serve bulk and container-freight markets.
(2 votes, average: 5 out of 5)
Loading ...
This makes too much sense to do, no matter how it is paid for. Most major cities have moved train switching yards out of downtown. Paris turned a train station along the Seine into its most popular modern art museum, Gare d’Orsay. Even the St. Louis station is no longer used for trains. There are lots of switching yards on both sides of the river. This land will be more useful to the metro area as a lake and greenway to convince businesses that St. Louis is worth saving, rather than moving away or cutting back. It would do wonders for our image to have a lake downtown with water taxis, sailboats, and lakeside restaurants. Look how it turned Oklahoma City around.
Well done Governor. This could really transform the city.
This project would be awesome. St. Louis needs more projects like these in order to draw more people downtown, other than a sporting event. Chicago is much bigger, however let’s get a world class aquarium, develop the Arch grounds. Let Disney/Casinos develop the riverfront. Try to build a better history museum. Clean up the city and make people want to stay down there. Why can’t St. Louis send a delegation to places like NY, CA, Europe and try to lure in big name retail shopping for downtown. Try like mad to copy and improve on what a city like Chicago already has! Take the fountains from KC, shopping and venues from Chicago. The more options downtown has the better toget more companies to relocate here and so forth. Open the city up to who ever wants in!
St. Louis has the “bones” to be a world class city again. Think about how many people come here for Mardi Gras. I’d turn soulard into a little French Quarter area. The landing should be more a Williamsburg-type place, historic, etc. If we had unique shopping downtown that would be great.
Kudos Governor!!! How nice to hear about Chouteau’s lake in the news! Hopefully this talk with spur into development! Now, what about Chouteau’s landing and Art Center? and Why hasn’t construction started on The Kiehl Opera house?
I like the fact that these earlier posters want to support downtown, but I seriously want to beat my own head on the wall when I read that anyone thinks we need to ‘develop’ the arch grounds. There is nothing wrong with the arch grounds, as a matter of fact, this is about the only part of downtwon that does NOT need to be screwed with. Of course, this being St. Louis, people will keep clamoring for this ‘development’, and those that keep doing so will eventually get their way, and the arch will be cluttered with restaurants, playgrounds, minigolf, and carnival rides to appease to those with the short attention spans. Meanwhile, the areas immediately north and south of the arch grounds will continue to decompose and fester in open sight as a greeting to those arriving in town.