U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar in front of Post-Dispatch Platform. Eddie Roth/Post-Dispatch

U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar was in town yesterday afternoon, ostensibly to talk about federal spending for job creation and economic recovery. But it turns out he had monumental plans, very specific to St. Louis, on his mind.

He called on the Post-Dispatch editorial board before heading to the airport, and told us he had made the trip at the behest of U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo to survey the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial.

He was accompanied by Sen. McCaskill and National Park Service Acting Director Daniel Wenk on his tour of the park. He also met with Park Superintendent Tom Bradley, St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay, Attorney Walter Metcalfe (who has been one the mayor’s emissaries on the  project) and Tom Irwin of Civic Progress, which has made the project a top priority.

The secretary wanted to explore first hand the planning efforts that have been undertaken to rethink the national park in which the Gateway Arch is situated. He is especially interested in the physical chasm (Memorial Drive, depressed lanes of I-70) that separates the park from the community.

The secretary has a quiet and friendly manner — he seems calm, even serene. I didn’t detect any of the slickness or hubris one often associates with longtime elected officials. (This probably is a western thing, but Gilbert Bailon, editorial page editor, who is from Arizona and spent much of his journalism career in Texas, noticed that Salazar wears boots — that they were nice boots but everyday boots, not highly polished show boots).

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We have written much about the planning process for the Arch grounds, and various opportunities to reconnect the park with the center city (including those proposed by visionary local urbanists (and here) and by brilliant young architecture and design students) as well the exciting possibilities of an international design competition being proposed by the National Park Service.

We have explored the challenges of the planning process from various perspectives, (and here), and I even threw my own programmatic concept into the ring (why not?). More recently, we wrote about the key role Sen. McCaskill has been playing behind the scenes to bring local parties and the National Park Service together on the project. And, in anticipation of Secretary Salazar’s visit, we wrote yesterday about championing urban national parks.

I think yesterday was a big day in the history of the Gateway Arch and St. Louis’ celebrated national park. Below are extended audio excerpts from our meeting with Secretary Salazar. The kind of commitments the secretary made just don’t happen. Sen. McCaskill clearly has spent time with the secretary on this. I would bet Sen. Dick Durbin has weighed in as well. Here’s a summary:

• The Arch project, including connecting the National Park to downtown, is a “priority” for President Obama and Secretary Salazar. (Mr. Obama, by the way, is no stranger to the sublime nature of the Gateway Arch and national park).
• Extending the park to the Illinois side of the Mississippi should be an element of the international design competition, and part of the final plan.
• The principles of preservation that govern the National Park Service’s work will be respected.
• When the international design competition is concluded, and a final plan is put together, Sec. Salazar will work with Congress to find the resources to pay for improvements.
• Secretary Salazar set a project deadline is October 28, 2015 — the 50th anniversary of the completion of the Arch. He is looking forward to “a great celebration here,” and will “move heaven and earth” to try to have in finished sooner.

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