ST. LOUIS • It was a reality check for bold dreamers.

Last week, the five design teams still in the competition to reshape the Gateway Arch grounds took turns meeting with local officials who manage the roadways, utilities, river traffic and other public works around the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial. Each team had four hours to ask questions about the environment they want to change.

"What happens in many competitions is that people just go off and make designs," said Donald J. Stastny, manager of the CityArchRiver2015 Foundation. "And if they make wrong assumptions, they are dead meat. This lets them make midcourse corrections."

Said Tom Bradley, superintendent of the Arch and grounds, "The advisory team can help them catch obvious flaws." He and Stastny participated in the meetings.

In December, the new local foundation and the National Park Service announced a competition to invite ideas for improving the riverfront park, making it more accessible to downtown and linking it with East St. Louis. The goal is to complete construction by Oct. 28, 2015, the 50th anniversary of the topping of the Arch.

Forty-nine design teams expressed interest. In April, the foundation's eight-person jury of experts chose five finalists and told them to plan away. The five teams are to present their ideas by Aug. 12, and the jury is to announce the winner on Sept. 24.

The teams met last Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday for a second and final round with the two dozen local administrators who constitute the foundation's technical advisory team. It includes officials from the city street department, the Missouri and Illinois transportation agencies, the Coast Guard, the Metro East Park and Recreation District and the St. Louis Archdiocese, owners of the Old Cathedral on the Arch grounds.

Advisory members are sworn to secrecy. Stastny said they did not endorse or reject design ideas, only answered questions. Teams can submit follow-up questions, but all of them will get the written answers.

The sessions took place at the Bryan Cave law firm, on the 35th floor of the Metropolitan Square Building downtown. Stastny has set up shop there, and the offices provide a vista of the Arch and the riverfront.

"There were times when team members went to the windows to check something for themselves," he said.

The foundation hired Stastny, an architect from Portland, Ore. He managed similar efforts to design the Flight 93 National Memorial at Stonycreek Township, Pa., and the Oklahoma City National Memorial at the site of the federal building that was blown up by domestic terrorists in 1995.

Stastny said the five teams had differing styles last week. "Some put their cards on the table and said, ‘We'd like to do this.' Others just asked questions," he said. "But what went on in that room stays in that room."

Bradley, the Arch superintendent, said creating the advisory group also helped bring together local agencies that will have to work with the Park Service and the winning design team as the project moves forward.

For years, people have complained that the Arch grounds are cut off from downtown by Memorial Drive and the interstate's "depressed lanes." Former U.S. Sen. John C. Danforth lobbied for a more visitor-friendly, busier Arch grounds. Last year, the National Park Service modified its management plan for the park to allow for some changes in the landscape.

The park plan said the work could cost $300 million, perhaps much more. Walter Metcalfe Jr., senior counsel at Bryan Cave and a member of the foundation's board of governors, said St. Louis leaders will have to find money to get the job done.

Local businesses, foundations and individuals created and financed the CityArchRiver2015 Foundation.

Its competition is similar to the one that chose Eero Saarinen's design for the Arch in 1947.

The five finalists are Behnisch Architekten of Los Angeles and Stuttgart, Germany; Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates of New York; PWP Landscape Architecture, Foster + Partners, Civitas of Berkeley, Calif.; SOM, Hargreaves, BIG of Chicago; and Weiss/Manfredi of New York. Stastny said each of them has local specialists on their teams.