According to a press release on the Mayor's campaign site, the old Carondelet Coke plant will be redeveloped. This is a shock to those of us who assumed that its overgrown, ruinous landscape would always be around for autumn walks and clandestine film making. Then there was Dylan Haasinger's quixotic and hopeful plan to retain the passive life of the site by turning it into an urban nature preserve. Alas, it's back to the economic life for the land at the confluence of the Mississippi River and the River Des Peres -- and a far less interesting but cleaner life it shall be.
I urge city officials to thoroughly document the site, which is probably the most fertile industrial archaeological sites in the region aside from East St. Louis' Stockyards District and the Commonwealth Steel foundry in Granite City. Despite cleanup needs, some salvage of artifacts also seems reasonable given that there probably will never be a coke plant in the city of St. Louis again. That's a mixed blessing!
Monday, July 3, 2006
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5 comments:
No displacements. No takings. A cleaner environment. And more revenue for city services. Hooray for redevelopment!
I would really like it if the tuckpointed the smoke stack and left it there. Make it the middle of a park or greenspace or something.
I was under that smokestack in a brick tunnel earlier today ... :-)
Yeah thats too bad i really love that place i paintballed there non stop for the last couple of years, till i went to college, went there in December of 07 and they had pretty much deforested the damn thing but that didn't stop us from having fun its probably my favorite place in the city limits. It makes me sad that this iconic place of my teenager-hood will soon be gone. but i will play till they have people walking in on the grand opening of whatever bastardized place they make it into *sigh*
This is just skip and jump from the Skatium, practice space for the Arch Rival Roller Girls as well as lots of hockey, bday parties, etc. Any word on whether any development at the site will impact the Skatium?
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