This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Jan. 25, 2011 - On Tuesday, word leaked out that the gondolas, which had been part of a rival plan to redo the Arch grounds, would be part of the winning designers' still-evolving final conceptual plan to connect the Arch grounds with its surroundings. KSDK.com reported that "the plans for the Arch grounds revitalization project will include a new way to cross the Mississippi River" -- the gondolas.
Arch superintendent Tom Bradley told KSDK's Casey Nolen that the gondolas are part of the solution for connecting the east side of the river to the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial, or the Arch. One of the project's major goals is to tie the two sides of the river together.
The gondolas had originally been proposed by Behnisch Architekten, which viewed the gondolas a way to carry visitors over the river and to make a connection between both banks that unlike ferries or water taxies could operate when the river floods. The winning design came from Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, Brooklyn.
Read the Beacon's earlier story below:
Designers who have been at work on the still-evolving final conceptual plan to connect the Arch grounds with its surroundings will give the public an update on Wednesday. They are expected to discuss particularly difficult and persistent design problems related to the Arch, its relationship to the city, the river and the east bank of the river.
One problem concerns the approach to the Arch from the west, an approach made difficult by steady and sometimes dangerous flows of traffic on, into and off of Memorial Drive. The other problem is Leonor K. Sullivan Boulevard, once known as Wharf Street. It separates the Arch grounds from the riverfront levee and the Mississippi River and is regarded by many as both an obstruction and an eyesore. Another topic likely will be ways to reconnect the Arch with its geographical neighbors across the river in Illinois and to invigorate that area.
The meeting will be from 6-7:15 p.m., Wed., Jan. 26, in the Ferrara Theatre of the America's Center downtown.
Among those making presentations will be Michael Van Valkenburgh, the lead designer. His firm, Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, Brooklyn, put together a team of planning experts who produced a conceptual plan that won an international design competition in September sponsored by the CityArchRiver 2015 Foundation. The foundation was organized to oversee the design process and to raise money for the competition and the ambitious project itself. All told, the project could cost more than $300 million and is scheduled to be finished in 2015, the 50th anniversary of the completion of the monument.
Since September, Van Valkenburgh and members of his team have been working with Arch superintendent Tom Bradley and his associates, St. Louis street department officials and others from both sides of the river to resolve issues and questions that their winning plan generated.
Also on the agenda for the meeting Wednesday is a representative of Cooper Robertson & Partners of New York City, part of the Van Valkenburgh team. Cooper Robertson produced the last major plan for reviving the St. Louis riverfront in 1994. That vision, estimated to cost about $250 million back then, called for an aquarium and other attractions, floating docks for riverboats, a two-level concrete promenade east of Sullivan and raising Sullivan by four feet to protect it from most flooding.
The "Report to the Community" on Wednesday likely will include as well some information about efforts to raise money to pay for the upcoming plan. The meeting schedule does not include time for questions or statements from the public. But announcements will be made about how the public can make comments at a later time.
Other speakers listed for Wednesday include Arch superintendent Bradley and Walter Metcalfe Jr., of the CityArchRiver 2015 Foundation, who has been leading the money-raising effort.
Charlene Prost, a freelance writer in St. Louis, has long covered downtown development.