The portion of the Mississippi River that lines St. Louis’ downtown has long felt like an afterthought for the city, but civic and business leaders say the moment now is as good as any to spur riverfront revitalization.
This growing focus is partially powered by the idea for $15 million of Rams settlement money to be earmarked to improve the area’s infrastructure, create more attractions and activity, and increase the connection between downtown and the riverfront. However, the proposal, which would come out of the $55 million set aside for downtown, is already proving divisive for locals who say more money allocated for North St. Louis.
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The proposed funding comes amid a renewal of Laclede’s Landing into a more residential neighborhood, as well as the final phase of demolition of the Millennium Hotel site a short walk from the river’s edge.
“There’s great momentum happening, and we want to continue that and capitalize on it,” says Gateway Arch Park Foundation executive director Ryan McClure.
Not so long ago, McClure says, the riverfront offered more reasons to linger after a visit to the Arch, “including the famed McDonalds riverboat.” Today, though, there are only two attractions beneath the steps up to the Arch Grounds: helicopter tours and riverboat cruises.
“We are a city that has unfortunately kind of turned its back on its river,” says Laclede’s Landing Neighborhood Association board member Mike Weaver. “You can’t have that conversation without also talking about infrastructure.”
Weaver points to the interstate highways that slice through downtown as a culprit for why it’s challenging to easily access what he calls “the coolest riverfront park in America.”
“I keep seeing cities that say, ‘Oh, we’re doing this riverfront activation,’” he says. “We did that 60 years ago, and ours is still better, but you can’t get to it.”
There is growing momentum for a plan to remove or place a cap on the section of Interstate 44 that separates the Arch grounds from the rest of downtown St. Louis, though a project that massive would take many years to come to fruition. In the near term, Weaver contends there are immediate projects the city can focus on, such as revitalizing the former casino boat dock Porte Cochere into an outdoor market dubbed Merkury Marketplace.
“It’s that adaptive reuse, realizing we have this piece of infrastructure, it faces this amazing river that has all this power and cool experience to be down around,” Weaver says.
It’s the kind of proposal that can be identifiably St. Louis, something Weaver says is paramount amid peer cities pursuing their own waterfront activations.
“We can’t just do what other places are doing and then just be behind them because we have inherent disadvantages that they don’t have,” Weaver says. “You have to lean into what we have, and one of the things we have [around] this asset is historic buildings that have character and soul.”
McClure adds the Mississippi River as it passes by downtown is vastly different from other cities with similar access to bodies of water. Downtown St. Louis sits just south of the Mississippi’s confluences with the Illinois and Missouri Rivers, making it a large and sometimes volatile river that floods.
Before the $380 million CityArchRiver project raised Leonor K. Sullivan Boulevard a few feet, the road would often flood when the river next to it did as well, “mostly during peak tourism season,” McClure says. Now, that’s not the case.
“That is a really important change in infrastructure investment that has been made, and that is why many attractions left in the first place,” McClure adds. “We need to condition folks to again come back to the river, be close to the water, and celebrate as we have in years past the riverfront experience.”
Gateway Arch Park Foundation has started along this path, having hosted the roller skating-themed event Rollin’ on the River over the Memorial Day weekend. The event drew East St. Louisan Cynthia Sanders, who was intent on going after her friend, Evelyn Douglas of Collinsville, sent her a Facebook post about the event.
“I’m a skater,” she said on the Friday kicking off the weekend while taking a break from her effortless mix of skating and dancing on the makeshift rink right next to the water. “Skate for life, baby.”
Both Sanders and Douglas appreciated the chance to skate in an unusual setting.
“Oh my god, it feels nice out here,” Sanders said. “You have a good breeze, you have good scenery. It’s just really awesome.”
It’s the type of thing that could build more interest in visiting and staying a bit longer, Douglas said, even if it was a bit of a walk from where she parked. “If they could bring [the riverfront] back and keep bringing it back, people would come here and stay,” Douglas said. “Especially on the holiday weekend.”
McClure says temporary activations, like the one hosted by his organization over Memorial Day are a good start, but he acknowledges there needs to be more permanent amenities, such as shade. “That’s important in hot St. Louis summers,” he says.
To that end, he says his organization is working with Great Rivers Greenway to start gathering public input from visitors and residents alike on what an active riverfront should look like.
Adds McClure: “What we want to do is capitalize on the two and a half million visitors that are already coming to the Arch grounds and have them stay longer by having an active riverfront right next to the Arch.”
