Midtown businesses decry MoDOT plan to eliminate I-64 Compton interchange

Identifying the worst intersection in the City of St. Louis isn’t a contest. But if it were, the intersection at Grand Boulevard and Forest Park Avenue would surely be a contender. In addition to those two major thoroughfares colliding, traffic spills out from Highway 64/40 right there. There’s the spaceship Starbucks and a Chipotle and a senior living high-rise. There are college students walking around. Panhandlers panhandling. Six lanes converge with a sort of no-man’s land at the center. It’s confusing even to locals. It’s terrifying. It’s deadly. 

If the Missouri Department of Transportation has their way, it’s going to get a lot busier. 

That’s because, according to plans the agency presented to Midtown residents and business owners on Tuesday, they want to remove the highway exit at Compton Avenue—just one exit east—and reroute westbound traffic through the intersection at Grand and Forest Park. 

SLM reached out to MoDOT for comment Wednesday afternoon. We will update the story when we hear back.

Right now, pretty much anyone from outside the City of St. Louis—as well as plenty of city dwellers—who visits The Fox or Powell Hall leaves by traversing Grand and Forest Park and getting on the highway. Same for anyone visiting the Pulitzer, the Contemporary Art Museum, the Angad, the Sheldon, the Grandel, and more.

With MoDOT’s change in place, added to that same egress will be any westbound travelers who are leaving Chaifetz Arena, Saint Louis University, Harris-Stowe State University or all the venues on Locust (the Hidden Gem bar, the Fountain on Locust, Red Flag), along with all the westbound traffic leaving Energizer Park after soccer games.

At Tuesday’s meeting held at the Curiosity building on Locust, representatives from MoDOT said one of their goals was to set Midtown up for success over the next 75 years. 

Midtown doesn’t see it that way. 

Under the current plans, says Danni Eickenhorst, co-owner of the Fountain on Locust, “Midtown, City Commons, and Grand Center will be choked out.” 

Plans courtesy of Eric Thoelke

Plans courtesy of Eric Thoelke

Eric Thoelke is the founder of brand strategy and design studio Toky as well as a founder of the Midtown Alley Business Alliance, which represents businesses on Locust and Olive from Compton to Jefferson. 

“We have this lovely ‘drain’ for all of these venues: All of this stuff drains to Compton and comes out,” he says of visitors to Midtown Alley. “They get on the highway, and it doesn’t screw with anybody. But now they want to take this and reroute access for Chaifetz and all these venues back up here to Forest Park and Grand, a horrible intersection.” 

It gets worse.

MoDOT construction is slated to begin in 2027. But starting this year, the city plans to completely replace the bridge on Compton Avenue, which starts at the edge of Top Golf and runs over railroad tracks before ending at the interchange that MoDOT wants to get rid of—almost certainly compounding traffic headaches during the multi-year project. 

Asks Eickenhorst: “What we’ve been asking this whole time is, why is this all happening at once?”

At Tuesday’s meeting, MoDOT says they are doing this right now because a bridge at a totally different interchange is at the end of its life. That would be the quarter-mile swath of eastbound Highway 40 going over Vandeventer, near IKEA and what used to be JJ’s bar. MoDOT’s website lists the bridge as being in poor condition. (For what it’s worth, the interchange atop Highway 40 at Compton, the one MoDOT hopes to rip out entirely, is categorized as fair.) 

At Tuesday’s meeting, MoDOT transportation engineer Jen Wade said the bridge repair over Vandeventer will already require I-64/40 be shut to traffic. “Once you do that, it’s an extremely big impact to the community, and you want to make sure anything else that needs to happen inside that closure is scheduled and funded and going to happen in that window. The worst possible idea is to put it back where it was, and then five years later, be like, ‘Oh, you need to switch this.”

Both MoDOT and the City have proposed detours while the state agency has the highway closed and the city reconstructs the Compton bridge. The problem is that both traffic flows involve cars getting off I-64/40 at the same intersection—the one at Highway 40 and Vandeventer. That intersection itself, even on a good day, is an annoyance: five lanes of traffic merging at irregular angles between a QuickTrip and a Raising Cain’s. It’s about to get a lot busier. 

One of the big criticisms the business alliance has is that, by its own admission, MoDOT based the traffic counts underpinning the Compton interchange’s removal on day-to-day usage, not special events—when it’s obvious the neighborhood takes on a much different feel when its major venues are packed. 

Thoelke says he has those visitors in mind. He says doesn’t want to throw MoDOT under the bus. He just wants to persuade them to change course. He’d even settle for a partial teardown of the Compton exit. “Our goal is to try to preserve the westbound ramp,” he says. At the end of the day, he says, he wants to make sure visitors to his part of town have a way to get back home. 

There’s hope. At Tuesday’s meeting, MoDOT district engineer Tom Blair told the crowd in response to pointed questions, “I hear you, and the team’s going to look into restoring Compton, no commitment that will happen, but we’ll look into it as seriously as we possibly can.”

UPDATE: In a statement to SLM Friday afternoon, MoDOT’s Jen Wade stated that prior to Tuesday’s presentation, the agency had engaged area stakeholders. She said: “During our conversations, we heard that people were interested in making the area easier to navigate for all users, including transit, pedestrians, cyclists and vehicles; making the interstate less of a barrier between neighborhoods and various destinations; and making travel for visitors to the area more intuitive.” She did acknowledge that some “important stakeholders” were not a part of those initial discussions and did not get the information they needed.

She added that MoDOT’s plans for the area are in the “preliminary design phase” and the agency remains actively engaged with those who live and work in the area.

“MoDOT leadership has heard recent concerns regarding the removal of the Compton ramp to Westbound Interstate 64. MoDOT is committed to thoroughly reviewing all options to determine whether equal or better access to I-64 can be incorporated into the planned improvements,” Wade said.

“This review will take time, and we ask for everyone’s patience. MoDOT will communicate the outcomes of this review as soon as possible (anticipated before the end of March).”

“We are committed to listening to the individuals impacted as we take the opportunity to maintain this corridor, meet the vision and goals already shared with us and provide the best possible project for the city of St. Louis and the State of Missouri. MoDOT is dedicated to making sure I-64 serves customers for a more prosperous St. Louis well into the future.”