St. Louis Union Station / Kansas City Union Station

Big things are happening in Kansas City.  The Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce is moving into Union Station.  Not only that, but so is the Kansas City Area Development Council.  They're not alone either.  It's going to become a hub of civic discussion as government agencies and nonprofits consolidate there.  This means there will be people walking around the hallways and holding important meetings in the restaurants there.  These office workers are going to form one piece of the greater mosaic.

KC's Union Station is itself a non-profit rescued and refurbished with tax-dollars and recreated as a very important civic space.  It has a movie theater, restaurants, a science center and an Amtrak station.  The interior is nice too.

Sadly, it's a bit of an island.

It isn't in downtown proper, nor is it really integrated into a street grid.  It sits by itself next to the Liberty Memorial just south of downtown.

What makes it work is Main Street, which connects Country Club Plaza to the River Market with Union Station in between.  KC doesn't have much of a transit system, but they've got a bus rapid transit line that goes downtown along Main Street.  Union Station is a stop between.  The bus line works very well and concentrates transit-oriented-development along the city's central axis. 

Coming out of the Amtrak station, it's possible to get right on a bus and see most of the major attractions in the city.  It's also possible to take the Amtrak from there to St. Louis.

In St. Louis, the Amtrak station is physically separated from Union Station by a sea of surface parking lots, but they are connected by light rail and are only one station apart. 

Union Station in St. Louis used to have a movie theater, but doesn't any more.  It doesn't have a BRT line in front of it on Market Street (even though it should).  It doesn't have a Science Center.  It doesn't really have much of a museum.  It doesn't have office workers either.

Union Station in St. Louis does have a park in front of it.  It isn't Liberty Memorial, but Aloe Plaza is still nice.

It has hotels.  There's a Hyatt there.  It has a small mall with a food court, and a massive surface parking lot.  It also has a pond... for whatever that's worth.

Most importantly, it has a streetgrid that connects to it on all sides.

Union Station is in downtown St. Louis.  It's between 18th street and 20th.  The park in front goes all the way to the arch, and so does the road.  It doesn't have office space, but the adjacent buildings do. 

It seems unfortunate that Union Station is nothing but a mall with a nice hotel and a Hard Rock Cafe, but its separation from the Amtrak station and the vastness of the parking lots behind it offer many interesting possibilities.  Union Station, Civic Center, and Stadium MetroLink stations are right next to each other along Spruce Street.

 20th Street, (on the side of Union Station) and Spruce (behind it) are both essentially parking lot access roads at this point.  All the things that Kansas City's Union Station  has (except the Science Center) can go in along 20th and Spruce.  There's plenty of room.

 

Do click to enlarge the above map and give it a good look.  The dark areas are surface parking lots.  The green area is the Gateway Mall which is supposed to end at 22nd street when the I-64 interchange is redone as part of NorthSide Area A.  With the rebuilding of that interchange, 20th Street (in blue) along the side of Union Station can be reworked to better anchor it.  If the indoor part of Union Station could be expanded under the canopy in conjunction with this, it'd create a better MetroLink station and could diversify the mixed-use nature of the station.  A big movie theater would be wonderful.

Also shown on the map is the Kiel Center (home of the Blues) and the Kiel Opera House (which is being renovated).  In red is Busch Stadium and the adjacent Ballpark Village which was the subject of the blog post before this one.  The MetroLink and Spruce Street connect it all, and Amtrak is in the middle. 

Obviously it is difficult to develop anything next to an interstate (the empty lots of the Bottle District attest to this), but I-64 is probably not going anywhere any time soon.  A few low-rise buildings to fill out the street would be a small investment with a potentially huge payoff.  No tall towers, museums, or air rights above the metrolink, just small urban buildings hugging Spruce to make a walkable street that extends the context of Union Station to the Amtrak station and the baseball stadium. 

The Amtrak Station is the main port of entry to the city for carless people such as myself.  Stepping off the bus or train and onto a vibrant street with Union Station at one end and Ballpark Village at the other would be very exciting.

Anything is better than what's there now.

If somebody had a lot of money, they could reroute the MetroLink and eliminate two unneeded turns.  People could walk two blocks extra, and Clark Avenue could be rebuilt from Ballpark Village through Union Station right on to the NorthSide development area.  Then Clark and Spruce could be parallel walkable streets.  Put in a new addition to Union Station between them and make a new south entrance.  It'd just take a little imagination (and a lot of money).