Southwest Garden Neighborhood

Monday, January 18th, 10 am, Answer the call to service by volunteering on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. We will meet at the neighborhood office, 4950 Southwest Avenue. We will hand out trash bags and break into groups to collect litter on the main streets of our area. Return to the office by noon, with trash collected and we will sort out recyclable materials. Dress for the cold.

The newest Southwest Garden Neighborhood newsletter is now available for download here!

Construction RFP has been posted on the St. Louis City Board of Public Service website.

Over the past five months, Christopher Rehwoldt, architecture grad from Washington University, has interned with our organization. Christopher has developed a set of suggested guidelines for residential development in our neighborhood. They may be downloaded here.

The Southwest Garden Neighborhood Association’s Suggested Architectural Guidelines for Exterior Facades has been developed to define a set of elements that the Association feels are important in maintaining a cohesive architectural aesthetic throughout the Southwest Garden Neighborhood. With the existing architecture of the neighborhood as a model, the goal of these guidelines is to foster new development and existing building renovation that does not necessarily mimic the surrounding architecture, but compliments it. Using a graduated rating system of Preferred, Acceptable and Discouraged suggestions for architectural features, these guidelines hope to aid in the development of residential properties that are both aesthetically pleasing and economically viable. Please note, these are the Association’s suggested guidelines, and not required building standards.

Consultation for these guidelines was generously provided by:

Steven L. Patterson
Urban Planner
Steve@UrbanReviewSTL.com
www.UrbanReviewSTL.com

Planning & Urban Design Agency
Cultural Resources Office
1015 Locust Street
St. Louis, MO 63101

In this document are details of our Vandeventer Streetscape project, which is funded through the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act (ARRA). Noel Fehr, of Planning Design Studio, was selected by the city’s Board of Public Service to manage our project. Noel presented the attached project overview presentation to our neighborhood residents 10/19 and 11/9/09. Construction is to begin spring of 2010.

This project would not have been possible without the help of Dr. Sarah Coffin of Saint Louis University’s Urban Planning Department, her inspiring students who interned with Southwest Garden Neighborhood in the development of the project: Seth Teel, Rachel D’Incau, Elizabeth Simons; a neighborhood resident and architect Ralph Wafer, 8th Ward Alderman Stephen Conway, and especially Russell Volmert of PGAV Urban Consulting. Russell donated his time and expertise for more than a year, helping us develop a Streetscape Master Plan and plugged in the nuts and bolts for the grant applications.

I hope through further collaborations, we can continue to improve our neighborhood and the City of St. Louis.