Whatever your take on the CityArchRiver process, plan and politics, it's important to keep up with the project. Watching the presentation highlights well the complexity and overlapping jurisdictions involved with the project, as well as its shear magnitude. In fact, the juggling of this myriad of interests is likely the most powerful CAR accomplishment. It's not over, everyone's weighing in on the height of the berm where the new museum entrance is planned, for just one example. Earlier this month the project's Design Review Team and representatives from the National Trust went another round in examining every aspect of the berm in exceptional detail. That scrutiny is befitting a national memorial, but has served to thwart proposals that possessed less momentum in the past. So grab a beer (maybe two or three - it's a long video) and some popcorn and get up to date on the project that will shape our city's image for decades to come.

nextSTL has learned that grocer Global Foods Market will be the largest single retail tenant in the $80M Washington University mixed-use development in The Loop, occupying 15,000 square feet. The grocer currently has one location in Kirkwood. That location is nearly 25,000 total square feet. The Loop site at Eastgate and Delmar will feature a total of appoximately 22,000 square feet of retail space. For reference, Culinaria in downtown St. Louis has a main floor of 21,000 square feet. the current Trader Joe's at the Brentwood Promenade is 10,000 square feet. The lease is expected to be finalized in the coming weeks and Global Foods Market hopes to open by Summer 2014.

A full-service grocer has long topped the list of wished by Loop residents and visitors. Mock-ups of grocery stores have been featured in Loop planning documents over the past several years and a variety of developers have approached grocers from Trader Joe's to Schnucks about openning a store. Although the Culinaria concept has proven successful downtown, Schnuck's has a location nearby on Olive and may have worried about cannibalizing sales, Dierberg's doesn't yet have an urban concept store, Trader Joe's is expanding their Brentwood location and Whole Foods is opening a Central West End store.

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Just last week nextSTL was the first to report that Urban Chestnut Brewing Company is moving into The Grove with a footprint eight times larger than their first location opened just two years ago. Now we have significantly more detail regarding UCBC plans for the challenging Renard Paper Company building on Manchester Avenue between Taylor and Newstead.

The oldest portion of the building was constructed in 1947 (Manchester/Taylor corner), with significant additions in 1986 and 1990. The more recent additions present a flat cinder block wall to the street. The plan by Trivers Associates shows a more open entrance at Taylor and four large windows restored on the south facade. The most significant structural change to the building will be a small outdoor area facing Manchester at the building's midpoint. Roughly the easternmost 40% of the facade will remain intact, but be painted with a bright UCBC mural.

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In the most decentralized of American cities, much of the urban fabric that prospered until at least the Great Depression (if not later) suffered such devastation in the second half of the twentieth century that one could claim it was wiped off the face of the earth. Huge swathes of what were once densely settled neighborhoods are all but gone, having lost more than half of their population since 1950. When one ponders the type of city that has suffered this fate, chances are it sits in either the industrialized Northeast or Midwest: places like Cleveland, Buffalo, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and even Chicago. In Detroit, the condition of nearly complete depopulation may afflict as much as half of the land within the historic city limits.

Another Midwestern city that has endured almost as profound of a loss as the Motor City—but mercifully manages to escape the damning headlines most of the time—is St. Louis. At its population peak in 1950, it had 850,000 people. As of 2010, that number had plunged to 320,000—an over 62% drop in population, and, amazingly even a bit greater than Detroit’s 61% loss over that same time frame. In stark contrast with Detroit, where the depopulation stretches in all directions from the city center, in St. Louis the majority of population loss has exclusively afflicted the north side of the city. Many of the neighborhoods south of I-44 are as intact and manicured as they were in 1950, like the serene Italian-American neighborhood on the near southwest side of town known as The Hill:

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