As many people know, Scottie Porter and I have been looking into redeveloping the Spivey building in downtown East St. Louis. We chose Killeen Studio Architects as the architecture firm for the first phase of the project, which consists of façade restoration. As we await to hear back from the government on that project, Killeen Studio posted a post on Facebook that details their next project. It’s a mixture of two things, one is a concept of high-rises overlooking Downtown St. Louis from the East Riverfront and the second is an actual redevelopment plan to bring people to the East Riverfront.
The rendering, at the top of this post, was one of the concepts from a few years ago but it never got off of the drawing board, so we don’t know much about it. Killeen Studio aims to create a plan that goes beyond the drawing board and turns attention to the East Riverfront in a new way. Details are very limited right now, so we will not know much for a little bit longer. While the dream to redevelop the East Riverfront, in general, has been around for sometime, no plan has fully materialized.
Most recently, the city of East St. Louis, Saint Clair County Illinois and the state of Illinois all came together to undertake a massive infrastructure project to rebuild River Park Drive for future development. It mostly focused on the riverfront area in front of Cargill and the Malcom Martin Memorial Park and the area North of the Eads Bridge. Since that project is out of the way, that’s where I see Killeen Studio’s development going in terms of location, but I could be wrong. Even if the project doesn’t happen, it still gives insight into what East St. Louis ' Riverfront could and should become.
I’ll be sure to keep everyone updated as this concept and project move from the drawing board to a hopeful reality.
Killeen Studio’s Facebook Post.
