[TGE-mail] Commerce lot

[Brett A Beckemeyer]

I would also give my 2 cents on the Commerce Bank lot development. It is
absolutely wrong, and this cannot be stressed enough, that no tenants will
consider leasing without parking visible on Grand. Simply look at Delmar or
Euclid Avenues. What about the multitude of very successful businesses that
currently operate just across the street without any dedicated parking at
all? The Mayor (of all people) saying that it's fine because "people want to
park close to where they do business" shows how anti-urban and
lowest-common-denominator our fair city government is when it comes to
development. They can (and should) expect much more for one of the most
important urban retail environments in the City. The developers are simply
being lazy (and that is fine), but when our own elected officials continue
to pooh-pooh resident concerns and insist on continuing the lie of "this is
the best we can hope for, poor poor neglected St. Louis" when all POSITIVE
development in the past decade in this town shows the opposite is just
infuriating.

Brett