Originally published in St. Louis Post Dispatch on May 18, 2011
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by Stephen Deere
MARYLAND HEIGHTS • Amid corn and soy fields sit bulldozers, backhoes and orange barrels to keep traffic off new pavement.
Wind whips through rows of lettuce and scatters freshly dug dirt across the Maryland Heights Expressway near Creve Coeur Lake Memorial Park.
Over the years, the roads through the Howard Bend Levee area have grown wider — the harbinger of developers' dreams to transform some of the last remaining farmland in St. Louis County into another large-scale shopping center.
For those who live and work here in the Missouri River bottoms, a $22.5 million levee completed more than five years ago seemed to make development a foregone conclusion.
Now a group of developers is proposing to build a 191-acre retail and entertainment center called Maryland Pointe at the intersection of the Page Avenue extension and the Maryland Heights Expressway — soon to become part of the expanded Highway 141.
Standing in the way are a hodgepodge of residents, activists, environmentalists and the answers to a few pivotal questions.
What impact will the development have on the park, a popular destination for roller bladers, bikers and joggers? What are the risks of building in a flood plain? And how many more shopping centers can this region — which is already considered to have too much retail — support?
"That question has been asked, but we don't have an answer yet," said Wayne Oldroyd, Maryland Heights director of community development.
The plan had its first public hearing before a standing-room-only crowd more than a week ago and is scheduled to appear before the Planning and Zoning Commission again on Tuesday.
At last week's hearing, a team of a consultants, architects, attorneys and developers painted a picture of landscaped boulevards, multiple big box anchor stores and pedestrian trails.
Instead of harming the park's atmosphere, the development would enhance it, said Rich Obertino, of TR,i Architects.
"We are very sensitive to the community's concerns," Obertino said.
Not everyone agrees.
A 500-YEAR LEVEE
When Kim Cuddeback spoke to the zoning commission, her voice had a slight quiver, and she stammered over the word "objections."
She hates public speaking, but as one of the leaders of a grass-roots revolt against the development near Creve Coeur Lake Park, she couldn't escape it.
"Time and again, these types of retail development have been proven to increase poverty levels," Cuddeback said. "They raise the crime rates and empty taxpayers' wallets."
Cuddeback, 42, owns a cafe and catering business in Maryland Heights, grew up playing at Creve Coeur Lake Park and doesn't want it surrounded by asphalt.
A couple of years ago, she helped found Maryland Heights Residents for Responsible Growth in response to another proposal to develop the area around the park. That plan failed because of the economy.
For months, Cuddeback has hosted meetings with other residents concerned about the park's future. She and a few other volunteers work more than 20 hours a week, cobbling together email lists and working on the group's website. They have raised enough money to hire an attorney.
"Blanketing this area with more pavement and rooftops," Cuddeback said, "is only going to cause more flooding."
Some say the levee should have never have been built, because levees push river levels higher and cause what they are supposed to prevent: more flooding.
"How many more terrible floods do we need?" said Robert Criss, a professor of geology at Washington University. "Floods are getting worse every year. … They are getting higher, and one of the primary contributors is flood plain development."
Lorin Crandall of the Missouri Coalition for the Environment said it didn't make sense to add another big box development when so many others were vacant.
"To add hundreds of thousands of square feet of impervious surfaces to an area that is naturally inclined to flood from the inside will only make the flooding worse," he said.
The "500-year" levee is designed to protect against a major flood that has a 1-in-500 chance of occurring in a given year and has been certified by the Army Corps of Engineers.
Oldroyd didn't dismiss concerns about flood plain development but said they were beyond the scope of city planners.
"That is a global question," he said. "Given what we have seen, I think all of us are scratching our heads and wondering what the climate is doing and the impact of that."
SEEKING BIG DRAW
Although the proposal is short on specifics, it's not on ambition.
Rowdy Montgomery, president of Cadre Development, said he and other players involved want to attract what's called a 'super regional" retailer — operations such as Ikea and Nebraska Furniture Mart that have only one store in a metropolitan region.
Doing so would help alleviate one of the major concerns about Maryland Pointe.
In the St. Louis area, the inventory of retail space has grown more than twice as fast as the population over the last decade.
Even within 10 miles of the Maryland Pointe site, consumers have a bevy of large retail outlets to choose from: West County Center, Chesterfield Mall, St. Louis Mills and Chesterfield Commons.
But with a regional retailer, the project would be a "destination," noted the city's planning department's critique of the plan.
Montgomery disagreed with statements that Maryland Pointe was taking land from farmers.
The farmers, he said, were selling it willingly, and that had been their plan all along.
Dan Human, the executive director of the Howard Bend Levee District, said landowners agreed to tax themselves for the levee's construction, knowing it would improve the value of their land.
"The farmers are the ones that got together and proactively pursued the levee construction," Montgomery said.
UPROOTING THIES FARM
The Maryland Pointe proposal has put the owners of another beloved attraction in the area — Thies Farm and Greenhouses — in an awkward position.
The business is run by brothers Darrell and Dave Thies. They sell homegrown produce, plants and flowers and allow customers to pick their own strawberries and pumpkins.
"We love this place," said Darrell Thies. "We would like to stay."
But the business leases land from an owner who wants to sell for the development.
The brothers are remaining neutral in the debate, saying their landlord has every right to sell.
"We don't send people to those (city) meetings," Darrell Thies said. "We don't tell them not to go either."
They have already located land in St. Charles County to move their operation.
Every other customer asks when they are leaving, Darrell Thies said.
The brothers themselves don't know. As it stands, Maryland Pointe is mostly speculative.
"We are just hanging in there, waiting for the hammer to fall," Darrell Thies said.
When they moved to the Maryland Heights location in 1991, they "were out in the boonies," Darrell Thies said.
But as years went by, that changed.
"We are right in the center of everything now," he said.
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