The Welsh Baby Carriage Factory is currently being converted into 132 one- and two-bedroom loft style apartments. It will be marketed as the Soulard Market Apartments.
I go out of my way to get stuff from Soulard Market. Considering some articles in the last half year or so about the market's financial woes, I think that this will really be a boon to it. All those residents just walk right out their door, and they have fresh fruit, produce, a butcher and a bakery...great stuff! For everyone involved...
I live directly accross the street from the market and it is the greatest thing in the world. I have been watching the Baby Carriage Factory construction for almost 2 years now and am very excited. Those people are going to love living there. We just need to get some of these properties cleaned up around soulard that are open fields and have trash blowing around in them. A little landscaping or a fense goes a long way.
I stopped by yesterday and took a a few photos. The top photo was stiched together from three seperate photos. Photos shows that windows are being installed on the top floors and the last photo shows that framing has already begun on the ground floor as well.
In addition to the great location, the views of the downtown skyline are going to be incredible. Great building, great project. It's amazing it didn't happen sooner.
Seeing that most buildings/houses in Soulard have been rehabed or are now very expensive like in New York to buy and rehab, one wonders about the future housing of Soulard. The Welsh building will definitely add to Soulard's population, but the neighborhood is still not dense or connected to other neighborhoods that are more so. Dang highway.
So I pose the question: With the loft/apt./condo market growing in Soulard Will Soulard expand east to the Riverfront??
The riverfront is not intensely industrial and surely a new community could be born and connected to Soulard.
no way that will happen, not at least for 50+ years. Still too much open space west of broadway that can be used that isn't industrial. The area close to the river is just too industrial and frankly, not attractive.
Here is a photo and proposed signage taken from the city's <A HREF="http://www.stlouis.missouri.org/citygov ... eservation board</A> for the Soulard Market Apartment Lofts in the old Welsh Baby Carriage Factory. It looks like the preliminary application will be denied as the signs do not meet the Soulard Historic
District Standards. Should be interesting to see what they come up with.
Ahhh...so that's why they were keeping the smokestack! Every time I walked across the overpass, I'd wonder why they didn't tear that down.
By the way, I've been reading this board for a while now, and finally decided to start posting here. The enthusiasm you all share for the city is very encouraging!
Toured this building today with my wife. It was tremendous. because the lady working on sunday was boored and no one had come by when we toured, they showed us around the uncompleted sections of the fifth floor. The views of downtown are really nice, but the views of soulard are better. really a great looking development. Sounds like the sched. is for everything to be done in Febuary. around 10 people live in the building now, and only parts of the A (Broadway) section are done. The B and C will follow. From what i was shown, the A and B will probably meet their Febuary deadline, but the C might not be done untill sometime in the spring. It looks like a great development.
I just bought a uilding down the street from there (I've been moving in for the last few days). I was womndering about it too as I drove by this morning (I saw the new windows).
I've ony lived there for a week - but I'm a bit suprised about how quiet it is. Soulard could definatley use more density. There are still so many building in there that are vacant, just waiting to be rehabbed.
Looks great. My only gripe is the vast parking lot. Couldn't they have put some parking underground and made a park or something? It's another un-urban dead zone.
STLgasm wrote:Looks great. My only gripe is the vast parking lot. Couldn't they have put some parking underground and made a park or something? It's another un-urban dead zone.
I agree, but lets not get ahead of ourselves here. They spent $30+million to renovate this sucker and it looks like a nice job. Unfortunantly, St. Louis isn't dense enough to make underground parking the 'norm' and it's hard to expect developers to dish out that extra cash (a lot extra). But it would be great.
My hope is that all the new people will eventually cause the land to be too valuable to be left open for parking. Everytime they renovate an old building, we get closer to that reality.
Well, at least by leaving the parking area open, if they find that there is enough demand, the owners could come back at a later time and possibly try and expand the complex and add garage parking. Really, when i looked it over, the only downside was that I would be willing to pay for the garage parking, which they don't offer, just a gated remote secured lot with a gate and fences. That centeral courtyard has a nice pool as well.
The most intersting/ weird part is the proposed retail down in the basement. Don't really know how that is gonna work, but suposedly the developers are trying to get retail in the basement, i mean they don't even have full windows and from the questions I asked, all the entry ways are done through buzing you in, so it makes it harder for someone to just walk along and wander in. All i can say is good for them if it all works, because its a great development with teriffic views.
