Major CORTEX Project Inches Forward
missouri-metro.com/2022/02/15/major-cortex-pr...
missouri-metro.comPosted Feb 15, 2022, 8:35 PM UTC
5537
missouri-metro.comWith all the parking and large setbacks on so many buildings, Cortex just feels like a fancy suburban office park to me.
I mean I'm happy for the development but it still very much feels like the type of place where you drive into the area park right outside of the building you are going to and then get back in your car and leave.
24
It is, and they wasted the money on a MetroLink station that no one will use because there's garages on every fucking corner. Nice vanity project though. Many a missed opportunity in the early days of Cortex to make it a new 24/7 neighborhood.
-5†
As someone who works in cortex, I use that metro station. Also, before COVID, when people were actually going to work, that metro station was used a decent amount. I really don't think it was a waste of money.
30
The CWE station pre COVID was crazy busy. They needed the Cortex station to help alleviate some of that. Plus Cortex growing…
22
It was used quite a bit by the WashU and Square employees too pre-pandemic. I used it outside of work and also for lunch errands/food runs. I don't see how adding to infrastructure could be a waste of money, especially since it was subsidized by a private investment.
17
Because in my opinion we actively discourage it by building parking garages for employees. Just another policy failure.
-4
How many of your coworkers used it?
-2†
The station averaged 900 weekday riders the year it opened, putting it in the top half of stations that year and basically in line with Clayton and Skinker stations. And that area is only going to continue growing.
Definitely not a waste of money, especially considering it was funded entirely through a federal grant and private dollars.
19
I think a lot of people too have no idea how many nonprofits are in the square footage of CORTEX and adjacent to it. There is so much traffic for that well beyond the office park crowd. I used to work for one employer there who had a lot of airport runs using Metrolink.
13
Yeah, parking is a problem over there for visitors
4
Where are you getting this information?
The information I have from Bi-State shows the following per weekday on average:
- FY 2019 (First Year) - 581 riders
- FY 2020 - 563 riders
- FY 2021 - 289 riders
- FY 2022 (partial year) - 334 riders
I'm not saying it shouldn't have been built but it has been in the bottom half of stations for weekday riders since it opened. That said, I don't believe much if any of the money used to build it came from local government sources. I think it was a federal grant and private sources.
I do think a poor job has been done maximizing the benefits of the transit station in that area though. Directly to the South of the station is a giant parking lot, to the east is another parking lot and a giant lawn setback to the west of the building directly to the North, the buildings a block North almost all have a line of parking lots between them and the station, and even if you want to go to Ikea you have a quarter mile of walking with much of through unpleasant areas around the grain elevator
4
I googled it and came across a data viz from an UrbanSTL poster. It opened in 2018 and that was the data they used, but it was just a partial year for that station.
Sucks to see that ridership didn’t keep, but not too shocking considering the state of office work and public transportation in 3 of those 4 years.
To be fair, most MetroLink stations are surrounded by unused space and parking lots. Cortex is one of the few areas that probably has a real chance at filling some of those in. That “giant lawn setback” is a maintained park that you can walk through diagonally. Not really a huge hindrance to walkability.
4
I work there on Duncan right by the station and the walk from that station to IKEA isn’t unpleasant at all..
2
This is just wrong. Both the CWE and Cortex stops are pretty busy during commuting hours. It is also a high paying area in the city that we want to be accessible with public transportation.
8
And yet, we don't, because there are garages continuing to be built.
CWE is a very busy stop, yes, but don't pretend like Cortex has morphed into anything more than a suburban office park. And it's a shame.
-5
Not everyone takes the metro so yes, garages will need to be built. That doesn't negate the metrolink being a nice addition to that area to make it more attractive. the metrolink stop there is better than like 90% of the stops we have. Look at say the Maplewood stop or a ton of others. They just sort of exist. There isn't anything right near them to make them worthwhile. The Cortex should be lauded for integrating a stop into a busy area, not denigrated.
So would you rather have a high density, ,high tax revenue area out in the county instead of the city? You are acting like a complete misanthrope; nothing is good enough for you. Do you just want the city to fail and have no development?
5
I used that station every single day when I lived in the CWE, as did a bunch of others.
6
That's fantastic anecdotal data, but it doesn't change the fact that they have built and continue to build garages for employees rather than subsidize their transit cards, even being right on the transit line. It could have been a transformative example of what a blank urban development slate could have been, and yet, now, another suburban office park that's dead after 6 or 7pm. Even before Covid it was more dead than Clayton after hours when I passed through.
1
It's also functionally the Ikea metro stop, in that someone who brings their own cart or a large bag could move a modest amount of medium sized flat pack furniture or housewares if they were so motivated. If a person lives around one of the other stops, it's a low budget urban option that students and younger people on budgets who live by the Forest park stations might want sometimes. For example they could transport an area rug and lamp, or a flat pack chair or two, or a whole bed in two trips.
5
Especially if they get the trails set up.
6
I use that station all the time, though not because I ever do anything at the Cortex: I live near the Botanical Gardens, so it’s a short bike ride to that station, and then from there I can go wherever I want in the city.
The nice thing about public transportation projects like train stations is, even if the stop is named after something—Times Sq.-42nd St. in the NYC subway, for instance—you can use it to go to/from whatever the hell else you want. You don’t have to be going to or from the Cortex to use that train station.
5
Hmm, a story about development in the city. Music to my ears. Let’s go have look at the comments… and I’m outta here.
5
It is like two people where nothing the city does us good enough for them. The rest are all defending the city and cortex.
3
Selling droids to moisture farmers I see
2
This project seems completely dead. I imagine it’s just a staging site for another development in the area.
0
Bring me the sandcrawler. Utinni indeed.
UTINNI!!!