West Newsmagazine 5-6-20

16 I NEWS I
May 6, 2020
WEST NEWSMAGAZINE
Revision requests for Downtown Chesterfield
meet with concern from residents
By CATHY LENNY
@WESTNEWSMAG
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At the virtual Planning Commission
meeting on April 27, members asked to
see more visuals of proposed changes to
a property planned for nearly 100 acres in
Downtown Chesterfield.
The proposed Wildhorse Village development
consists of 99.6 acres located west
and southwest of the intersection of Interstate
64 and Chesterfield Parkway West.
Nearly 11 acres of the site include the
mixed-use Wildhorse development already
underway and the adjacent 128-room AC
Hotel.
Property owner Jeff Tegethoff, president
of Pearl Capital Management, is seeking
amendments for the remaining 78-acre
Planned Commercial and Residence District
[PC&R] that surrounds an existing
lake on the site.
At the April 27 meeting, George Stock,
of Stock & Associates Consulting Engineers,
laid out the vision for the residential
and commercial mixed-use development.
It includes a landscape of boardwalks,
trails and gathering places planned around
the lake’s edge.
The urban lakefront would serve as
a “front door” for residential, office and
retail buildings, Stock said. An urban Main
Street would run from Burkhardt Place
around the lake to Veterans Parkway. Treelined
streets would have perpendicular or
parallel parking on them, but the primary
parking will be parking structures.
The northwest lake edge would have
multi-family residential buildings and
commercial spaces. On the southeast lake
edge, plans include a town center inspired
retail environment with living above
small-scale shops and community needs
like a grocery.
“It will truly be a downtown environment
where people can live, work, eat, shop and
enjoy amenities,” Stock said.
The residential hills would be
populated by townhomes and
live-work units in a diverse set
of sizes and configurations. A
mixed-use hub would include
boardwalks, parks, the existing
Chesterfield Amphitheater and a
boathouse.
Mike Knight, assistant city
planner, said there are 12 amendments
proposed to the development
requirements of the existing
ordinance allowing the development.
One amendment includes
removing the distance requirement
between buildings.
“Buildings close in proximity
Aerial for Wildhorse Village development site
to each other is a common element along a
traditional urban Main Street,” Knight said.
The second and third amendments would
increase the first floor and upper story
height restrictions. The sole impact to this
request would be the possibility of taller
first and upper story floors within proposed
buildings, Knight said.
Another amendment, in relation to the
building’s street façade requirement, is
intended to have buildings closer to the
roadway as is often seen on a traditional
downtown Main Street. The developer is
requesting to remove perimeter roads Wild
Horse Creek, Burkhardt Place and Chesterfield
Parkway West from the street façade
requirement.
The remaining amendments would
remove the requirement of retail on the
first floor, permit office and residential on
Rendering of proposed pedestrian walkways at Wildhorse Village
[Source: City of Chesterfield]
[Source: City of Chesterfield]
all floors, and delete the requirement for
ground floor retail in order to have parking
structures along a street frontage.
However, residents involved in Citizens
for Developing Downtown Chesterfield
have reservations. They want to preserve
the vision created in the Envision Chesterfield
Comprehensive Plan.
Kelli Herries Unnerstall said the group
does not support some of the revisions,
particularly on Lake Front Road. They
want to limit the number of buildings and
not allow a parking structure there, so it
doesn’t resemble West Port Plaza, she said.
“Lake Front Road is the most beautiful
part of the development,” Unnerstall said.
“You need to tighten the standards there.”
She also requested that the amenities
mentioned – trails, boardwalks and community
gathering places be included in the
ordinance.
Chesterfield resident Ray
Bosenbecker wants to add even
more restrictions by decreasing
housing density, increasing
owner-occupied units, putting a
cap on the number of rental units
and preserving a higher percentage
of green space. Otherwise,
they could build nothing but
Watermark, he said, referring to
the recently opened apartment
complex on Lydia Hill Drive.
Tegethoff said he plans to “carry
the mantle for [Louis] Sachs,”
whose vision for Downtown
Chesterfield helped to shape many
early decisions for the city.