City Council - workshop

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Good evening, everyone. I'd like to call the study session of the University City Council to order on August the 10th at 530. Are there, you have before you the regular agenda for the meeting. Are there any requests to make changes to the regular agenda at this time? Hearing now, we will move forward with the update from MSD, City Manager Sharp.

Honorable Mayor Crowe, members of the City Council, today we do have representatives from MSD and their consultants and contractors here to provide an update on the Amherst project. It's what I call it for lack of knowing the official name of the project. So if you all would come to the mic and you can get started. And each of you should have a document on your desk that includes their quarterly update for summer 2026, as well as a couple of other documents.

I'm welcome. And there's a button at the bottom of the mic. You may want to agree.

Okay. All right. So thank you, Mayor, council members and Brooke for inviting us just to give this update summer. We're calling this kind of the summer 2026 update. So generally, that's what I'm going to go through. As you know, we do not have a PowerPoint presentation. Just our activities are mostly focused on design. So that's kind of what I'm going to focus on once I get through my presentation. Mike kind of technical update on what's going on the project for certainly open to field questions and kind of will will figure out from our our group here who's appropriate to answer those but. So, from a design perspective, we have turned into 60% package for the upper river to pair river to pair tributary storage tunnel. So again, this is the project that goes from Shrewsbury on the southernmost end, kind of 44 Shrewsbury, city of St. Louis line down there, up to the north, ending at the Purdue shaft just south of Olive. So it's a six-mile tunnel. It handles all the combined sewer discharges in your municipality. I'm really not intending to give a whole lot of technical explanation of the project as we've been through it a few times, if that's okay with everybody. So as I said, 60% was submitted to MSD towards the end of June. So that's on schedule as we've been stating for the last 18 months or so. Upcoming deliverables, as you see in the quarterly update, will be May of 27. That'll be 95%. And then October of 27, we'll be turning in unsigned, unsealed, 100% design plans for the tunnel and the sites, drop shafts, and so forth. As far as activities that are kind of upcoming, we're going to continue obtaining geotechnical borings, some survey data, and existing utility information. That's in University City, Richmond Heights, Maplewood. Basically, the whole alignment carries forward with those activities. We're getting very close on geotechnical borings. Which would be good from a design perspective. I'll say just from a design perspective, what happens between 60% and 95% is just a lot of design details. It's a lot of technical stuff. Most of our sites are set. Don't expect those to change from what you guys have seen in the past. And so we're just kind of pushing forward with details so contractors can actually bid the project. The other big thing that's happening post 60% will be the start of utility coordination. So we do have a utility coordinator on the project. We're looking at all of our major utility conflicts where we'd have near surface improvements. Obviously, the tunnel, like I've said before, is a couple hundred feet deep. So that does not have any utility impacts. Hopefully, we don't have utilities that deep. So once we get a handle on all of our utility conflicts, we'll be reaching out to all those utility agents. companies to confirm their facilities and start working through adjustment plans. So from a design perspective, that's generally kind of what has happened since the last time we've met with you guys, and then kind of what's coming up over the next few months. So generally, that is my design update. But we're happy to field any questions or other conversation from the city.

Are there questions from members of council? Council member Tiemann.

Was there any more? Honorable Mayor, thank you. Was there any more that you planned on all of you giving to us other than this?

I do not. From a presentation perspective, no. We're just kind of here to field your questions and provide answers as you guys have topics. You have nothing else? I mean, that's quarterly update from a design perspective. Okay.

Um, first of all, how many houses are you going to take on Amherst?

I'll defer to MSD on that as the design consultant.

I'll stay up here with you. Uh, the total number of, if we could have your name, uh, yes, Jim Donachek, the, uh, Assistant Director of Engineering for MSD. Total number of homes, I believe, is five. That is six parcels, five homes.

Were there no plans considered that would not have taken these private homes?

We went through many iterations of what that shaft and shaft location might look like. The proximity to the outfall that we have to get to for the drop shaft is the primary driver there.

What about the cemetery that's no more than 100 yards from where you're digging? We did not consider the cemetery. Why?

There was a lot of issues with the cemetery.

There's a lot of issues with living people, too.

I don't know that I can give you an answer that will satisfy you other than that there is a lot of hurdles to get through in a historical cemetery of that nature.

Well, it's not my house that's being taken. You don't have to satisfy me. It's all of those people there.

From an environmental perspective, Councilman, it's frowned upon. to do cemetery work and remove grave sites and go through all that. There's a lot.

I can understand that, but I think it's a really big mitzvah to think about the living people too. It is. And it seems to me that you originally presented us another plan that was supposed to happen down on Heman, Heman Park, right around there. And it seems to me that there are alternatives that you could have considered other than taking the homes of people taking their homes. I also want to say that, I mean, there has been a lot of keeping us in the dark about this. I live right there. I'm the councilman who represents these folks, along with my colleague Dennis Fuller, who lives just another block or so away. I'm president of the Barclay Square Neighborhood Association. I can see the project from my yard. If I was 50 years younger and had an arm like Scott Roland, I could throw a baseball and hit it. Beyond that, these are my neighbors. These are people I know and I love. Why have I been kept in the dark about this?

If it appears that way, we are truly sorry.

No one has ever approached me from you guys. No one ever. I heard about this project when two neighbors were walking down the street walking their dog. That's how I first heard about it. Most of what I know about it, I've heard secondhand from my neighbors, from people on the council here, but not from you.

That was never our intent. We have been discussing with staff for some time. But if you were unaware or we were to directly reach out to council members, we were not aware of that.

This is the first time I've heard somebody officially say to me that it's five homes. Today, now, right here. I mean, I've guessed it. It's not hard to guess because I can talk to my neighbors here who's gotten an offer, but I don't hear it from you. You know, these are people I love. This is my neighborhood. People are talking about selling their homes who aren't even near there. Let me go on to some other questions, some more long-term questions. What assurances can you give us about maintaining property values during and after this?

We are going to follow all of the rules and regulations as required by the state, the county, university, city code requirements as far as the construction permitting for the contractor that we'll consider sound, noise, aesthetics.

I've been asked about sound. One of my neighbors does recording and is an actor and does various things. As long as you mentioned sound, what assurances do you have that there won't be overwhelmed with noise?

There will be construction noise during regular business hours. We're, Jacobs is currently considering evaluating that.

Yes, we've taken existing noise readings in the area. And we're building a noise model right now that's considering construction equipment. The noise model is not complete, so it's still ongoing to see what kind of mitigation we may or may not have to do based on construction.

Could you please keep me in the loop on that so I can tell people about this? But you really don't have any guarantees that property values won't drop if somebody, say, in the middle of this construction tries to sell their home.

Yeah, we couldn't begin to answer that question for you.

Well, you're beginning construction. You know, it seems like this, you know, people worried about selling their homes.

I mean... From an end result, from an end result, Councilman?

Can I get you to come a little closer to the microphone? Because we've got people that are watching and won't be able to hear this.

From an end result... The existing permitted CSOs will be mitigated. So odors will be much less. The streams will not have toilet paper in them. All the other things that are present in those streams because of combined sewer overflows. So an end result, it's a positive to the environment as the consent decree requires.

I must say, to be absolutely honest with you, I've never opposed the project. I'm opposing the way you're doing it. these properties will also be taken off the tax rolls. So will there be any way that you compensate University City for both the loss in personal property tax as well as the loss in school taxes?

I cannot answer that question. I know I think your city attorney is maybe anticipating some questions regarding that, but I can't answer those questions for you.

All right. When you're done, who will maintain this land? Will you?

The district will own and maintain that land, yes.

In perpetuity?

Yes.

Okay. What are your daily working hours? I mean, what hours can we expect this to happen during?

Construction hours, I believe, will follow whatever the University City construction hours are.

Yes, that's the way our specifications are written currently for Amherst.

Do you know what those are, just right off him?

Off the top of my head, I don't know. Many municipalities are seven to five, but I wouldn't want to- It would be something approximately seven to five. It's your ordinance.

Okay. Will the trees be replaced?

We can talk about what a landscaping plan would look like. We're totally open to doing some kind of tree replacement or landscaping on that property when we're done.

Will you assure access to the residents who live right there?

During construction?

Yeah, during construction, you know, so they can get in and out with some ease? Yes. Okay. I want to, I thank you, Honorable Mayor, for indulging me as I ask these questions. Let me just say, I have some concluding remarks I'd like to, and then I turn it over to my learned colleagues. These are people's homes, right? A person works hard to get a little something in life and you come in and overpower them and take it all. People can live with all manner of decisions, even decisions that go against them, but you have to ask two questions. Do you feel heard? Do you feel included? You make me angry, but mostly you just make me sad. I'm an optimist and I tend toward trust, but this is an unmitigated disappointment. I think I have an idea. I don't know if I'm right, but I have an idea that you had this made up from the very beginning and all the rest was just PR. That's the way it feels. I don't know if that's exactly what it is, but that's certainly the way it feels. I think about Project Clear and I think it's a good thing. And I think you're doing something very positively. for the larger community, and I commend you for that, and I sincerely mean that. I don't oppose it. Indeed, I have long supported it, but I'm saddened by the method. You depress me. I'm not accusing you of being immoral. I'm not accusing you of being unfeeling, but I am accusing you of being arrogant, but not including people. You remind me of the quote from the Greek Gatsby, They were careless people, Tom and Daisy. They smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their vast power, their vast money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that held them together and let everybody else to pick up the mess. My neighborhood won't be the same. It's a quiet neighborhood right now. The way it is in this room right now, this is the way my neighborhood is. And I'm going to lose these people right here as my neighbors, many of them. Thank you, Honorable Mayor.

Council Member Dancy.

Will we receive another update prior to the public meeting in the summer of next year?

Yes, we've committed to quarterly updates.

In person, quarterly updates.

If you want us to be here in person, yes.

Okay. Thank you.

Council Member Fuller. Thank you. Thanks for being here. After the last meeting, we did talk about informally communicating with the surrounding neighbors. Is that going to be done?

Yes, there is a schedule for that. We're not there yet. We're still not far enough along.

I'd really like for you guys to have a sit down meeting with the neighborhood. When we initially asked about this, you all need to know this didn't come from your mouth. We asked what the addresses were. Your office would not even share that with us.

That's correct.

Meanwhile, all the people that were contacted were talking with us.

That's their prerogative to do so.

I understand that's their prerogative. What about the surrounding people around there? Shouldn't they have an opportunity to know that this is going on? That has not happened. It needs to happen. It needs to happen now. Not somewhere down the road. I'm very upset about the communication that's going on here. I've also talked with my state senator and my state legislator. This is not how we run a community. You guys are part of our community, or we're part of your community. I don't like how this has treated the residents. Furthermore, what about the other whole back up on Purdue? Have those properties been purchased and they're set for

destruction as well the purdue apartments have has the acquisition has been completed on that yes all right is there a schedule when they are going to be uh destroyed uh i can only give you a general timeline uh we have to get the utility shut off then they'll be as best as i'd like to have that all go to our city manager so that we have some communication absolutely all right thank you um

Then when we have all these timelines going down, when are we going to start actually digging? Once we go through the schedule, projected?

Well, I would say... 28? No, no. It'll be after 2030 would be my best estimate at this time.

The project anticipates... awarding a contractor at the end of 2030 but then their mobilization they have to build a tunnel boring machine i mean best guess would be sometime or maybe 2031 so there's a possibility i'll be gone and long gone before this starts is what you're saying right

Okay, that's all. I just really want to know when we're actually going to break some ground. In the meantime, how are we going to maintain these? Who's going to be responsible for maintaining these sites? So once you buy the houses, you tear the houses down, you tear the apartments down. Now we've got vacated land. Somebody in your organization is going to be responsible for maintaining these sites until we break ground. Okay. Can we get that in writing?

I think we've done that, but yes.

Thank you.

Council Member Brenner.

Thank you, Mayor. I am noticing two things. One, there is a little bullet point down here under recent upcoming activity. We will notify the city when easement acquisitions start in a new area. And I'm also noticing the two black marks, one in almost at the border at pagedale and then another one that looks like it's around vernon somewhere um are those going to be additional sites where we're going to be losing properties or what's going on there the one in pagedale i don't believe it's in pagedale yeah i don't think there's nothing that crosses the border in the university city on that pagedale site yes the one at vernon there will be because there's a black there's a black dot in u city right now But anyway, okay, the one I'm burning will be a U-City?

Yes.

Can we start talking now about what that is instead of waiting until you've been trying to buy things?

We will let you know when we are ready to start the acquisition process there so that you're aware before we start.

Well, what type of properties will those be? Are those residential? Is that commercial? I can't tell from the map very well.

I believe they're all residential.

So we have more coming.

I could just add a little bit to the conversation. I'm Beth Quindry.

Just your name.

I'm Beth Quindry with Shockey Consulting, and I support the Jacobs team on communications. So the perspective I would offer is the team does take very seriously that these are people's homes. They looked at a lot of different options. This is the last thing. We don't like to be in situations like this. This is not just because it makes us uncomfortable, but because we do care about people. These are MSD's customers. They're your residents. MSD has to think about the engineering problem that it has to solve. And so the fact that there are multiple CSOs that converge on that site make it the site that was selected for property acquisition. But that's a last resort. And so I just want to say that these are people who care about people. And there's an engineering problem. So it doesn't change what happens on Amherst. And I appreciate that. We appreciate that. But to say that we don't care, it's just not accurate. Many of the questions that, and then on the issue of just trying to be transparent, we're working on it. So the quarterly updates that you've received are an effort in that direction. The questions, many of the questions that you brought, the good questions that you brought up tonight, Councilman, were answered in February in materials that were given to the city and distributed to elected officials. So we're trying. I hear you on wanting to have a sit down meeting with you all. I think where our hesitancy is like some of those questions about construction, we can't answer them yet. And so it makes us nervous to come to you at a time before we know everything. that. Our job as design engineers or these folks' job as design engineers is to create the specifications that are given to construction contractors. Then the construction contractors get to make a lot of decisions that these folks don't have control over. So that's part of the hesitancy, but we hear you and we're really trying to listen. And so what I'm hearing tonight is that we have more progress to make, but just know that we are trying to And we do care. So that's all I would add.

Thank you. I appreciate the comments. My only comments that I would make is, and this is not necessarily about MSD, but we've been down the pathway before. We were on channel two about the golf course driving range. We've been in the post dispatch about the golf course driving range. But we had meetings with our residents and the golfers to explain what was going on, what the problem was, and what possible courses of action are. I don't think it's too much to ask you to do the same thing. So I understand there may be hesitancy. I understand you may have to say, I don't know, we'll get back to you. But I think every now and then you kind of got to get from behind the curtain and have a meeting with the residents not only that you are currently impacting at amherst but the ones that possibly near vernon the ones that the ones up on olive i mean you know none of the none of us enjoy being on the front pages of paper none of us enjoy getting our teeth kicked in but sometimes it comes with the territory and these folks are asking these questions because those folks are asking these questions and sometimes it'd be good for there to be a straight shot a straight shot of communication. By the way, you have the meeting. Probably 5, 10, 15 people show up. It's an hour and a half of your time. It may be uncomfortable, but I think it will go a long way to address the concerns of our community. And I, along with my colleague, I think we probably all support Project Clear. I mean, you're sitting in probably the most liberal suburb of St. Louis County. So I think we're all pretty good on Project Clear. But we also think that we're doing our fair share here. And we'd like for you to communicate directly with our residents and answer their questions. We can have it at our Hema Park Community Center. You can have it at a place of your choosing. I'm sure the residents could find it, whatever it may be. It can be live streamed or not. But folks, you know, I know we all have the benefit of going back to our offices and keep doing what we're doing. But it would really help a lot to have a conversation with the people who are impacted. No one is going to expect perfection. All they would like is honesty, candor, and a plan going forward. Mr. Smotherson. Thank you, Mayor Crowell.

The question that I have is specifically for the third ward, and it does have to do with the tunnel shaft. And I'm not sure if that's Ferguson or Sutter, the way this is indicated. I believe that's probably Ferguson. But... You keep indicating that that tunnel shaft is in Pagedale. The question I have is if you can provide the exact address where that tunnel shaft is so that we, especially in the Third Ward, aren't surprised by this actually being in U City and not Pagedale. Because the way you've got this marked on this map, it's U City. So I just wanted to verify, if you would, the address that this tunnel site is.

I understand your question. You're not going to like my answer. I can't give you the address. It is very close to U City, but it is not in U City.

Even though where you're indicating this is in U City.

That map may be a bit out of date.

Okay.

The parcel that you're looking at there, I believe, is a St. Louis County-owned parcel. that sits right on the border between Pagedale and University City.

Can you give me an exact location of what that site is?

How about an updated map? I'll join my colleague here. How about an updated map then? I mean, it's your map we're going off of.

I understand. Right. And that's what I'm asking. So we're clear.

I will review what you guys have and confirm or update that.

Okay. Thank you.

I understand your question, though.

City Manager.

I don't know, Mayor Crow. Mayor Pro Tem Smotherson, if it does help, I will say there is a project that I passed on Pennsylvania that is in Pagedale. I come in that way. I come up Pennsylvania. There is an MSD project that's occurring. It sits in Pagedale. It's across from the Popeyes. It's like right at the intersection of Pennsylvania and Page. So if that is this project, then it is squarely in Pagedale.

I'll go a step further, but if it's not the same project, I've got it with council members and others, and I'd like to just see an updated map.

Because I'm very aware, and I'm sorry, I'm very aware of that project that's in Pagedale. I mean, I know about the Popeye's chicken right there in the corner. I'm there all the time, and I know about that project. This doesn't look like that location, so I just want to be clear, and I appreciate it. Thank you.

Are there other questions of MST or their team here this evening?

I have one more comment to make just regarding the overall philosophy of why we are where we are. We're in certain locations within your community and other communities to the south based on where those existing permitted CSOs are. We've said this almost for 12, 15 months now as we've been meeting with you. It's a best fit line on where we have shafts and intakes and drop shafts to solve the problem. There's some 40 plus permitted CSOs that the project is correcting. Amherst is one of, by volume, the highest and worst locations. Purdue is also another very high volume. The CSO that comes out from underneath Olive Boulevard is a high volume location. if you were to try to take those and move those somewhere else, right, you're just... The amount of infrastructure you would have to build to get to another location instead of just dropping it down into a tunnel at that location is also very disturbing. So I'm just kind of reiterating what Beth from Shockey said. It's just... We're at these locations because of the problem that's been there for decades and decades and decades. I... But we're not intentionally trying to relocate people and move people from their residence.

Well, I don't think anyone thinks you're intentionally trying to relocate people. I think all we're trying to ask is that you deal with the residents with respect and you have communication with them and you answer their questions and you have a plan going forward. Council Member Fuller.

If you just said that from the get-go, we wouldn't be having this argument here tonight, or this confrontation, I guess. I did not know that that's a major CSO. You know, this is all communication again. Thank you.

Sorry, Councilmember Tiemann.

Since I've kind of played the role of the heavy And one of the things I want to say to you is that it would not occur to me that you're bad people. And I want you to understand that. But it does occur to me through the various questions my colleagues have had, through my questions, that you're careless. I would even say in making these kinds of things arrogant, If I didn't say that, I wouldn't be conveying the thoughts of my colleagues, of my constituents. I would be misrepresenting them if I said otherwise. Again, I want to emphasize that this isn't a question of you personally, but as a corporation, as a corporate act, you've crushed the souls of people. You've taken their homes. all because the engineering is a little easier to do it this way. Thank you, Honorable Mayor.

Just real quickly on a more minor note, maybe we'll say, but the city right-of-ways, how are they impacted on this? And John, you can speak further if you'd like or.

Thank you, Mayor, members of council. Yeah, this project will involve using at least temporary city right of way. Is that correct?

Yes, in various stages of the project.

Will that involve street closures and digging into streets?

um for the tunnel proper maybe some there are follow-on collector sewer projects that will feed various drop shafts that are not designed we don't have those yet but there will be impacts that may require street closures from time to time Okay.

And when do you think that information will be available on that level of detail, the areas that you'll need to disrupt and the extent of that?

Jeff on when those other projects will be complete.

Yeah. I mean, for the tunnel, 95 to a hundred percent, again, is planned for May to October of 27. We'll know more than, um, feel like i want to scoot back just a little bit and state right we've intentionally picked being in as much public right-of-way as possible to minimize impacts to residents or commercial buildings so yeah we are focused on impacting those streets if we can and it makes engineering sense and it's it's it's logical from closure perspectives um But as Jim said, most of the near-surface sewer projects that will feed most of the combined sewer overflows into the tunnel are standalone projects that are at a 15% design stage now. They're not far enough along. We just know, okay, along this stretch, Pennsylvania, for example, there's... eight CSOs that run along the creek, we know we're going to have a near surface sewer project that is there. And that's why when we show you on our maps, it's a big broad paintbrush because we don't know if it's on the north side of the street, south side of the street, runs down the middle of the street yet. We know that there's a need for a project there because in order to get rid of the CSOs and meet the consent decree, we got to feed the tunnel the sewage. So to be determined in a lot of locations, the tunnel proper, Purdue is probably the big one. that we're looking at a closure right now, just because it's a major construction site with the shaft being there. But the property that we acquired is the only residents on that street.

I mean, we need to work with city parks and the city on making sure access to the park is still maintained. But as far to give you kind of a general timeframe, which is still rough at this time, excuse me, those near surface sewers are currently scheduled to come into a design complete review stage between 2032 and 2034. So we're still quite a ways from those.

Yeah. As you can imagine, the Public Works Department plans capital improvements out over a number of years, maybe even five years. So the city shouldn't invest money improving infrastructure that's going to be torn up in a matter of a few years. So that kind of detail, that kind of advanced information, I think would be very helpful to at least the Public Works Department and others in planning.

We're happy to share the right-of-way impacts as soon as we can.

Thank you. Council Member Brenner.

Thank you, Mayor. I would suggest at least giving preliminary because, just like Mr. Mulligan said, we plan way out. For instance, we just did a beautiful job repaving Pershing, and if you all of a sudden told me that you're going to tear that whole thing up in five years, I'd be pretty upset. So... Even even I mean, you kind of know. The potential roads, just let them know now, don't wait until we're at unless you think there's going to be huge changes, like just kind of preliminary. These are the streets we think most likely will be impacted. It would be very helpful.

We've provided those general big broad paintbrush to the city through staff meetings. Again, not detailed, but I believe we've done what you just mentioned just from a high-level perspective.

Council Member Smotherson. Thank you, Mayor Crowe.

Just very quickly, the tunnel, because that's going to be a major tunnel at Midland and Olive. And I just wanted to get an update on what happens with U-Haul, because this tunnel is right next to U-Haul. Will U-Haul exist? And also, I appreciate Council Member Brenner's remark in that statement that Olive is being repaved and should be completed in 2027. What effect is that going to have at Olive and Purdue? Because that's where this site is. Basically it is basically on Olive and Purdue, even though you're just saying Purdue.

U-Haul remains unaffected. Um, Purdue Avenue, um, from what we're thinking would close, would close just South of the U-Haul facility. So all those entrances access points that U-Haul remain as is, um, the major CSO that's under Olive that contributes to Upper River to Paranal. That existing channel to the west will be improved. That's maybe a little bit on his property, but mostly to the properties to the west. As far as Olive being repaved in 2028, I presume that's by MoDOT. MoDOT's 27. Again, we won't be there until 2031. I would doubt MoDOT is going to push Their plans, the road is designed for heavy trucks and construction. We're not tearing olive up anywhere. We'll be under it in front of the Heman Park, but at 200 feet, yeah.

Mr. Mulligan.

Thank you, Mayor, members of council. So Heman Park, you mentioned Heman Park. How will Heman Park be impacted with this project?

It won't be. We're not in the park with the tunnel, the shafts, intakes. There's two CSOs, two existing permitted CSOs that sit just south of the pedestrian bridge. um that crosses upper river to pair we'll need we'll need some temporary access to tie into those interceptor diversion structures and make that sewer go over to our tunnel but uh that's short-term work to get that converted instead of you know again right now that discharges right out into the creek and we need that discharge to go into the tunnel to clean the creek up so We'll be asking the city for some easements, construction easements, to work around that pedestrian bridge to get that flow converted. But that's the only impact to Heeman Park. We'll be under Heeman Park with the tunnel as it goes up Olive and then it cuts over to the Purdue shaft. But again, we're 200 feet deep. So no impacts to the park.

And the staging areas around there?

That's all the apartment complex. I see.

Any other questions? Hearing none, thank you for your presentation this evening. We look forward to our next meeting.

Thank you very much for having us.

There's nothing else before the study session. We will stand adjourned until 6.30 for the regular session. To everyone who came, thank you for joining us this evening. If you do have public comments you would like to make, please make sure you stay for the first part of the meeting. We'll get you popped right in for your comments.