The spiral ramp at the old Famous Barr parking garage in downtown St. Louis is slated for demolition, but a local design firm has a different idea: turn the eight-level ramp into a museum, gallery and event space before the wrecking ball arrives. HOK, a St. Louis-based architecture and design firm, has released a concept video that calls the idea the “Louggenheim.”
The garage, completed in 1962, sits at Sixth and Pine with its distinctive spiral ramp serving as an entrance and exit, according to FOX 2. While the structure is slated for demolition, the station reports that no demolition date has been set and no demolition contract for the site has been awarded. HOK's video rendering depicts the ramp transformed into exhibition and event space, asking viewers, “What is we saved this St. Louis relic?”
HOK staff regularly offer concepts, renderings and videos for reimagining downtown buildings free to interested parties, the station's report notes. Tim Gaidis, HOK's principal and senior designer, said the spiral ramp is a dynamic feature and that the firm hopes to release more ideas soon. Per the same account, Gaidis said HOK plans to release a handful more ideas in the near future, and he added that the ramp could add value to surrounding properties.
A Firm With Skin in the Downtown Game
HOK's interest in the garage's fate comes as the firm has renewed its lease to keep its own headquarters downtown, the report states. That stake in the neighborhood's future may help explain why the firm is spending time dreaming up alternate uses for a structure otherwise headed for the demolition pile.
The Famous Barr garage isn't the only aging downtown parking structure drawing redevelopment attention. New owners of the Kiener East and West garages plan to transform those structures into retail and art destinations, according to FOX 2, with that project planned in phases that start with operational improvements before later addressing the garages' appearance.
Other Garages Face the Wrecking Ball Instead
Not every vacant downtown garage is getting a creative reprieve. St. Louis officials have weighed demolishing the long-vacant parking garage at Tucker and Locust as part of broader downtown revitalization efforts, as reported by St. Louis Public Radio. The city's Land Clearance for Redevelopment Authority voted to hire CDG Engineers for a study under a contract capped at $128,700, after the city's land bank took ownership of the Tucker and Locust property in 2022; the St. Louis Development Corporation has estimated repairs there would cost $15 million.
Separately, development officials have planned to seek bids to demolish the garage attached to the long-abandoned Railway Exchange building, which sits just south of the former Famous Barr flagship, St. Louis Public Radio has reported. Adaptive reuse has worked elsewhere downtown, too — the Victor, a residential project built out of the 1906 Butler Brothers warehouse that had partly been converted into a parking garage, now holds 400 rental units across six floors, according to Architectural Record.
Could Public Art Be Part of the Answer?
A 2018 Downtown STL Public Art Plan identified parking garages as priority mural sites and pushed for improvements to prominent garages and blank walls, St. Louis Magazine has reported. But the city's Downtown Public Art Initiative has since gone dormant, even as the Regional Arts Commission has reported rising public interest in public art — “we've seen a large increase in the public's desire to see public art,” the commission told the magazine. Elsewhere, cities have put real money behind garage art: Lexington's parking authority spent $725,000 on stainless-steel and programmable LED artwork for its Helix Garage, which debuted in 2013.
Whether HOK's Louggenheim concept becomes anything more than a video remains an open question. For now, the old Famous Barr garage sits in limbo — marked for demolition, but without a date or contract to make it happen.
