City To Review New Proposal For Artistic Bus Shelter

An Alabama man is getting a second chance at being the first artist to design and build an artistic bus shelter in Creve Coeur that would be featured on Olive Boulevard near CVS Pharmacy and St. Luke's Urgent Care.

City officials turned to Christopher Fennell after an agreement could not be reached with the team of Marc Fornes & Volkan Alkanoglu who had a vision for a "Red Riding Hood" themed bus shelter, but who split up as a team at some point after winning the city's design contest.

Fennell has come up with what is being called a "Window Tree Installation" using  planks to build a tree with leaves made out of car windows. The design will be reviewed Monday night by the Creve Coeur Planning and Zoning Commission.
Here's how Fennell described it in information included in city documents for the meeting:

"The bus stop shelter sits upon a road that used to be made of planks, so therefore why not build the trunk of the tree out of planks that start as a wide deck and progress up the tree, circling over the viewer, narrowing as if a road in forced perspective. Then fill out the canopy in leaves made of car windows. The tree will rise up on the left of the bus stop shelter giving the patrons shelter from the spray of oncoming cars, it will rise over them, leaving enough room for a wheelchair. The trunk divides into two branches with a piece of plexi in between to act as a small roof for those standing next to the tree. On drier days the patrons can sit a bench on the far right side of the platform and gaze up into the 40 car windows that make up the canopy.Each window will be rimmed in a thin channel of steel such that the edge of the window is protected from hail and stones. The base of the shelter will be a concrete pad that has a surface that resembles wood. It will be cast against wood planks leaving their impression in the pads surface. This pad will be even with the grade so that it can be easily cleaned. The tree itself is constructed of steel plates painted black and has an inside surface of tapering grey wood planks. The bench is made of the same materials grey wood on welded black steel. The canopy will have four LED lights that illuminate the canopy and shelter at night."

Metro has already provided feedback for the design, along with the Creve Coeur Arts Commission. According to documents prepared for Monday's meeting, it would take 2 months to build the structure and a total of 4 months for the entire scope of the project.