Creve Coeur Bus Shelter Project Runs Into A Stop Sign

Little Red Riding Hood may not be coming to Creve Coeur.

Artists who won a design competition for a public transit shelter to be located near the CVS Pharmacy and St. Luke's Urgent Care on Olive Boulevard have not been in contact with city officials for several months, and have yet to sign a contract for the project.

Creve Coeur Planning and Community Development Director Paul Langdon told City Planning and Zoning Commissioners Monday that as a result, city officials are looking at other alternatives, including the possibility of working with the artist who finished second in the initial selection process.

Volkan Alkanoglu, who paired with Marc Fornes to win the contest last year, told Patch by email Wednesday that he notified city officials in July that Fornes was now solely involved in the project. He said he was "unaware of the current situation" and declined further comment.

Plans to move forward with the project had stalled first as the city discovered earlier this year that it needed to acquire more access to the property than expected. Once that was done, city officials said they were ready to sign a contract to go ahead with the shelter, but could not reach the artistic team.

Kelly said Wednesday she received an auto-reply email from Fornes suggesting that his operation may have been impacted by Hurricane Sandy.

City officials have said that if they do hear from the artist, even now, they would still like to move forward, but in the meantime, they have made contact with the runner-up, Chris Fennell. Fennell's design, using recyled bus materials, would not be used if the city contracted with him, Langdon said.

"We have to start a parallel track now where at some point we go with somebody else and just tell this guy hey, sorry, took you too long," Langdon said.

The money spent so far in the process, for access to the property and to the artists for their designs, came out of a fund established by the developer and construction firm on the project, meaning technically, no public funds have been spent so far on the project.

Kelly said the city would proceed with an effort to revise a city ordinance to extend the amount of time available to spend the money set aside for the project.