City Garden

A year or so from now, I expect many St. Louisans to be enjoying weather as nice as today’s at City Garden, a landscaped sculpture garden being built on two downtown blocks between Eighth and Tenth and Chestnut and Market streets. Today, though, the site is almost literally upside down, with water lines being laid underground for irrigation and fountains, and concrete foundations being poured.

When the Garden completed, it will have twenty kinds of trees, plenty of shrubs and flowers, three water features, a café, an LED video wall, and sculptures.

The Garden is a joint project of the City and the private Gateway Foundation. Under a cooperation agreement approved by the St. Louis Board of Aldermen a little more than a year ago, the City will own the garden improvements and will continue to own the land, while Gateway will provide the funding — an estimated $20-25 million.

St. Louis-based BSI Constructors is the general contractor. Nelson Byrd Woltz, a Charlottesville, Va.-based landscape architectural firm, prepared the plan for the garden. Nine St. Louis-based firms helped in the design process, including Studio Durham Architects, which designed the café.