Posted 6:01 a.m. Wed., 02.10.10 - A national competition to design improvements for the Gateway Arch grounds and its surroundings moved forward today with the announcement that nine teams had been selected to participate in the next stage. That task involves completing their teams and presenting themselves again to the jury. They are among 49 teams from the United States and seven other countries that entered the competition last month.

The nine teams include architects, landscape architects, urban designers, engineers and others from across the country and as far away as Denmark, Germany and Mexico City. Only the names of the core members of each team are being made public. Among them are St. Louis-based HOK Planning Group, and Eric Mumford and Peter MacKeith, both on the faculty in the school of architecture at Washington University. Also named is Nelson Byrd Woltz Landcape Architects of Charlottesville, Va., the lead designer for the popular Citygarden in the Gateway Mall.

In April, the field will be narrowed even more. Four or five of the nine teams will be chosen to begin work on their designs. Their challenge: Create ways to enhance and enliven the 91-acre Jefferson National Expansion Memorial (the Arch and grounds), and connect the memorial with downtown, the river, and Missouri and Illinois riverfronts. As part of the competition, sponsored by St. Louis and the National Park Service, they’ll also produce plans for reviving the lifeless St. Louis riverfront, and perhaps expanding the memorial into Illinois with more attractions there.

Donald Stastny, manager of the competition, worked alongside the eight local and out-of-town jury members. He said they chose the nine teams after three days of intense review of portfolios, examples of projects and statements of design philosophy provided by all 49 teams.

In the end, he said, the jurors selected teams that “showed the greatest potential of providing innovating and exciting solutions."

While experience was one consideration, he said, the jurors also “looked for emerging designers who might be able to provide some different kind of ideas.”

“And we wound up with both,” Stastny said, “experienced and emerging” team participants “and a very diverse group, from all over the U.S. and Europe, some known and some unknown.” Stastny is CEO of StastnyBrun Architects, Portland. Ore.

Attorney Walter Metcalfe Jr. is a member of the CityArchRiver 2015 Foundation that is leading the effort to rejuvenate the Arch grounds and surrounding area.

“We expect to get extraordinary solutions," Metcalfe said. The design teams are “high quality and broad-based – national, international and local. We gave them a challenge. They are willing to take on the challenge, and we’ll see what happens next.”

Stastny said the next step takes place Feb. 18 when local contractors, minority- and women-owned businesses and others are invited to meet with representatives of the nine teams from 3-6 p.m. at the Old Court House.

“This will be an excellent opportunity for those businesses to learn about the project and to begin considering participating,” Stastny said.

After the jury announces selection of the final four or five teams April 7, the public will be invited to two events: a “meet the designer night” and, later, an exhibition of designs by the teams.

The competition organizers plan to announce a final plan on Sept 24. The goal of the CityArchRiver 2015 Foundation is to complete construction by the 50th anniversary of the completion of the Arch in 2015.

Corporate and civic groups and individuals have stepped forward to pay for the design competition. The foundation, which includes Mayor Francis Slay, Arch Superintendent Tom Bradley and other local and out-of-town supporters, hopes to finance construction costs with government and private money.