By Theodore Geigle
The Scene staff
Signs of neglect could be found throughout the Forest Park campus over the summer.
Buildings scarred by crumbling concrete, rusted panels and cracked walls. Weedy flower beds and stone-filled planters. More than a dozen trees dead or dying. Ripped banners. Dry fountains.
“They need more flowers,” said nursing student Bridget Campbell, 27, who was walking near the cafeteria with her friend, Nautica Jones, on a scorching hot day.
“It brings out a different type of personality, in my opinion. Now it looks plain. Some people like to stop and smell the roses. I’d also like to see a little waterfall. Nothing too extravagant, just something relaxing.”
Workers removed ripped banners and did some weeding before the start of fall semester, but many problems remain.
President Julie Fickas said in an interview that the college has an improvement plan in the works.
“The main problem we have with our plan is that we need to get ahold of the funding first,” she said. “(Improvements) won’t happen all at once. It may be done in phases. That is what I expect.”
Fickas announced in the Oct. 10 employee newsletter that workers will begin painting windowsills and metal trim on buildings later this month.
Heather Hemingway, an instructor in the Longbow Academic Readiness Accelerator program, thinks the new Center for Nursing and Health Sciences and adjoining plaza with “Light Walls” has improved the look of campus.
“I want them to keep going,” she said. “If I had any advice, it would be that they need more shade.”
10 years of change
For years, Forest Park’s minimalist brick architecture was accented by trees, bushes and colorful flowers that filled landscaping beds, aggregate planters and window boxes.
That changed with the 2017 departure of Facilities Manager Dennis Kozlowski, who was known for his green thumb.
The following year, officials said the college was transitioning to a landscaping plan that included more native plants to increase sustainability.
Facilities removed colorful bushes that lined the cafeteria and surrounded a statue next to C Tower. They stopped planting petunias and other annuals in the summer and mums in the fall.
“Next year, we should have some daffodils, some crocus, some freesia, a little bit of color,” said Wolf Veverka, facilities supervisor at the time.
“We all work at this together because, really, the students are our customers. We need to do what we can, in the area we can, to make the school as appealing and attractive as we can.”
In 2018, the college planned to build a new butterfly garden to replace one that was destroyed during construction related to the new nursing center, but that never happened.
Cuts in grounds budgets
The Forest Park grounds budget has decreased overall in the past 10 years, according to STLCC figures provided to The Scene in response to a Missouri Sunshine Law request.
The amounts were:
• $194,212 in 2013
• $217,234 in 2014
• $268,246 in 2015
• $239,437 in 2016
• $163,866 in 2017
• $191,836 in 2018
• $167,664 in 2019
• $176,600 in 2020
• $155,403 in 2021
• $153,360 in 2022
That contrasts with the Florissant Valley and Meramec campus grounds budgets, which have remained relatively stable during the same period.
Forest Park paid no outside contractors for mowing or landscaping in 2013.
Subsequent budgeted amounts were:
• $3,905 in 2014
• $14,021 in 2015
• $14,651 in 2016
• $2,450 in 2017
• $11,440 in 2018
• $12,190 in 2019
• $21,051 in 2020
• $12,162 in 2021
• $10,532 in 2022
Unsightly areas
In recent months, The Scene staff made multiple attempts to interview the current facilities manager, Ramon Cusi, but they were unsuccessful.
The newspaper staff had planned to ask about:
• Weed-filled tree pads in the courtyard, some with only stumps.
• Blocked-off staircases west of the theater building and West wing due to crumbling concrete and a cracked wall.
• Aggregate planters painted white and filled with red stone.
• Landscaping beds filled with pink stone, overgrown weeds and gaps from missing bushes.
• Ripped STLCC banners (entire frames later removed).
• Rusty panels between windows on several buildings.
• Two-thirds of roughly 50 new trees planted next to the new nursing center dead or dying.
• A canoe-shaped cast-iron sculpture lying in disrepair north of the East wing.
A few bright spots
The Forest Park campus isn’t completely devoid of landscaping.
Colorful flowers and ornamental grasses are mixed with pink stone in one landscaping bed in the hairpin area. Mimosa trees and lavender grow in another bed nearby.
A few hibiscus shrubs were blooming. Creeping phlox fills tiered planters east of the Highlander Lounge. Faculty and staff grow vegetables and herbs in the courtyard between the Hospitality Studies Center and former cafeteria.
“We want to have more plants on campus and will be working on the area between the (Student Center and theater building),” Fickas said. “We are going to put more green space there. We also plan on removing the dead tree stumps around the fountain area.”
Librarian Joseph Rogers would like to see the large rectangular fountain between the library and theater building back in operation. Its sunken water spouts are surrounded by concrete steps, where people used to sit and relax.
“At St. Louis University, they have fountains all over the place,” Rogers said. “People would see it from the highway at Forest Park, and it might pay off in the long run. It might attract some students.”
But that fountain has broken pipes that can’t be repaired, according to Fickas. Officials plan to eliminate it.
“We have to be careful though because that area is above some of the tunnels,” Fickas said.
Officials plan to eventually fix broken pipes for another fountain in the atrium of the theater building.
Also scheduled for maintenance is a crumbling concrete overhang above the west entrance to the theater building and a cracked wall on the northwest corner of the West wing.
“A lot of the issues are having the right people at the right time,” Fickas said. “We had someone take a look at the crumbling areas, and we are currently working on getting someone to fix them.”
Nursing student Daija Davis’ main complaint about the Forest Park campus is that she thinks it needs to be “more modern.”
General transfer student Rey Carrero, 18, has no complaints.
The campus “is nice to me,” he said. “It’s big and open, and I like that. It’s only my first year here, though.”
