4 Maplewood Blocks to Lose Mature Trees to Street Construction

Residents in the 7300 and 7400 blocks of Gayola Place and Richmond Place will get new concrete streets and sidewalks this year, but they will also lose approximately 14 mostly mature trees in the process.

The trees currently have red Xs painted on them, and all but one of those will need to come down as the result of scheduled new street and sidewalk construction this year.

The Xs drew attention of a St. Louis city resident who works in Maplewood, who took photos of many of them and posted them on Facebook, hoping to save them.

Maplewood Director of Public Works Anthony Traxler said all the marked trees were examined by a certified forester, who decided that one tree with an X can remain. 

“The others would suffer too much damage to their root systems to safely keep the trees when excavation for the sidewalk and street (eight inches of concrete, four inches of rock base) took place,” Traxler said in an email to Patch.