St. Louis Post-Dispatch from St. Louis, Missouri • Page 17

business economy ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH March 20, 1978 7H Planning For A New St. Louis Team Four Style opment project. The Team Four team also includes a real estate market analyst, a specialist in landscape architecture and park development, and a senior associate who handles suburban projects, such as the revitalization of Webster Groves' downtown business section. The staff, including part-time legal researchers, totals 20 people.

Team Four has been reluctant to expand too quickly, fearful that quality control maintained by the three partners might be lost. "One of the dangers in growing big is that you can lose the teamwork," says Albinson. Certainly, Team Four's smallness has been a strong selling point. Nolan Stin-son, planning commission chairman for Creve Coeur, says one reason his city hired Team Four was because they were assured they would be consulting with a principal of the firm. Nevertheless, the company contemplates cautious expansion, perhaps adding an environmental specialist and more actively seeking national clients.

Although Team Four has always had out-of-town clients its second job was in Kansas City roughly two-thirds of its clients are in the St. Louis area. The company wants to maintain its strong regional base before expanding further nationally. As Jerome Pratter puts it: "If you're the baseball Cardinals, you want to win most of your home games." Ward adds, however, that for Team Four "to grow we know we're going to have to grow in other places." Team Four might also expand into architectural design of specific buildings, but Pratter says, "we have so much to work on right now." By LAURA KENNEDY Put together a lawyer, a landscape "designer, an economist, a real estate developer, a sociologist, and an architect and what do you have? A small, multi-disciplinary planning firm named Team Four which has played a significant role in development of the St. Louis area.

Richard Ward, a principal of the firm, discounts Team Four's influence on St. Louis, saying, "we don't think of our- selves as having that profound an impact on the region." But a sampling of Team Four's projects indicates how widespread St. Louis' reliance has been on Team Four's technical information and policy recommendations. In its 10 years of existence, the firm has: Drawn up commercial development plans for Maplewood, Olivette, Creve Coeur, St. Ann and other county municipalities; Assisted in selecting the site for General American Life Insurance Company's recently-built downtown headquarters and for the midtown state office building complex; Assessed the environmental impact of the Air Force's shift of personnel from Richards-Gebaur to Scott Air Force Base; Designed comprehensive plans for redevelopment projects being carried out through Team Four's multidisciplinary university medical schools; Analyzed building use and future planning for Maryville and Lindenwood Colleges; Landscaped St.

Louis County's Laumeier Sculpture Park. The variety of these assignments points up the philosophy behind Team Four: Today's planning problems are so complex that a team of specialists from several disciplines is often required to develop solutions. "I think Team Four has been good for St. Louis because it filled a void it bridged the gap between a variety of professions," says William Albinson, a partner in the firm. Multidisciplinary firms like Team Four are not unusual today, but when Richard Ward, a planner, and Jerome Pratter, a lawyer, founded the firm in 1968, the concept was only beginning to be explored.

"We had a strong conviction that we wanted to deal with the environment on a larger scale," says Ward. Pratter and Ward realized the market for such an approach when, as graduate students at Washington University, they pooled their legal and planning backgrounds to write a new zoning code for University City. Albinson, then a graduate student in architecture, and Brian Kent, a graduate student in urban design, soon joined the fledgling firm to make up the other half of the "four" in the firm's name. Kent moved to Maine five years ago, but Albinson remains a principal, primarily responsible for handling physical design aspects of assignments. Early on, the firm added an economist (Esther Starrels) and a sociologist (Mer-iel Steines) to do such work as cost-benefit analyses, community surveys and feasibility studies.

To expand its real estate expertise, Team Four recently hired Jerry King, former director of the Washington U. Medical Center redevel TEAM 'THREE': Jerry Pratter, Richard Ward originals from and William Albinson (left to right) are three Photo by Robert Competition Grows And Grows The whole planning consultant industry appears to have plenty to work on today, work of such growing complexity that a multidisciplinary approach is often called for. The environmental impact statement required of all major projects has spawned a whole industry in itself, and any project involving federal money usually requires extensive evidence of community participation. The private sector also has added "community opinion" to its traditional concerns of market analysis and site selection. "The communities are getting much more sophisticated in what they demand from private developers," says Ward.

Small municipalities faced with complex questions of development or redevelopment are increasingly willing to pay planning consultants for expert advice. And to pay for that advice, there is increased federal money available, especially from Community Development block grants. Though Team Four's multidisciplinary approach is no longer a rarity, the legal component of its planning team remains a distinctive feature. While consulting firms always have some sort of corporate counsel, the lawyer rarely becomes as involved in the planning procedure as does Team Four's legal staff. "I think that's been unusual from the beginning," says Ward.

Because Team Four has a legal contingent as part of its planning team, the firm frequently not only provides technical information but public policy recommendations as well. Such was the case with a controversial memorandum Team Four wrote for the City of St. Louis in 1975, recommending that capital improvements be frozen in Planning Services With demand growing for planning services, many architecture and engineering firms have gone "full-service" during the last decade by starting planning departments. "Everyone's been forced to become more comprehensive, not just to be competitive but to answer the questions that are being asked," says Neil Porter-field, president of HOK Associates, the planning subsidiary of the architecture Is The Fed Tightening Up? Expanding Money Supply Is Urged By Committee three months has increased about twice as fast as a year earlier. The Fed added $900 million more to bank reserves in the last three months than a year earlier through purchases of Treasury securities.

Such additions are planned and indicate no tightening of Fed policy. An unplanned increase of about $850 million in Fed credit occurred through a rise in float credit given for checks that have not been collected in the last three months, compared with a $200 million decrease a year earlier. Float increases when mail and air service is slowed by bad weather, which we have had plentifully this winter. Float averaged $6 billion in the last three months, compared with $3.3 billion a year earlier. Contrary to the Wall Street Journal's contention, the increase in currency in circulation is not accelerating sharply.

Currency in use rose at a 10.9 percent annual rate in the last three months, compared with 10.2 percent in the previous three months and 10 percent in the last year. The bad winter weather may have added to the public's demand for currency, but the increase obviously was small. Another indicator of a steady Fed policy is the rate of federal funds one-day loans between banks and a target used projects focus more on physical design while Team Four is involved with the "software" end of design. Similarly, Sverdrup Corp. and Harland Bartholomew and Associates, both primarily engineering consultants, have enlarged their planning sections over the decade with specialists from non-engineering disciplines such as biology, sociology and economics.

Question: The Federal Reserve's weekly reports, which are over-analyzed by stock market and other financial experts, are showing wide variations in the growth of the money supply. All that could be disregarded, if the right conclusions were being drawn. But, unfortunately, they aren't. For example, the Wall Street Journal last Friday said in a page 1 story that the Fed since last October has slammed the brakes on the growth of the nation's money supply, which over a long period is a basic determinant of the economy's inflation rate. The money supply has grown at an annual rate of 2.4 percent from the four weeks ended Nov.

9, 1977, the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank's weekly analysis of United States financial data shows. This is a sharp reduction from the 9.1 percent annual rate of increase in the preceding eight months. But the slower rate of growth in money isn't the result of the Fed's "slamming on the brakes." Neither the Fed's basic monetary target nor its additions to the monetary base has been changed in recent months. Over long periods, the money supply changes are closely related to changes inthe monetary base.

The Fed's Open Market Committee, the policy-making body of the central bank, decided at its Feb. 28 meeting to leave unchanged for the year ahead the target for the increase in Ml the narrowest definition of money checking accounts plus currency and coin held by the nonbank public. The Fed plans to add to bank reserves so that the money supply will grow between 4 percent and 62 percent in the next year. This is the same target range established last July, when the lower limit of the target was reduced from 4'2 percent. (That was a meaningless move because money was growing faster than the upper limit of the target.) The committee also left unchanged at 6'2 percent to 9 percent the growth target for the next year of M2 a broader money supply measure that includes Ml plus bank savings and time deposits, but excludes large certificates of deposit.

However, the Fed did reduce the growth target for the next year on M3 by one-half a percentage point to 7'2 percent to 10 percent. This, too, is virtually meaningless because the Fed does not (Post-Dispatch abandoned areas until the private sector showed some willingness to invest. Such a storm of protest was aroused by the recommendation that the city hastily modified the memorandum and did not hire Team Four for another job until this year. the adverse public reaction, which included accusations that Team Four was biased against blacks and the poor, must have come as a shock to a firm which at its founding saw itself as a youthful alternative to traditional architecture and engineering consultants. Ten years later, Team Four still has a bohemian flavor about it.

The company is housed in a rehabilitated police station built in 1905, Richard Ward sports a bushy red beard, and Jermoe Pratter, the grand old man of the firm at 36, says defiantly, "We're never going to be past 40." (Laura Kennedy is a st. Louis freelance by the Fed in setting open market purchases and sales of Treasury securities to add to or subtract from bank reserves. The target rate on federal funds has remained at about 6 percent sjnce mid-January, when it was hiked to help the weak dollar. If the Fed wanted to tighten policy, it would have raised the target rate on federal funds. Arthur Burns, when he was Fed chairman, warned against the use of weekly changes in the money supply as an indication of a change in Fed policy.

Changes over a quarter or longer are better indicators. The new Fed chairman, G. William Miller, has said Fed policy must- be "prudent" so as to slow inflation. "But that statement should be taken with a grain of salt. Burns often said the same thing, but then he allowed the money supply to rise 7.4 percent last far above the target.

As President Jimmy Carter's actions in settling the coal strike indicate, he is more interested in production than fighting inflation. The coal pact is obviously inflationary and will be used as a guide by other unions and companies in settling future labor If the administration is not really concerned about inflation, why should the Fed be different? J. Soltis E. Switzer B. Towerman, CLU B.

Vahlkamp, CLU Team Four, C. Holt Jr.) billkester economic comment directly control deposits in mutual savings banks, savings and loan associations and credit unions. Those deposits plus M2 make up M3. The Fed did hike short-term interest rates in early January, but that was aimed at helping shore up the dollar by making deposits and investments in this country more attractive for foreign funds that could have been transferred to Esurope where rates were higher. In the last five weeks, the monetary base of the nation has not grown, but this is not unusual for short periods.

The monetary base consists of the reserves of commercial banks and currency held by the public. Using monthly figures, the St. Louis Fed said the monetary base in the last 1 I I I To place i your Post- Dispatch WANT I AD i dial 621- I i You can charge it' I i 1 firm, Hellmuth, Obata, and Kassabaum, Inc. When Porterfield was hired 13 years ago, he constituted the entire planning department at HOK. Today, the subsidiary employs some 35 people from several disciplines.

Team Four and HOK Associates are frequently competing for the same jobs, but because HOK Associates developed from an architecture firm, its planning voluntary cooperation of management and labor to hold down prices and wage demands. "While we wish the president success with his incomes policy, we do not consider it strong enough to produce dramatic change," the committee says. Concern over the $30 billion foreign trade deficit of last year. The committee termed the deficit a "serious problem," but said it does not justify legislation aimed at keeping out foreign imports to protect U.S. manufacturers.

"This is not to say that individual industries are not experiencing considerable pressure from import competition," the committee added in advocating a "case by case" approach to the problem of foreign imports. The committee said that projected economic growth at a rate of 5 to 5.5 per cent in 1978 could only be reached if the Carter Administration committed itself to reducing the rate of unemployment averaging no more than 6.4 per cent during the year and falling to 6 per cent by the end of the year. The most recent figures released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that 6.1 per cent of the nation's total work force is unemployed. A minority of Republican members of the committee issued a statement of their views that differed from those presented in the committee's annual report. "The picture on economic growth is not encouraging and the policies being proposed by the administration will not meet our goals," the Republicans said.

The minority, which included Sens. Jacob K. Javits of New York; William V. Roth of Delaware; Orrin G. Hatch of Utah; James A.

McClure of Idaho and Rep. Clarence J. Brown of Illinois, urged more modest growth objectives aimed at holding down inflationary pressures. Rep. Richard Boiling, is chairman of the Joint Economic Committee.

.10 .05 .25 on 3-31 41! 3- 15 4-3 4- 3 4-14 previously 4-14 5-15 4-5 4-15 3- 31 4-14 4- 10 4-28 3- 24 4-14 4- 7 5-1 4-27 5-15 4- 2 5-2 3-31 4-14 3-31 4-21 5- 9 5-26 3-28 4-17 3-31 4-14 3-31 4-21 3- 31 4-15 4- 14 4-28 4 28 5-15 4-12 5-8 3-31 4-10 3- 31 4-14 3-31 4I 4- 7 4-28 3-31 5-10 3-23 3-31 3-29 4-28 3- 29 4-28 4- 10 5-1 .03 .35 .10 .10 .10 .15 .125 .15 .20 .07 .20 .26 .07 .1025 .09 .07 .06 .06 .25 .30 .05 .05 .05 .09 .225 .06 .17 We are pleased Richard S. has joined us in our St. Louis John Siano's WxXKax' By CURT MATTHEWS A Washington Correspondent Of the Post-Dispatch WASHINGTON A more expansionary monetary policy aimed at curbing the rise in short-term interest rates was urged today by the mem- bers of the Join Economic Committee in Congress. In its annual report released today, committee members state: "With the 1 proper policy mix, real growth rates of 5 to 5.5 per cent in 1978 and 1979 are attainable such goals can only be reached if the president's tax propos-1 als are accompanied by a monetary policy that will move short-term interest rates in the direction of 1977 levels." President Jimmy Carter, in his economic message to Congress last month projected a 4.7 per cent rate of real growth in the nation's economy in the coming year. The report of the Joint Economic Committee notes that short-term interest rates have climbed steadily over the last year from a level of 4.662 per cent in early 1977 to the current level of 6.429 per cent.

"If short-term interest rates continue to rise through 1978 as they did in 1977 there would be a serious impact on economic growth in 1979," the committee's report states. 7, The report says that an increase in -interest rates tends to dampen business activity and encourage consum- ers to repay their debts and increase their savings factors that in the aggregate reduce demand for goods and services. Other key points made in the committee's report include: A prediction that the 104-day long coal strike will have "a significant national effect" on the economy. The severity of the impact will depend on how long it takes to reach high levels of production once the strike is ended and how much inventory rebuilding occurs after the strike. A lack of faith in President Carter's program that depends on dividends CntriBnmngsvsr CorsAccesriesCp ElginNatllndust 'x revised record RtDAYDiVIDENDSDECLARED Pe- Stk.

of oav-j riod Rate record able IRREGULAR BrackenMnsADR 3-31 5-25 Approximately $.183 per depositary share. FstlndexInvTr .14 3-29 4-28 InvestTrstBost .08 3-17 3-31 KfnrossMinsADR 3-31 5-25 Approximately $.212 per depositary share. MassFundlncm .29 4-a 4-14 St Helena ADR 3-31 5-25 X-Appioximatelv $.765 per depositary share. WinKethaakADR 3-31 5-25 -Approximately $.503 per depositary share. STOCK Sthn Industries 6-14 7-11 x-2 tor 1 subject to shareholders approval.

INCREASED announced declaration. PctTrAufHrn GouldsPumpInc GuarnteeFnclCI Harrahs HwkrSiddlyCnA Henredon Furn Hess Inc HospitalMtgGrp Justin Ind Lawson Prdt LiberanlronOre MaterialsResch WcGrawHillRyr Miller Bros Morrison Inc MountainStFncI Ohio Art Co OilgearCo Sthn Ind Sterling Extruder Technitrollnc TtlPetrolNthAm UnivrstyRIEstat WelleslylncFd WstmnsterBdFd WixCorp CnlrlHudsaiGE .49 Lanes Inc .33 Moore.Samuel .08 PerinKp .10 Tidewater Inc .20 Twin Fair .15 CORRECTION EloinNatllndust 25 x-revised record date on announced declaration. INITIAL IncomeFdAmn .13 OMITTED CanadaSthnRwv 4-10 4-3 4-3 3-28 3- 31 4- 10 5-1 4-18 4-14 4-14 4- 14 5- 17 4 3 4-14 previously INDUSTRIAL PRICED TO 1 24,000 sq. ft. good truck boding good ceiling 4-3 4-21 date St.

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