Anyone know why there is a crane being assembled outside of the AT&T buildings?
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Demolition for a parking lot. City providing TIF support and tax abatement - 105% for 25 years.
According to workers, replacement of cooling towers on top of both buildings. It seemed to be focused on the shorter building.stladvocate wrote: ↑May 15, 2018Anyone know why there is a crane being assembled outside of the AT&T buildings?
How tall of the rollable arm crane with that have to be?addxb2 wrote:According to workers, replacement of cooling towers on top of both buildings. It seemed to be focused on the shorter building.stladvocate wrote: ↑May 15, 2018Anyone know why there is a crane being assembled outside of the AT&T buildings?
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F*CK. NO. F*cking unbelievable. If either of these "ideas" happens then there's no hope for this place and I'm getting the f*ck out for good. So f*cking tired of this city going around and around, never learning or progressing. It's f*cking exhausting.
The Colliers team marketing the property also must overcome a significant lack of parking. The building has fewer than 100 parking spaces underground and was cut off from a nearby parking garage last year when AT&T moved out the building.
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Ideas that have previously been mentioned include building a parking garage on a portion of Citygarden, which sits across Chestnut Street from the skyscraper, or buying a nearby building to redevelop it into a parking lot.
I notice on Google Maps that most of the downtown parking garages' top floors are empty despite it being a work day.
They'll probably find a way for the taxpayer to subsidize or own the to-be-built parking.
They'll probably find a way for the taxpayer to subsidize or own the to-be-built parking.
^^Absolutely mind boggling that would even be entertained. Even if there were a need for a garage, there's a a surface parking lot literally across Pine.
What a completely asinine comment. I hoping the dude was mistaken or misquoted. There is no way the gateway foundation would allow this to happen.....right?
I have heard it mentioned that an underground garage is a potential fix to 1) the parking situation at AT&T and 2) the section of the Gateway Mall between 11th and 10th street needing revamped. Imagine a scenario similar to Washington Park in Cincinnati.
Start e-mailing Coatar. Not that he will probably care. But this is pretty ***** absurd.
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^^^ Citygarden no way but I wonder if the thought was actually the block west with the not entirely beloved Serra sculpture... but that ain't gonna happen either.
Anyone else recall a plan/idea to have parking underneath the gateway mall? iirc that was mentioned in a Downtown 2010 plan or similar. I also could support something like what Cincy has done with the downtown group involved in developing residential towers above public parking garage....in this instance on the surface lot on Pine and with lease deal for office parking.
Anyone else recall a plan/idea to have parking underneath the gateway mall? iirc that was mentioned in a Downtown 2010 plan or similar. I also could support something like what Cincy has done with the downtown group involved in developing residential towers above public parking garage....in this instance on the surface lot on Pine and with lease deal for office parking.
I'll throw this up here again. I did some hasted updates over lunch. I'll finish this some day.
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180727_Downtown Parking Map by Alex Price, on Flickr
180727_Downtown Parking Map by Alex Price, on FlickrIf they need a garage, then they should build on the vacant lot at 10th and Pine. Make the garage look good so that a apartment building, hotel or office building can be built on top of it in the future. Also, retail is a must. No garage should be "blah" if they need one. And then there is the idea to destroy the City garden?!?! Are those people crazy? I don't even want the garden being torn up for an underground garage. It would be to much of a hassle and the reconstruction of the park would probably be half assed anyway. It amazes me the level of stupidity building owners would go to make a quick a buck.
I basically sent the exact same thing to Otis Williams. The ideas proposed in that article are absurd. I'm assuming the building they were thinking about demolishing for the garage would be the Mark Twain, which makes no sense, either in preserving the built environment of Downtown, or in preserving small business.chriss752 wrote: ↑Jul 27, 2018If they need a garage, then they should building on the vacant lot at 10th and Pine. Make the garage look goo so that a apartment building, hotel or office building can be built on top of it in the future. Also, retail is a must. No garage should be "blah" if they need one. And then the idea to destroy the City garden??!?! Are those people crazy? I don't even want the garden being torn up for an underground garage. It would be to much of a hassle and the reconstruction of the park would probably be half asses.
Lastly, I don't think we need or want another skybridged garage. Or underground tunneled private parking. Just allows people to drive into Downtown and drive right back out again.
Why doesn't an independent, unbiased appraisal hold any weight here? Didn't Bob Clark bid almost 10 million over it too?
Would have been nice to have half office, half residential in this tower. Guess we will never know, and they will have a hell of a time trying to still market this as Class A office space when the inside is basically depressing and will need a gut rehab to begin with for anyone to ever consider moving there from Clayton or West County. Hate to sound defeatist.
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I wouldn't panic just yet. I can't imagine they would dig up City Garden, but there is definitely a need to increase the buildings access to parking, a surface lot across pine ain't gonna cut it, and in general i think a class A tenant would probably reject anything more than a couple blocks away.
Personally (as I've written before) I would be fine with a garage under the Serra sculpture as long as it was green space (preferable redeveloped to be City Garden-esque) at street level. Ideally they could build big/deep enough to serve the AT&T building as well and they could redevelop the current AT&T garage into something nice, but that's probably not super likely for the time being.
Personally (as I've written before) I would be fine with a garage under the Serra sculpture as long as it was green space (preferable redeveloped to be City Garden-esque) at street level. Ideally they could build big/deep enough to serve the AT&T building as well and they could redevelop the current AT&T garage into something nice, but that's probably not super likely for the time being.
Of course, a surface lot won't. Instead of buying a building to tear it down for a garage, though, they could just build a garage on the surface lot at Pine and 10th. Or the next surface lot.
I have to agree with STLEnginerd sentimentsSTLEnginerd wrote: ↑Jul 27, 2018I wouldn't panic just yet. I can't imagine they would dig up City Garden, but there is definitely a need to increase the buildings access to parking, a surface lot across pine ain't gonna cut it, and in general i think a class A tenant would probably reject anything more than a couple blocks away.
Personally (as I've written before) I would be fine with a garage under the Serra sculpture as long as it was green space (preferable redeveloped to be City Garden-esque) at street level. Ideally they could build big/deep enough to serve the AT&T building as well and they could redevelop the current AT&T garage into something nice, but that's probably not super likely for the time being.
Underground parking on part of the city garden is not an issue in itself. Heck, I think the Twain sculpture needs to be moved to another location on the mall and the city garden expanded into the block should happen either way, whether you put a garage under it or not.
I think the reality of the situation is that cost of any underground parking will result in the city buying/paying a premium on a surface lot because it will be a better deal, In other words, a budget estimate on a new underground garage exceeds a new surface garage at +8 million but you get a willing seller of a surface lot at +4-5 million. Will you get a better garage? probably not but more like a parking structure is going to happen in downtown St Louis over the underground. The plus side of a bad looking parking structure is getting workers, employees back into downtown and the ATT building. I could see this play out just as it did a couple of weeks ago for a possible Convention Center Expansion where the city bought out a couple surface parking lots.
To Bwcrow1s comments on the appraisal. The difference in appraised values, $110 million vs. $11 millions seems huge to me considering the size of the structure. Clark is being smart on his offer when an independent appraiser goes low but the $110 seems a more reasonable appraisable than the $11 million. Anyone with insight on where the value lies? My spitball uneducated no one will pay me for it appraisal is $60-70 million.
Is the lack of parking the citys problem or the building owners problem? The city shouldn't be buying or building parking for this building, the owner should make that investment.
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I think there's a very good argument that what the city does to help get this building filled is an investment. (It's really the same argument as lies behind every tax break, mind. So it's . . . imperfect at best.) But this is an outsized problem. We've had large office towers sitting empty for decades before. It's not a state I'd care to see return. Especially not with one quite so . . . large. Now, I don't think there's any call to demolish occupied buildings for this, mind. But I don't think the city buying a surface lot and building a parking garage (for which they could then charge at least some rent) would necessarily be out of the question.
I would agree with you if St Louis had a market like San Fran, LA, Boston, Atlanta to name a few. But St Louis does not. So what is your answer if Bayer, after buying Monsanto, comes to the city and says flat out. You add parking for ATT building and will sign a lease tomorrow to move our NA HQ from Carolina to ATT Building? I would say yes, its a good deal to fill ATT with well paying 1500 to 2000 jobs relocated outside from the region. Especially with a global company looking to plant its NA HQ in St Louis. Heck, you might even see a direct European flight out the deal. The other reason would I say yes? because you can be looking at big, tall, empty building for a very long time if you say no to parking. Heck, you can tax the heck out of the surrounding surface parking lots and you will still get a big, tall, empty building for a very long.
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Man wouldn't that be a nice situation to be in... I feel like something could be worked out if absolutely needed. That Gateway Credit Union building is disposable along with the lot across 10th street. I'd be happy as long as it includes ground level retail. Plus Serra is a clear option for underground parking.
I don't think Bayer would tell the City to add parking to a building that is owned by a private company. Bayer would tell that to the building owner, and the building owner will go to the City for a tax subsidy (tax abatment, TIF).dredger wrote: ↑Jul 30, 2018I would agree with you if St Louis had a market like San Fran, LA, Boston, Atlanta to name a few. But St Louis does not. So what is your answer if Bayer, after buying Monsanto, comes to the city and says flat out. You add parking for ATT building and will sign a lease tomorrow to move our NA HQ from Carolina to ATT Building? I would say yes, its a good deal to fill ATT with well paying 1500 to 2000 jobs relocated outside from the region. Especially with a global company looking to plant its NA HQ in St Louis. Heck, you might even see a direct European flight out the deal. The other reason would I say yes? because you can be looking at big, tall, empty building for a very long time if you say no to parking. Heck, you can tax the heck out of the surrounding surface parking lots and you will still get a big, tall, empty building for a very long.
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^Also Bayer is moving their NA HQ to St. Louis. Just . . . not downtown. To Monsanto's HQ campus in Creve Coeur. I want to see AT&T filled, but I don't know that an ag/tech/bio/chemical/medical company with massive lab needs is the right fit. Would love to see how it would work though, if it could.
I would think it would be more logistics than lab. But I also imagine that they wouldn't be bringing enough jobs to really fill AT&T to begin with.symphonicpoet wrote: ↑Jul 31, 2018^Also Bayer is moving their NA HQ to St. Louis. Just . . . not downtown. To Monsanto's HQ campus in Creve Coeur. I want to see AT&T filled, but I don't know that an ag/tech/bio/chemical/medical company with massive lab needs is the right fit. Would love to see how it would work though, if it could.