Agree^^^ But don't put all the blame on Cordish. The Dewitt's/Cardinals are just as responsible.
I've said this before -- the Dewitt's believe so little in the Ballpark Village that they wouldn't event put in one of their family owned restaurants; Dewey's Pizza in the project whose closest location is University City.
They are 10 years into Busch III now. Why the heck would they build something grand there now? In 5 more years they'll need to start whispering Busch IV, if current trends continue with respect to stadium life. They'll need that lot to build the next great thing. The silver lining for us on this board of course, is then the dead zone will be back up against the highway.
^ I agree, but with all do respect...Busch II was almost 50 years old and built a lot more shabby than Busch III. I honestly think Busch III will be our Wrigley. Maybe renovations in 20 years, but I think Busch III is it. As far as Ballpark Village...after Phase I Broke, I head whispers of a quick phase II, but now its crickets. Seems like apartments would be a no brainer, even a Cardinal themed hotel. Its pathetic they are not even testing the waters and seeing how many people would be willing to sign a lease or put down a deposit...its really sad. I'd imagine there is enough demand outside the traditional residential market that we could at least get a nice size tower going...like one light in KC...maybe even two towers. The city is really acting stupid with this one too. Seems like an area they would really focus development. The TOD plans were nice, but ever since then....crickets, its like the city has just given over this area to the Cardinals and Cordish, who are just sitting back and counting their revenue at this point. In a few years, I could see the Cardinals opening up a adjacent beer mall when phase I gets stale, probably some structured parking. The whole thing is really sad in my opinion.
KB makes a great point. DeWitt family signed onto a Cordish from the get go and my gut feeling is that Darlene Greene had a better understanding of what it would take to build out BPV then DeWitt did and therefore stopped the city from full on cash payment on square footage. But two points even if DeWitt had dream of real estate riches of gleaming towers with Cordish
1) DeWitt family obviously isn't betting any of there money even though they have benefited immensely from the community who regularly buys 40 to 45,000 tickets a home game. Yes, they put on a winning team but this is time to take a chance on St. Louis. So far DeWitt family won't speculate on one square foot of development. Heck, maybe Cordish got them convinced that the city will start handing out cash per square footage if they wait long enough.
2) I haven't read one thing that suggest DeWitt wants to part ways with Cordish. What a shame, DeWitt's should be the ones embarrassed of the parking lot first and foremost. But as everyone else implies, another day another dollar with game day parking that goes to them not across the street to someone else.
Excellent point about DeWitt's being jerks and not even having Dewey's down there. (Although I'm sure that's fine with Chris Sommers at Pi.) But it would be absolutely hilarious if they opened elsewhere downtown, say by the Spaghetti Factory in the Landing and made a remark about how they just couldn't come to an agreement with Cordish.
^ No. I was just trying to think of a good location for a family-friendly pizza place like Dewey's could go that wouldn't be too close to Pi. In the Landing close to Spaghetti Factory just jumped in my mind.
Speaking of the Landing, a couple new bizzes should open soon.... a bakery and that burlesque club.
dredger wrote:
2) I haven't read one thing that suggest DeWitt wants to part ways with Cordish. What a shame, DeWitt's should be the ones embarrassed of the parking lot first and foremost. But as everyone else implies, another day another dollar with game day parking that goes to them not across the street to someone else.
If he wanted to part ways, do you really think you would read about it before it happens? I highly doubt it.
^ Yes, I doubt the fact that they would advertise it also but that doesn't stop someone within either party from talking, which gets passed onto someone, which happens to get reported somehow someway. Let alone the fact that the question probably has been asked a few times by a savy business reporter or two looking for a story. At least I hope so, heck you got a few posts back about how difficult Cordish is to work with as far as architects go.
.
My case in point, go back to the Rams stadium thread and how many postings from how many sports blogs, radio shows, and so forth. Yes, a lot of speculation but at end of day their is probably some truths to be had even though NFL doesn't say anything.
Cordish being difficult to work with is an understatement.
They won't build anything for you until you give them a sweetheart deal so stacked in their favor that you wonder if you made the right decision before construction is even through.
The Cardinals promised St. Louis this village. More specifically, DeWitt did. I remember all of his talk about wanting to enhance the St. Louis skyline.
I swear, if the Rams stay in St. Louis, I hope the city takes their focus to the parking lots around the new stadium on the North Riverfront. If Cordish and DeWitt won't pull the trigger on Phase II, the focus should shift to making the north riverfront, the Convention Center area, and Laclede's Landing a much more hip area. That might be more important for St. Louis' downtown revitalization that Ballpark Village anyway.
Another day another BPV generalized comment. This time from Doug Woodruff's exit interview published in St. Louis Biz Journals. It would sure be nice to know if discussions were of substance or if it someone having lunch, picking up the tab and calling it discussions for the expense report.
In the same interview, he notes that any push for increase sales tax, transportation district to improve downtown infrastructure was put on hold and opposed by Cardinals. I can understand the part about getting your improvement list together, budget numbers and priorities before going to local businesses for support on a transportation district. I believe x percentage of landlords have to approve in order for a transportation district to put in place. At same time, No surprise there with Cardinals Got a new stadium for the most part financed by tax on events tickets and a free parking lot/Ballpark Village infrastructure paid for. Its just not right that competing businesses downtown should have decent streets & sidewalks, working lights and maintained streetscapes.
Moving forward, Woodruff said downtown may need to build new commercial space. The best opportunity, he said, is phase two of Ballpark Village. Discussions with developer Cordish Co. and the Cardinals are underway.
^See my update posts in this thread. They fired the architect, but are still planning on a residential tower. It sounds like typical Cordish to me: Get halfway into planning then cut it when you don't get a dollar worth of return for a quarter.
Yesterday I met with a company based here in St. Louis that designed, developed and produced the Atlanta Wheel, their downtown Ferris Wheel. It's a true success there.
I asked the Managing Partner about STL (since they are based here), and this gentleman's face grew with frustration. A few of his tidbits:
1) He has met with Bob O'Loughlin re the Union Station development and Ferris Wheel concept. They actually flew together on Bob's jet to ATL to look at The Wheel there. Bob listened to this guy's ideas but that's as far as it went.
2) He is adamant that a Ferris Wheel will NOT work at Union Station. Why? Ferris wheels need massive foot traffic and Union Station has none. He also said crime is too out of control, which obviously hinders foot traffic.
3) We moved on to BPV, and his frustration, if possible, got worse. His company designed a baseball-themed concept ride at BPV called "Pop Fly" which would be a tower with the largest baseball in the world on top of it. It would raise people up at Mach 4 and then drop them similarily. He got DeWitt's buy in, and he got a lukewarm buy-in from Cordish, then they went to the St. Louis Economic Development team. This team consisted of 2 70 year-old men with flip phones. They stared at him the whole time and then at the end told him they wanted office buildings...that was it..
He then contrasted ATL and STL and it almost made me cry. When they went in front of ATL BofA a couple years ago to sell them on The Wheel, it was a bunch of open-minded, diverse, younger people whose initial response was, "Yes, let's do this."
Again, the contrast between these two cities' attitudes towards new ideas was so ridiculous....
I agree StL is dysfunctional but I don't think this "story" necessarily reflects poorly on StL.
1. Bob flew this guy down on his dime and likely didn't love the deal or the relationship so things fizzled.
2. Ok. Think we can all agree with that.
3. Flip phones or not I think we all agree we want buildings full of people there over amusement rides. The amusement rides, which I'll assume the StL Development team was open to, are going down the street at US.
It would raise people up at Mach 4 and then drop them similarily.
Ummm not likely, unless I'm missing something. Mach at see level is 1170ft/sec ~ 767 mph. Mach 4 would be 3068 mph, which accelerating from a stop to that speed within a span of a few hundred feet would simultaneously be an incredible scientific achievement, while also kill everyone inside from g-forces as they would experience around 1200-1300 g's. (Human limit is in the neighborhood of 10 g's with many people blacking out well before that)
Most likely he meant 4 g's of acceleration, which depending on the height of the tower would be closer to 100 mph or Mach 0.2.
moorlander wrote:I agree StL is dysfunctional but I don't think this "story" necessarily reflects poorly on StL.
1. Bob flew this guy down on his dime and likely didn't love the deal or the relationship so things fizzled.
2. Ok. Think we can all agree with that.
3. Flip phones or not I think we all agree we want buildings full of people there over amusement rides. The amusement rides, which I'll assume the StL Development team was open to, are going down the street at US.
sirshankalot wrote:Yesterday I met with a company based here in St. Louis that designed, developed and produced the Atlanta Wheel, their downtown Ferris Wheel. It's a true success there.
I asked the Managing Partner about STL (since they are based here), and this gentleman's face grew with frustration. A few of his tidbits:
1) He has met with Bob O'Loughlin re the Union Station development and Ferris Wheel concept. They actually flew together on Bob's jet to ATL to look at The Wheel there. Bob listened to this guy's ideas but that's as far as it went.
2) He is adamant that a Ferris Wheel will NOT work at Union Station. Why? Ferris wheels need massive foot traffic and Union Station has none. He also said crime is too out of control, which obviously hinders foot traffic.
3) We moved on to BPV, and his frustration, if possible, got worse. His company designed a baseball-themed concept ride at BPV called "Pop Fly" which would be a tower with the largest baseball in the world on top of it. It would raise people up at Mach 4 and then drop them similarily. He got DeWitt's buy in, and he got a lukewarm buy-in from Cordish, then they went to the St. Louis Economic Development team. This team consisted of 2 70 year-old men with flip phones. They stared at him the whole time and then at the end told him they wanted office buildings...that was it..
He then contrasted ATL and STL and it almost made me cry. When they went in front of ATL BofA a couple years ago to sell them on The Wheel, it was a bunch of open-minded, diverse, younger people whose initial response was, "Yes, let's do this."
Again, the contrast between these two cities' attitudes towards new ideas was so ridiculous....
Pop Fly, unless it would be very small with its footprint, while potential cool seems like it would be a horrible use at BPV imo.... also, SLDC already has supported the ferris wheel concept so you can't say ATL was all awesome and STL was not. Not saying the SLDC shouldn't be scrutinized/shaken up, but this seems hardly the thing to light the torches and get the pitchforks over.
