urbanSTL

Ya know the "once again STL cant do something right" thing isnt just a STL thing. If anyone here reads the NYC threads on Skyscraperpage, they will know that they have much more heated arguments about their developments. I mean, do you think all they say on their forums are, "what a beautiful new skyscraper" and "god that thing is beautiful" or "I really think its beautiful"? No. Those would be really boring forums. Those guys argue about corruption, politics, economics, city image, and everything else that we do. The developers in NYC have more money to begin with and they receive more money than ours do. But there will always be someone to say "we cant lose something we never had" and someone to say "its such and such money lost".

I guess I'll go ahead and be the really, really unpopular one and use this display of fervor over this Centene announcement as a time to make a couple points, some minor, some major:



- 1,200 new jobs for downtown is great;



- Centene's wooden blocks don't look very inspiring. I know it is too early to make a judgment, but I don't have too high hopes. Especially considering that international architecture firm HOK is headquartered in a somewhat unimpressive high rise with a sorry excuse for a base, there is no precedent for compelling urban high rises in downtown St. Louis built within the past 40 years. None shows a good relationship to the street or much potential for mixed uses;



- Ballpark Village by its current conception seems like an open-air St. Louis Centre. It includes questionable amounts of residential and will invite little to no local businesses into the retail mix downtown. It will probably serve to hinder local bars and restaurants that serve the rest of downtown--which is fine, right? I don't know about you, but I'm all for organic, natural development and change of neighborhoods. But why will the corporate tenants of BPV be underwritten and not their local counterparts? It also seems like our leaders would rather foster the development of a self-contained entertainment district than organic and piecemeal urban development.



I'm sure some one will tell me that Baltimore's Harbor Place development (also Cordish) is a wild success and includes mostly chains and is very touristy and has multiple other comparison points to downtown St. Louis. I can't really claim to know a ton about downtown Baltimore, but I will say it appears to have a considerable deal more foot traffic than St. Louis's downtown does by every picture I've seen. And while that's not quite a fine-tuned empirical analysis, I have a feeling that downtown St. Louis, especially the portion of it in question, is quite devoid of residents and other nighttime, non-event foot or car traffic.



Without a significant portion of BPV dedicated to residential, BPV will be questionable architecture that will have lost both its aesthetic appeal and its novelty in ten years.



So while 1,200 jobs is great, if it at all comes at the expense of residential units, then we might as well not support its construction at all. This needs to be a truly mixed use area and not a contrived entertainment district that will have trouble keeping any residents.



Yes, this is all early and is conjecture. But give the high profile status and all of its subsidies, the pressure will be on to attract ESPN Zone and other chains that do nothing to make St. Louis a special place to visit or live. I'm not completely opposed to one or even a couple major retailers or entertainment venues in this development (IKEA? House of Blues?), but if the project offers nothing but these types of developments (which I suspect it will), I consider it not worth all the subsidies, for what that's worth.



- Parking absolutely needs to be addressed! As I said before, merely with the presence of the East and West garages, this area is emptied of life and looks visually scarred. Even with the graceful Cupples buildings, we cannot afford another garage in the area. Will there ever be enough until we finally develop a more comprehensive parking strategy (underground solutions?)? No more--and no one should be supportive of surface/lot parking on the already too small BPV site.



- Are there any strategies for when Centene merges, threatens to move, folds, etc.? Keep in mind they moved from suburban Milwaukee in the late 1990s and now are moving from Clayton a decade later. What will happen if they make more demands that the city might not be able to comply with in ten years?



-Will there be any sort of community input on design?



I will post more as I think about it.

wheelscomp wrote:Ya know the "once again STL cant do something right" thing isnt just a STL thing. If anyone here reads the NYC threads on Skyscraperpage, they will know that they have much more heated arguments about their developments. ... Those guys argue about corruption, politics, economics, city image, and everything else that we do.

From the month that I've lived here, I can safely say that San Francisco is the same way.

I only bring this up because it deals with Cordish. I was wondering if they still had the type of delays in KC with The Power and Light District. Delays from what I have seen have been a common nature with large developments. Now I could be totally off the mark as I know nothing of this whole business. All I know is that I want this to happen and if it means them taking their time to hammer everything out than I will wait. Now I wish it was sooner than later and this has been what almost a couple years coming. I was very excited to hear Centene is coming to downtown. I just hope they aren't plain looking towers as what was proposed for Clayton. We need something new and exciting downtown and I hope BPV/Centene can create that.

God would a house of blues be awesome.



In response to the posts about the "stl cant do anything right" posts, I am very willing to read criticism about this and other cities. Architectural, political, economical, and other concerns are always important to voice, and are more often than not very entertaining to read and debate.



"Once again this city can't do anything right" DOESN'T FALL INTO THIS CATEGORY. This is simply an ignorant statement that reeks of nothing but whiny b*tching. Hence, my give it a break remark.



Back on topic...

I share the same architectural concerns that Matt voiced for the seemingly uninspired boxes shown in the downtown model. I'm sincerely hoping that Centene goes in a more progressive direction and attempts to add some architectural excitement as opposed to taking the safest road possible. The Met was designed by HOK, and I too believe that, for the most part, it is not a very incredible building. Seeing Centene take some risk here would be very enjoyable for me. I just pray we don't end up with a larger Deloitte building a few blocks West.



I would be in HUGE favor of a slimmer building than the one's currently proposed, but I've allready been here before.



I disagree, however, with Matt's point concerning the residential aspect of BPV. A 250 unit condo tower (hopefully the third in the rendering) would be extremely significant in this development, considering the current market. In the layout posted on stl today, there looks to be very significant space (the allready discussed corner of Clark and Broadway) which could accomodate another condo tower when the market inevitably begins to turn once again. There is an almost unprecedented amount of residential development in downtown right now, and it is smart to avoid over-saturation. (This has, once again, allready been discussed in this thread.) If they build 250 in phase 1 and they fly off the shelves, and draw up a plan for another 50 story condo tower on the corner and clark and broadway, I'm sure this project will be much better off than building 1000 units now and selling only 200 of them. I would LOVE to see another tower, don't get me wrong, but some restraint here will ultimately serve well. We won't even have to wait that long if the condos sell as well as we all hope they will, as the developer will jump at a second tower if presales go great!

datawhse wrote:

markofucity wrote:don't believe this has been addressed - if it has I apologize:



are the two new Centene towers in place of the proposed residentiaql towers? From the rendering I've seen - they seem to be on the very same spot. Now I know that the proposed residential towers were nio longer guranteed - but does anyone have any idea how this affects the prospect of having condos overlooking Busch?

If you will recall when the announcement was made that additional financing from the state was approved, a 250 unit residential tower was included in the package. The announcement yesterday indicated that Cordish would build a 180 room hotel tower that would not count as part of their commitment for Phase I of the Ballpark Village. So at a minimum, I see two office towers, a residential tower, and a hotel tower. Would there be room left for more after all the retail is complete?

I suspect that the boutique hotel (W anyone?) will be combined with the residential in one tower, allowing them to offer hotel services to the condo owners. That would be a huge plus, especially for corporations and Cardinals fans looking to buy something as an occasional residence and/or party suite. The only question is: Can Cordish combine the two in one building and still meet Centene's timeline for the hotel, whatever that may be?

Yes. Specifically, why does Centene build part of the retail and sell it back to BPV at cost while original BPV holds all original tax credits for what is now a parcel half the original size. As I understand it, the Centene retail covers some of BPV's original contractual committments. Something fishy there.

jlblues wrote:this company, or some other company, would have built the building and created the jobs anyway with no tax abatement (clearly not the case)

I don't know what you mean by "clearly not the case." Do you mean that St. Louis is simply so unattractive to developers that, without abatement, no one ever would have built on a level, cleared, and unpolluted peice of open land in the middle of downtown? I'm hardly drinking DowntownNow/RCGA/CP/Big Cinch kool aid, but even I think that's pretty darned pessimistic. If there's anywhere in the 61 square miles that can support large, unsubsidized development, it is there. Then again, I'd say the same for all of Ballpark McVillage.



More likely, you mean we wouldn't have been able to steal Centene or another company with so many jobs without the abatement. If so, you're probably right. That's why I'm still undecided about this incentive package.



But I know I would be a lot more comfortable with the tax breaks if they were used to get Centene to stake a claim in a part of downtown (or even elsewhere in the city) that cannot get meaningful development without public assistance.



And I do firmly believe that those here who are going knee-jerk gaga over this project wouldn't be nearly as excited about it if the buildings were a third as tall and three times as wide. I know, I know: it's all about the density of tall buildings -- like those found amid the hustle and bustle east of Tucker and south of Market -- and how that's so much more urban than the boring districts of 6-10-story commercial buildings. You know, like those in London or Washington.

The Central Scrutinizer wrote:If you think Bill DeWitt feels any pressure at all from this forum, you are waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay overestimating its importance. He doesn't even know it exists.

Well its more of a "this blog voices the opinions of a good chunk of the area's population" more than a "Bill DeWitt reads every post about BPV" type thing. You know that he must get reports on how the public feels weekly if not more often. If DeWitt doesnt know of it personally, he certainly has underlings that do.



And obviously I ranked the powerful rich guys and the paper above the voice of the public...

A couple more data points:



1) There was, in fact, a tax-producing structure on the BPV site as of two years ago. (I'm assuming that, after almost 40 years, old Busch was finally paying property taxes).



2) More important is the list of Centene incentives in today's paper, which unfortunately doesn't seem to be connected to the online link. I'll go try to fix that in a minute. Rapid-typing:



a) $48M in city real estate tax abatement

b) $26M in earnings tax and payroll tax abatement; and hotel and restaurant sales tax abatements

c) $3.7M in state sales and payroll tax abatement

d) $24M in "new market" fed credits to encourage investments in distressed markets

e) $1.9M from an additional 1-cent hotel tax

f) Up to 50 percent of the state income tax from new jobs created



Notes:

b) Nah, the earnings tax isn't an issue in attracting and retaining business to the City. Plus, it appears Centene won't be contributing a whole lot to City coffers immediately.

c) Threaten to leave, and you don't pay taxes -- if you're big enough.

d) The most prime piece of real estate downtown is "distressed."

f) Centene was already creating new jobs before Clayton so wildly screwed up. Can any business creating jobs get this credit, or does it have to move?

First off, I wanted to remind everyone of the renderings that showed up a few months back on Cordish's BPV page:





Not that that's what we would have necessarily been getting, but I still figured I'd remind everyone of the earlier renderings to compare them to what we're now set to see in their place.



I also wanted to see some thoughts on the sale of the property. Did anything list how much Centene is paying for the space? I'm guessing Cordish has decided to use this money to make the hotel.



All in all, I'm seeing this as a good thing since Cordish is still liable for everything they previously agreed to. Who knows what we would have seen in Phase 2 (if there ever would have been one). Now, we essentially get Phase 2 at the same time as Phase I, and a hotel to boot.

I want to change fields. I want to go into proposed development model making. They must make a fortune ... every development I've followed for the last ten years has trotted forth no fewer than ten models each.

markofucity wrote:I want to change fields. I want to go into proposed development model making. They must make a fortune ... every development I've followed for the last ten years has trotted forth no fewer than ten models each.

I think Hellmuth, Obata and Kassabaum has a shop over in the Lemp that makes models.

Guilty. The third tower does seem to resemble the tower in the same location in the renderings provided above. I wonder about that tower on Clark and Broadway. Im confused about this right now. The tower site which contains the tower model in the Centene photos shows a significant tower, and the explanation of what is going on that site (per stltoday site map) says that this will be mixed use with retail and office. The size of that tower just doesn't seem to fit with only those 2 uses, as they are only obligated to build 100,000 sq ft, and I doubt they will build much more than that with Centene allready attempting to lease another 300,000 now. Could the rest be the hotel? I would think that they would want to combo the hotel with the condo units?

Matt Drops The H wrote:
Ballpark Village by its current conception seems like an open-air St. Louis Centre. It includes questionable amounts of residential and will invite little to no local businesses into the retail mix downtown. It will probably serve to hinder local bars and restaurants that serve the rest of downtown--which is fine, right? I don't know about you, but I'm all for organic, natural development and change of neighborhoods. But why will the corporate tenants of BPV be underwritten and not their local counterparts? It also seems like our leaders would rather foster the development of a self-contained entertainment district than organic and piecemeal urban development.

I don't think a large vacant lot in our central business district is appropriate for organic, natural development. As shocking as it may be, sometimes big and brand new is the way to go.



If we're going to use economic development incentives, we might as well use them for economic development (i.e., to assist the growth of a local business that provides services to people in other states). Every once in a while, it's okay to subsidize something other than loft developments.

^



Time will tell as to whether the larger development (sans residential) is the way to go.



I think a project that shifts focus and funds to a contrived entertainment center that may need life support in 10 years as opposed to the natural cycle of smaller scale, organic residential and business development throughout the rest of downtown is a net loss.



I will go so far as to say that BPV is doomed to mediocrity, and very soon.



Everyone on this forum, a board of urbanists, is seemingly reluctant to challenge conventional thinking about what makes an invigorating urban space.



I worry that the condo units (thank God a portion of the residential has already been committed as part of the project) will be bought by corporate bigwigs for use of private parties as a substitute to boxes and will be used only for game time.



My suggestion is this: go back to the drawing board. See how feasible putting ALL parking that touches Busch Stadium undergound or in one or two new garages that are more attractively designed and include retail on the first floor. That means that Busch East and West get demo'd--immediately! These sites should be given to new mixed-use development--essentially an extension of the current BPV, and should include more residential than has been discussed.



I know the fear is oversaturation in the downtown housing market, but, if there's no market capacity for residential right now, it shows that the project is being built not as a sustainable mini-neighborhood. It's being built, rather, as an entertainment district, the follies of which are being discussed in other more sensible and farther ahead cities.



Also, the City/Busch Stadium owners/Cardinals/Jim Cloar should convince Centene to hold a design charette/design competition, with the winning design to be constructed with an emphasis on the base's relation to the street, as well as including streetscape improvements to the barren stretch of Walnut.



I will make a site plan later.

So what is the holdup with groundbreaking/construction? Is it the city? Cordish? The Cardinals?



This is ridiculous. If it isn't open by the All-Star game then millions of revenue will be lost (for that development) and a chance to make a great impression on TV. Sure, viewers will be able to see the construction taking place but it's no comparison to see thousands shopping and eating at a finished product.

The Cardinals should give up the 2009 All Star Game and get the 2010 (or 2011) one instead. Maybe by then things will be done. (Probably not.)

TB1000 wrote:So what is the holdup with groundbreaking/construction? Is it the city? Cordish? The Cardinals?



This is ridiculous. If it isn't open by the All-Star game then millions of revenue will be lost (for that development) and a chance to make a great impression on TV. Sure, viewers will be able to see the construction taking place but it's no comparison to see thousands shopping and eating at a finished product.

as I stated earlier in the thread, I would actually prefer BPV not be completed by the all star game. The areas under construction will still give the impression of progress to the national viewers yet the the revenue from all the patrons would be spread around to the many local (independent) bars, eateries, and shops instead of to Cordish and the BPV chains.

Thoughts?