urbanSTL

I don't know about you, but I'm not fond of doing other peoples work. It's their property, they can clean it up.



If the work can get started right away as Cordish claims, that would be a little wasteful anyway. I completely understand why it has been left in it's current state. If I was planning a project for a piece of property, I wouldn't lay out a million dollars worth of sod and topsoil either for something I am just going to rip up soon.



Now Cordish picking up a little trash would be nice, but I don't need a landscaped lot. Just put up some renderings on the fence and people will understand. At least out of towners will.

I can live with the hole in the ground, for now. But couldn't the Cardinals at least surround the property with shrubbery and a nicer-than-chain-link fence?

Mill204 wrote:I can live with the hole in the ground, for now. But couldn't the Cardinals at least surround the property with shrubbery and a nicer-than-chain-link fence?

We can call ourselves, "The Knights of Ni!"



We are the keepers of the sacred words ni, peng, and niwomp! The knights who say "ni" demand a sacrifice. We shall say "ni" again to you if you do not appease us. We desire a shrubbery for BallPark Village!



We'll deny the Cardinals' passing until they come back with a shrubbery. Video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTQfGd3G6dg

We are no longer the Knights Who Say "Ni." We are now the Knights Who Say 'Ecky-ecky-ecky-ecky-Cordish-Slay-DeWitt-Rainford-Centene-plotz!'

bonwich wrote:We are no longer the Knights Who Say "Ni." We are now the Knights Who Say 'Ecky-ecky-ecky-ecky-Cordish-Slay-DeWitt-Rainford-Centene-plotz!'

Plotz? Here is a plotz that describes what plotz looks like.

The Central Scrutinizer wrote:Bear Stearns would be a better example.

Sure, but would you be doing the happy dance after a 47% YTD loss?

I guess this explains the need for a new development agreement. I wonder how much office space they now want to include? Personally, I think that is a good thing, as long as the minimum 250 condos stay in the project.





Thursday, March 27, 2008

The Next Day



The news that the Cordish Company and Centene were unable to reach a final agreement on how Centene could purchase two blocks of the Ballpark Village project for a new office building and other projects was — as I said yesterday — disappointing. Still, I regard the delays that the Centene discussions added to the Ballpark Village project worth the effort. After all, had the two companies been able to reach an agreement, who would have begrudged them the time?



In conversations with the St. Louis Cardinals, I have made several things clear to them.



First, I want a world-class development built. What will it be? The Cardinals want to shift from condos to office space. I am fine with that. Downtown needs more office space and more jobs. While it is certainly going to be necessary to rewrite prior agreements to reflect that and other changes sought by the Cardinals, the new agreement must make sense and treat the taxpayers fairly.



Second, the hole is an eyesore. I understand that the engineers and construction contractors like it, and that grading the site would only add to the project’s costs and timing. But, it is difficult to understand why the fence around the site isn’t screened.



Third, the agreement with the Cardinals requiring them to pay $3 million a year if a $60-million project is not completed by 2011 remains in full force.



Fourth, my staff and I – and all the City officials quoted in the newspaper today — will work days, nights, and weekends to revise and document a new agreement quickly.



The City of St. Louis has never (and will not) get in the way of Ballpark Village being built — unless the price tag for our taxpayers is too high.



Source

^^If I had shorted Centene a few months ago I would.

We should all report Brownstar Village to the Citizens Service Bureau for trash violations and if they have any vehicles/equipment out there it is against city ordinance to park on an unimproved surface. We just need to figure out where the address is and what the violations are and start deluging the CSB with complaints!!

That was a fabulously-written piece by our dear friend. I bet he's been busy the past couple days. Mini-crises can suck for clients, but it must make for interesting work.



1. The city desires a world-class development that is in tune with supply/demand realities.

2. Cardinals, devise a way to fix that eyesore! (How about an aesthetically-pleasing opaque fence so no one can see inside, bubbas? Your neighbors are tired of looking at your craphole in our downtown for three years while you dawdle with fruitless negotiations that failed to bring in 1,200 jobs. And don't forget a shrubbery. Ni!)

3. Reminder of penalties if Cardinals don't meet their obligations to the city. (Low risk of this happening, but good to state anyway.)

4. The city understands its citizen's unease and will work urgently to do what is in its means to move this forward post-haste.

MattnSTL wrote:I guess this explains the need for a new development agreement. I wonder how much office space they now want to include? Personally, I think that is a good thing, as long as the minimum 250 condos stay in the project.





Thursday, March 27, 2008

The Next Day



The news that the Cordish Company and Centene were unable to reach a final agreement on how Centene could purchase two blocks of the Ballpark Village project for a new office building and other projects was — as I said yesterday — disappointing. Still, I regard the delays that the Centene discussions added to the Ballpark Village project worth the effort. After all, had the two companies been able to reach an agreement, who would have begrudged them the time?



In conversations with the St. Louis Cardinals, I have made several things clear to them.



First, I want a world-class development built. What will it be? The Cardinals want to shift from condos to office space. I am fine with that. Downtown needs more office space and more jobs. While it is certainly going to be necessary to rewrite prior agreements to reflect that and other changes sought by the Cardinals, the new agreement must make sense and treat the taxpayers fairly.



Second, the hole is an eyesore. I understand that the engineers and construction contractors like it, and that grading the site would only add to the project’s costs and timing. But, it is difficult to understand why the fence around the site isn’t screened.



Third, the agreement with the Cardinals requiring them to pay $3 million a year if a $60-million project is not completed by 2011 remains in full force.



Fourth, my staff and I – and all the City officials quoted in the newspaper today — will work days, nights, and weekends to revise and document a new agreement quickly.



The City of St. Louis has never (and will not) get in the way of Ballpark Village being built — unless the price tag for our taxpayers is too high.



Source

I read this and am disconcerted. I doubt we'll get any residential. If we were still getting a 250 condo tower, they would not have to rewrite the development agreement.



Remember STL Centre? Union Station? Those developments are retail with office built with. Now look at it. Ballpark Village will not work long-term without a residential component - period. If they can't build residential right now, fine, but they then need to block off at least one block of the land for future residential and offer it to the private sector to develop. Personally, I think an apartment tower would do just fine in this market.



I'm usually a supported of Slay, but I think this move is just stupid.

Why build 250 condos if there is no market for them? You may think there is, but there's not and it may even serve to further deflate the housing market downtown. Design it so that condos may be built in the future.

How do you know there is no market? Have you become a real estate analyst in your spare time?



Personally, I think there is a market, just like the rest of downtown, including for your building. Could the market support 1200 units at this time? No, but it could support the 250. I agree with the design to build them, but I say design it to build more in the future additional to the 250.

MattnSTL wrote:How do you know there is no market? Have you become a real estate analyst in your spare time?



Personally, I think there is a market, just like the rest of downtown, including for your building. Could the market support 1200 units at this time? No, but it could support the 250.

How do you know there is a market? Have you become a real estate analyst in your spare time?



Demand for downtown condos is sagging, financing standards are becoming more restrictive, and you believe there is demand for more high-end supply? There are a lot more condo developments in the pipeline already and the certainty of some is in question.



Personally, I believe they would be built if there was demand. Why would any developer miss out on that profit? Probably because they don't want to lose money.

Yes, actually.



The reason I say that they should build them is for a couple of reasons. First, it's a unique product, one that people may not actually be buying to live in. There's still people out there with money to spend on things like that. The second reason is that these won't be done for a while. I'm looking at a future market here. However, I'm not necessarily into forcing Cordish to build the condos if they don't want to. I'd actually like to see a new market study.

That seems pretty reasonable. But why do you think the Cardinals/Cordish were so adamant against building condos for the last two years? I think it would help BPV's success to have a residential component, but these potential residences seem like nothing than a 2nd home for a good percentage of people or corporate entertainment spaces.

What blows my mind the most....



They want more office space instead of condos - fine...

They had a huge corporation to fill it now -

What the hell?



Makes you wonder.

I bet it won't get a lot of kudos here, but McClellan was right on this morning:



Ballpark Village is baseball fantasy



Excerpt:

Truth is, people have known from Day One that Ballpark Village is a bad idea. That was obvious when the city made the owners of the Cardinals sign a guarantee that they would build the Village — or else there would be financial penalties. That was an ominous sign.



If a business idea is good, you don't need to negotiate guarantees and penalties. Business people act on good ideas. They put their own money into them.



If you have an ocean, you don't need to negotiate with businessmen to make sure they will build on oceanfront property. They just do it. For that matter, if we had a lake — Chouteau's Pond, for instance — entrepreneurs would bid against each other for waterfront property. The city would not have to negotiate guarantees and penalties to make sure that something was built.



Why did the city need to enter negotiations about Ballpark Village? Because the city and the Cardinal owners noticed the same thing. The old Busch Stadium had sat there for 40 years and nobody had opened a successful retail outlet in its vicinity.

I admin he sort of got the consternation about Dooley's wrong. It didn't close because of not having business. But otherwise I thought it was a great column.

^For that matter if we had a pond, Pujol's Pond...

So does this 3 million penalty (that won't start until 2011) really a deterent for the Cardinals?

1) as has been stated somewhere, it's middle infielder money. A drop in the hat when people are blindly still filling the seats.

2) as part of the agreement on the new ballpark, (and the promise of the new ballpark entertainment district called "Ballpark Village"), the city agreed to waive the 5% tax on tickets at the new stadium. This has apparently saved them 3 million in 06, 3 million in 07, and most likely 3 million in 08, 09, 10, and on and on. Are they really going to be coming out ahead here? Is there more to this? Won't it be a wash from year to year starting in 2011? Should I be mad about this, or is this just the only way that things get done?

I love me some Cardinals, but it really seems like something isn't right.

southslider wrote:^For that matter if we had a pond, Pujol's Pond...

It looks a bit like a pond today. Better get a development going before the sun comes out.

bprop wrote:I bet it won't get a lot of kudos here, but McClellan was right on this morning:

No doubt that Bill McClellan got it right, even if I wish he was wrong.

bprop wrote:I admit he sort of got the consternation about Dooley's wrong. It didn't close because of not having business. But otherwise I thought it was a great column.

McClellan wasn't the only one to get the Dooley's story wrong. I remember in the article about its closing that appeared in the Tuesday, March 18 edition of the Post-Dispatch, Jim Cloar of the Downtown Partnership pretty much said the same thing, ignoring the fact that redevelopment of the Alexa led to Dooley's demise, not a lack of business. Of course, Dooley's can't get a subsidy like the Cardinals, so its future remains in doubt. And heck, the Cardinals got their subsidy, and we're still waiting for that one as well. (Hopefully we won't have to wait so long for Dooley's return.)