urbanSTL

OK, a few things:



First, there is nothing "new" about the 3D rendering video. That is the same basic layout for Ballpark Village that the Cardinals have been showing us for at least the last 5 years now. The design of the towers has changed, slightly, and the plaza/green space has shifted to the interior from Clark St., but other than that, the massing and density of the overall plan hasn't changed much at all.



Second, Mike Owens said in the video that condominium units are out of the project, replaced by office space. He didn't specify that it was only out of Phase I, so the 3D rendering, which clearly indicates residential buildings, is meaningless. So why even show it at this point? <- That was a rhetorical question.



Last, did noone else hear Mike Owens say that the Cardinals are requesting an extension on the $3 million annual penalty, and that that would require the city and state to reopen negotiations??? That is going to go over like a lead balloon with officials and the public. So, when the extension is rejected, what are the Cardinals going to do?



I also thought it was interesting that Mike Owens said that repeated requests to interview Cordish officials went unanswered. Nice PR...

This ballpark village thing makes me sick.



I do not support the Cardinals. I don't like what they stand for. So, in a way, I'm boycotting them by not going to games.



I have no doubt that the Cardinals will sell this team. I work with developers and they are always making eye candy renderings to sell a project. In this case, the Cardinals are not trying to sell a certain restaurant, store, condo, or an office. They are trying to sell the whole thing!



Why spend so much time on renderings and models? build the f'n thing.







Boycott the frauds!

migueltejada wrote:

bonwich wrote:The City subsidized the stadium because of promises to develop the adjacent land. The public reasonably assumed that said land would be at least in part developed in time for the 2009 All-Star game. Plus the City has fair right to demand upkeep of a property, and the mayor has power of moral suasion to point out that, in return for the tens of millions that the Cardinals got in subsidy for the stadium, they should at least make their vacant lot look nice. (Then again, the Kiel Partners "promised" to reopen the Opera House, and we see how well that's turned out.)

The city stupidly assumed that their "penalties" would be enough incentive to hold the Cardinals to their word. As I've said from day 0, the penalties were less than the cost of development. Why would the cardinals take the risk when they can eat the penalties and be done with it?



They're just going to continue to put out renderings that get people all excited, while secretly they have no intention of developing. They'll pave the lot for parking, wait for the market to swing back up, then sell the land, make a ton of money, and earn far more than the penalties they'd have paid in the sale.



Take the blinders off folks. Since when have sports teams ever been property developers?

migueltejada wrote:They're just going to continue to put out renderings that get people all excited, while secretly they have no intention of developing. They'll pave the lot for parking, wait for the market to swing back up, then sell the land, make a ton of money, and earn far more than the penalties they'd have paid in the sale.

Fine with me, as long as the city denies the Cardinals a permit to build said parking lot. Then, the city can declare the the area blighted (no question there), send out RFPs, and proceed with eminent domain proceedings to wrest control of Dewitt's Pond from the Cardinal's.

Fine with me, as long as the city denies the Cardinals a permit to build said parking lot. Then, the city can declare the the area blighted (no question there), send out RFPs, and proceed with eminent domain proceedings to wrest control of Dewitt's Pond from the Cardinal's.

Bingo.



Is there any way to get this on a ballot? Is it possible to impose land use restrictions by referendum?

realclear wrote:

Fine with me, as long as the city denies the Cardinals a permit to build said parking lot. Then, the city can declare the the area blighted (no question there), send out RFPs, and proceed with eminent domain proceedings to wrest control of Dewitt's Pond from the Cardinal's.

Bingo.



Is there any way to get this on a ballot? Is it possible to impose land use restrictions by referendum?

It should not even be necessary to go to a ballot vote.



Even if the Cardinals own the land outright (which I assume is the case), the City has the power, derived from State Law, to regulate the "use" of all property.



I am guessing from the following link that the zoning used for the BallPark Village Land is a Special Use District (SUD).



http://denverinfill.com/images/special_ ... report.pdf



(BTW, this above link is an interesting analysis of St. Louis by consultants from Denver--and it cited the current SUD zoning scheme as one of downtown STL's strongest assets since it provides for "mixed-use" development.)



Assuming the BP land is zoned as an SUD, the City should have the discretion to prohibit the Cardinals from paving the whole thing if they want to.



The SUD muni ordinance is found here: http://www.slpl.lib.mo.us/cco/code/data/t2673.htm



The crux of the ordinance seems to be that the City has a lot of discretion on how these SUD's are developed, taking into consideration such factors as the "general welfare" of the citizens, property values, etc.



The bottom line is that the City SHOULD be able to prevent the Cards from paving Pujols Pond and making a parking lot out of it under the SUD or similar zoning regulations.

Mill204 wrote:

migueltejada wrote:They're just going to continue to put out renderings that get people all excited, while secretly they have no intention of developing. They'll pave the lot for parking, wait for the market to swing back up, then sell the land, make a ton of money, and earn far more than the penalties they'd have paid in the sale.

Fine with me, as long as the city denies the Cardinals a permit to build said parking lot. Then, the city can declare the the area blighted (no question there), send out RFPs, and proceed with eminent domain proceedings to wrest control of Dewitt's Pond from the Cardinal's.

I'm not sure eminent domain is much of a threat, unless the city has a developer ready, willing, and able to fork over whatever the mediator decides the Ballpark Village land is worth. The Cards aren't going to sell, and I doubt the city and Cardinals would ever be able to agree on a fair price for the land, which means it would go to a mediator. I'm reasonably sure the city wouldn't be able to come up with the necessary cash on its own.

Will the city ever really stand up to the Cards? Wasn't it pretty much them bending over during the "negoiations" to build the new stadium either here, in Illinois, or elsewhere that has gotten us to this situation?

Hugh Ferriss wrote:
I haven't looked at the recent proposed designs for the condo portion of BPV, but presumably only the units on the side of the tower that actually faces Busch Stadium would have a view of games in progress - those on the other three sides would just look out at other downtown buildings, so even if the units on the stadium side proved popular, the developer would still be facing an uphill struggle to sell the other 50-75% of the building (depending on how many units there are per floor). I also suspect that, on a Venn diagram, the circle representing people who think it would be cool to have a condo overlooking the ball park and the circle representing people who actually earn enough money to buy such a condo would have a very small area of overlap...

Yeah, the other side would only have the best views in the world of a certain landmark that has made itself the sole symbol of the city....who would ever want that view? D'OH!

Maybe the politicians went to China for the wrong reason!!! They should have went and found a developer for BPV. China plus a few oil men have all our cash at the moment. I just don't see any other developer stepping up to the plate with a pile of cash (John Steffens thought he had money). In the meantime, you can spend several years just getting that land in someone else's hand even if the City is holding some good cards (Think Richmond Heights at the moment). Does Cordish have the cash lined up? They stated as such after the Centene breakup.



Another thought, Clayco is looking like it made a shrewd choice by teaming up with Centene as an equity partner last year. They are going to start work for Brown Shoe this summer and might have the Centene project back on the plate in Clayton shortly afterwards. Then they might get lucky, DeWitt finally builds and goes to back to guess who. A nice project to generate revenue to booster their equity ventures.

It should not even be necessary to go to a ballot vote.



Even if the Cardinals own the land outright (which I assume is the case), the City has the power, derived from State Law, to regulate the "use" of all property.

I didn't make myself clear enough. My point in calling for a referendum was that I don't trust the city. Even though they have the power to prevent a giant parking lot from being built, would you really put it past them? Surface parking over the pond could easily be a "temporary" fix that stays with us for years.

A public vote on anything having to do with development scares me no matter what the circumstances.

migueltejada wrote:The city plan hasn't been updated since 1947,

True, although the City's planning department has proposed a replacement (not sure what the effect of this document is).



Saint Louis Strategic Land Use Plan



In any event, land use comprehensive plans are essentially meaningless. What really matters is the zoning district map, which I can't find online.

migueltejada wrote:

Mill204 wrote:

migueltejada wrote:They're just going to continue to put out renderings that get people all excited, while secretly they have no intention of developing. They'll pave the lot for parking, wait for the market to swing back up, then sell the land, make a ton of money, and earn far more than the penalties they'd have paid in the sale.

Fine with me, as long as the city denies the Cardinals a permit to build said parking lot. Then, the city can declare the the area blighted (no question there), send out RFPs, and proceed with eminent domain proceedings to wrest control of Dewitt's Pond from the Cardinal's.

Block it under what pretenses? The city plan hasn't been updated since 1947, so they can't use that as a reason. It's already been declared blighted for TIF purposes -you can't declare it twice if nothing has occurred but a proposal for improvement is on the table can you? Hasn't the state passed legislation prohibiting eminent domain for private use? If so, the city would have to develop it themselves - and we all know that ain't happenin. You think the City is really gonna take the Cardinals to court? Please. You'd sooner see Madonna remember she's American.



There's nothing to stop them from doing exactly what I've said they'd do. Someone PLEASE prove me wrong.

See my post above regarding zoning. This is likely zoned as an SUD (Special Use District) where the City has complete discretion on its "use." But I haven't had time to confirm this.

I'm not sure I understand why the conversation has morphed into the city EDing the land.



It is my understanding that construction would have begun already had Centene not F'd everything up. Everybody chill out.

Moorlander wrote:I'm not sure I understand why the conversation has morphed into the city EDing the land.



It is my understanding that construction would have begun already had Centene not F'd everything up. Everybody chill out.

Sure, that is what the Cardinals and Cordish want you to believe. You can choose to believe that spin if you want to, all I ask is that you think about two things:



1) Is there any evidence whatsoever that construction would have begun by now? Was there a signed development agreement? Who would have been the general contractor? How many LOIs did Cordish have for retail tenants? How many office tenants did they have lined up before the Centene proposal? How many residential units would there have been and how much retail space in the first Phase? How many parking spaces were there to be? Were they going to be above ground or below ground? I don't see any evidence that Cordish had answered any of these questions before Centene came along, and they had plenty of time to do so.



B) Centene proposed to buy a block or two of land within Ballpark Village for a fair market price, develop that land with a minimum of 700,000 SF of office space, somewhere around 70,000 SF of retail space, and fill it all with hundreds of workers...and that somehow "F'd everything up" in a supposedly $650 million several-square-block, mixed-use project, where the supposedly world-class developer had only managed to get commitments for, at most, 150,000 SF of office space - much of that after the Centene announcement??? C'mon...

We'll see buddy.



I guess since YOU never got wind of these LOI's etc, etc, there must not have been any/many. Tenants for all the office space aren't needed until later phases anyway.

^I'd say that your last name must be Cordish, except that you apparently possess at least rudimentary communication skills, which quite obviously rules that out.



A major retail chain signing an LOI for their first entry into a market, in a huge project like this, is almost impossible to keep quiet. And, no, they didn't need to get commitments for all of the office space, but they would have needed commitments for around 50% of it.

uhh ok man. Look you could be right, I just don't see/hear it that way. I'm just some guy with or without the last name Cordish, so what do I know?



So do you think City Hall is in on this too? How big is the conspiracy umbrella? Just wondering...

^I wish there was a conspiracy. At least that would imply that there is some intelligence involved, instead of an inept, family-run organization simply being in over its head and trying to bully and blackmail everyone and everything into giving them their way. I'll leave it up to you as to which organization I'm referring.

Hope you know I'm just playing the Devil's advocate card here. The Cards/Cordish complete lack of communication with the public (continuously saying the same thing and release the same renderings) and reluctance to advertise (coming soon sign anyone?) BV at the site is very unnerving.

A Clayton spokesperson trashing downtown!!! What is up with that!!!



http://www.globest.com/news/1151_1151/s ... 536-1.html



Downtown St. Louis is now seeing a major disaster for its growth plans, the Clayton spokesman says. “You’ve got the biggest redeveloper, Pyramid, declaring bankruptcy, it’s a huge problem.” John Steffen’s Pyramid Cos. shut down its massive portfolio of Downtown plans in April, including a reported two million sf of planned projects, making up almost $600 million in new projects. This included the $450-million, mixed-use redevelopment of the Dillard’s building, to be called the Laurel, and the $100-million renovation of the Jefferson Arms Hotel. Pyramid’s Laurel partner Spinnaker Cos. has reportedly kept the project going, but other plans are dead. A Pyramid spokesman could not be reached for comment.

^ I think its sad that Clayton thinks of itself as the commercial center of the region and has to degrade downtown's progression in order to make itself appear better. I'm glad that Centene decided to stay in the St. Louis area, but these kind of shots are unnecessary. Lets see how much Clayton laughs if the city ever gets rid of that stupid earnings tax, but until then doing big time business in the city limits will be a joke .