jlblues wrote:Meh, I don't know anymore, maybe that is the one I had on my desktop, but I swear it had at least one more tower along Broadway.
Me neither. The goalposts for this project have been moved so much, that maybe the rendering JMedwick posted is the one I had on my desktop. Although the early renderings are obviously not quite as ambitious as the ones that I believe were released just before and/or after Cordish came on board in June 2005, I think they still look great. That said, I still believe you're right about Cordish underestimating St. Louis and overestimating the risk of this project.
DeBaliviere wrote:Probably because that was pre-Cordish.
But when you read the quotes from Cordish from 2006, and see the renderings from when they first came on, it seemed more ambitious and included more residential than the pre-Cordish proposals (1200 units in three high-rises). Cordish talks about grocers, tailors, dry cleaners, book stores, coffee shops. Why would you have any of that if Ballpark Village won't have any residential? You aren't going to be able to support all of that with just office workers and tourists.
ThreeOneFour wrote:
jlblues wrote:Meh, I don't know anymore, maybe that is the one I had on my desktop, but I swear it had at least one more tower along Broadway.
Me neither. The goalposts for this project have been moved so much, that maybe the rendering JMedwick posted is the one I had on my desktop. Although the early renderings are obviously not quite as ambitious as the ones that I believe were released just before and/or after Cordish came on board in June 2005, I think they still look great. That said, I still believe you're right about Cordish underestimating St. Louis and overestimating the risk of this project.
Just to clarify, I would be very happy if I thought Ballpark Village would ever look anything like the rendering JMedwick posted while Cordish is developer. But it won't look like that without residential and with only 350,000 sf of office space.
As much as I'd love to see a much larger residential component as we were led to believe the development would include when Cordish made their first announcement in 2005, I'd be perfectly fine with the initial proposal that still included a strong mix of residential, retail, and commercial space. Without residential, and with as little as 100,000SF of office space, then we won't even have anything as impressive as the original renderings.
I'm hopeful that the development will include at least some residential along with a significant amount of office space, but first the Cardinals must convince me that they're serious about making at least some semblance of a positive impression by the All-Star Game, and that this isn't just another effort to buy time.
Some have said that Ballpark Village will never resemble a suburban strip mall/office building development. However, I don't think these people realize just how much the elimination of residential from Phase I will fundamentally alter the entire layout, and the density, feel, and appearance of Ballpark Village. However this project plays out, if anything is built, most of the retail in Ballpark Village will be built in Phase I - supposedly, around 300,000 sf worth. If you remove the option of residential entirely, then what can you do with the space above all of that retail?
It isn't a perfect comparison, but imagine The Boulevard project with no residential; it would just be a few two story retail buildings with a parking garage behind them. And without residential, Ballpark Village will be the same. Because of ADA and other code requirements, a single-use retail building taller than two or three stories just doesn't work. And it would be extremely difficult and expensive to come back in a future phase and build low-rise residential on top of all of that retail.
Residential above retail works well because code requirements are less demanding than for office use, and the space can obviously be divided up into much smaller units. But if you eliminate that option, then what kind of space can you put above the retail? You can have some office space above retail, but office space like that doesn't work very well either. Tougher code requirements, inefficiencies, the fact that space like this only works for small office tenants, and that there just isn't much demand for it, means that you can't ask enough for the space to make it worth the cost of bulding it, particularly in a development like Ballpark Village. Some of the retail space can go into the lower floors of the parking garage, but you can't do that for the majority of that 300,000 sf of retail.
So, eliminating residential means that much of the acreage of Ballpark Village will be covered with two story retail buildings. And I think it should be pretty obvious to everyone by now that there is going to be a lot of surface parking on the site for quite some time. Once you eliminate the possiblity of residential, there really isn't any other option. Eliminating residential basically means the difference between a development like The Boulevard, and one like The Meridian - hence, the suburban strip mall/office development look.
1. I believe that with the proable commitments already and more to come i would think they could build something higher than 15 stories more like 20-30.
2. Why don't they just try some residential, put 25 units up for sale and gage the reaction/demand to them and then go from there. Based on cupples stations u would think they would include some resedential in phase 1 especially to help support their 300,000 ft of retail.
When can we expect to see the revised renderings? I hope they at least sort of resemble the past renderings. We were promised a skyline changing development (god knows St. Louis needs it), but then again we were originally promised it would be up and running by the all star game. Atleast we know it will be packed when the Cards are playing.
If they are going to start construction shouldn't they have a rendering. I know they don't have to release one, but I would think with all the anticipation that one would have been rushed to the public.
I'd like to see what this supposedly is going to look like with no residential components in the first phase. Ideally, I'd like to see a phase by phase view of what this will eventually morph into.
Unfortunately, just like in KC, everything always hits a snag and everything has to be scaled down. That's what happened at Cordish's power and light and I bet that'll happen here. I don't want it to, but it will.
keef227 wrote:If they are going to start construction shouldn't they have a rendering. I know they don't have to release one, but I would think with all the anticipation that one would have been rushed to the public.
Last I heard, the office space in Phase I was to be between 100,000 and 750,000 sf. How would you go about rendering that?
And if they are going to start construction they also might want to think about selecting a general contractor.
If this thing does go into phases over a number of years, I would think it would be modified to a larger rather than a smaller scale. Taking all of the positive things I have heard about P & L in KC, I think the popularity of the BPV real estate will snowball from every perspective (corporate, retail, entertainment, residential) in between each phase. If/when the economy bounces back, there will be more and more interest to live, work, play in BPV. Hence, when the powers that be see the increased interest (which is probably there now if they looked hard enough), it would be modified to accommodate proportionally.
There could be some working starting. DeWitt did say that they would be doing some work including a better fence. I doubt it will be much real construction yet. Probably grading type work. Some utility type work would not suprise me either, although I would think it is too early for that.
keef227 wrote:If they are going to start construction shouldn't they have a rendering. I know they don't have to release one, but I would think with all the anticipation that one would have been rushed to the public.
Last I heard, the office space in Phase I was to be between 100,000 and 750,000 sf. How would you go about rendering that?
I drove by on my way to the office this morning. Ahrens has 3 excavators there. One with a hydraulic breaker, one with a concrete crusher, and one with an electromagnet. My guess is they will be pulling the piles from Busch II and cleaning up concrete debris. Maybe some grading too. All of this is very much pre construction work, but it has to happen at some point. The site should look better as well. I'm guessing this is the response to the city citing the cardinals for the complaints, and the Cardinals can also say they are doing something. It is nice to see something. I will take a walk down there later today and get a few pics.
Sounds good to me. The more big machines on the site, the more it shows people that something is happening there. Now they need a construction fence, with lots of renderings showing what's to come.
Framer wrote:Now they need a construction fence, with lots of renderings showing what's to come.
I've never understood why they did not do this from the start. My guess is that maybe they thought it was going to start so soon that they didn't need to bother. I agree about the equipment as well. Mainly for the tourists and suburbanites. The only bad part is that all of this still doesn't mean construction for sure, because the old piles would likely need to be pulled for a parking lot as well. However, I have faith. one of these days I will get my thoughts on BPV as a whole together.
I don't think the Clayco container and trailers has anything to do with BPV. That has been there since Busch III was built. They did construction oversight over the contractor if I recall correctly. I think they did the renovations after the first season as well.
