International Shoe... 1509 Washington? Isn't it ~140,000?
^International Shoe isn't occupied? I believe a charter school and some other businesses where there when I lived down there a couple years ago.
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Sorry all... I should have made clear that the Biz Journal Ghost Building article was on larger buildings in the CBD/Downtown proper (although including JA on Tucker which is technically Downtown West).
^ International Shoe I believe was one of the now closed Imagine Academy schools.
^ International Shoe I believe was one of the now closed Imagine Academy schools.
So whats the status of 1501 Washington ave (international shoe), occupied or vacant? School, housing, or office?
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^ I think at best it is largely vacant at the moment.... I believe the school is gone and I don't think there has been any major replacement. To be honest, that stretch of Washington Ave seems to have taken a couple steps back with activity.
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CPI corp also located on that stretch closed which was the other hit.
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^ yeah, certainly there are a number of beauts on Washington that hopefully will see a more solid footing and help (re)activate the area.... I'd hate for everything to be residential though; hopefully creative spaces for design firms and other office users will be part of the mix.
^^ Anyone know the status of the CPI Building? I think it would be nice to try and continue to have an office mix on Washington but I wouldn't doubt if this one goes residential as well.
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photo from Built St. Louis
photo from Built St. Louis
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^ thanks, I knew it was taken over by the creditors but wasn't sure if it was actively on the market.... hopefully it will get back into service soon -- and the parking lot holdings hopefuly built on in the not-too-distant future.
Where's the listing? I thought Dave Jump of City Museum owned that building.
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^ it looks like you're right about Jump owning it.... I don't see a listing but hopefully its on the market and not held forever.
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He does, which means it will sit vacant until some developer is willing to pay his asking price.erina wrote:Where's the listing? I thought Dave Jump of City Museum owned that building.
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^ A large vacant or vastly underutilized building.... you might want to go to the first post on the thread for a link to a pretty cool Biz Journal article from 2011 on Ghost Buildings in the CBD; unfortunately we now have more square footage of ghost buildings in the CBD now than we did then with the additions of the Railway Exchange, AT&T One Center and Millennium/Stouffer Hotel. We did put back in action a few including Cupples 9, GenAm and Arcade-Wright but also lost Cupples 7 to demo.
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So ghost buildings are underutilized buildings. It doesn't mean abandoned buildings in which no one claims ownership or no attempt is made to secure the building as was, and still is in come cases, true in Detroit. In that case, "Ghost Buildings" seems like a sensationalist overstatement of the situation. There is plenty of real estate in St. Charles, Chesterfield and many places around America that are underutilized. How many suburban McMansions have living rooms that are never used for that matter? Multiply by hundreds of thousands and much of suburban St. Louis is underutilized, too.
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Well I think ghost buildings refers to building that developers have acquired but are not actively pursuing development. Basically the cost to buy was low and therefore low risk. A lot of times they are sitting on it gambling that the area will experience an upswing. If it does they are risking far less by investing in its development. If not they never put much skin in the game and they write it off. It's not a very visionary or courageous strategy and it often times means a building that could be put back into service now is waiting longer for "safer", and more profitable market conditions.
Basically why invest money now and turn a small profit, where if I wait five years I can make a much bigger profit. Well because it can really be an anchor to an areas recovery.
That's the way I always understood the term. Feel free to correct me.
Basically why invest money now and turn a small profit, where if I wait five years I can make a much bigger profit. Well because it can really be an anchor to an areas recovery.
That's the way I always understood the term. Feel free to correct me.
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^ I think the Biz Journal was just looking at it broadly as those significant buildings that had yet to be redeveloped.... there was some optimism back then that just about all on the list would be taken care of by 2016. That won't happen, but I'll take 2020!
Dave Jump does own it and he has his own process for selling property that some may call unconventional. The bottom line is, Debaliviere is 100% correct.
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Here's a pretty cool look (with photos) at Detroit's 10 "Dinosaur Buildings." (I like Ghost Building better.)
http://www.freep.com/story/money/busine ... /71057572/
Like Saint Louis, challenges to redeveloping the remaining ghosties include the high amount of gap financing needed for rehab (it also appears Michigan cut back on tax credits, kind of like MO threatening HTC's), the market quite not being where it needs to be, and sometimes uncreative, unrealistic and/or "un"competent owners.
The collection of largely vacant buildings -- well over 1 million square feet of idle or waiting-to-be-redeveloped space -- threatens to stymie the ultimate recovery of the city's central core. Some have been sitting idle for decades.
"The market I think is right there for smaller mid-sized projects," said Brian Holdwick, executive vice president of the Detroit Economic Growth Corp (DEGC). "It's the large dinosaur buildings that there's (no financial tools) there to address."
In one way these dinosaur buildings represent the residue of a half-century and more of decline – of Detroit's sad record of losing jobs and tax base from the heart of the city to the suburbs and the Sunbelt. Built mostly from the 1920s to the 1960s, these giant structures are among the most difficult to renovate and put back into mainstream use because of their size and need for tens of millions in upfront funding to begin any significant project.
The failure to develop these buildings represents a lack of will and imagination that could, over time, could come to chill future downtown investment. After all, other one-time abandoned buildings have been renovated. The Westin Book Cadillac, the Doubletree Fort Shelby, the Broderick Tower and the David Whitney Building were all once thought too far gone to save. They gained new life, however, through renovation captained by a special breed of owners determined to see the job through despite financial risk.
http://www.freep.com/story/money/busine ... /71057572/
Like Saint Louis, challenges to redeveloping the remaining ghosties include the high amount of gap financing needed for rehab (it also appears Michigan cut back on tax credits, kind of like MO threatening HTC's), the market quite not being where it needs to be, and sometimes uncreative, unrealistic and/or "un"competent owners.
The collection of largely vacant buildings -- well over 1 million square feet of idle or waiting-to-be-redeveloped space -- threatens to stymie the ultimate recovery of the city's central core. Some have been sitting idle for decades.
"The market I think is right there for smaller mid-sized projects," said Brian Holdwick, executive vice president of the Detroit Economic Growth Corp (DEGC). "It's the large dinosaur buildings that there's (no financial tools) there to address."
In one way these dinosaur buildings represent the residue of a half-century and more of decline – of Detroit's sad record of losing jobs and tax base from the heart of the city to the suburbs and the Sunbelt. Built mostly from the 1920s to the 1960s, these giant structures are among the most difficult to renovate and put back into mainstream use because of their size and need for tens of millions in upfront funding to begin any significant project.
The failure to develop these buildings represents a lack of will and imagination that could, over time, could come to chill future downtown investment. After all, other one-time abandoned buildings have been renovated. The Westin Book Cadillac, the Doubletree Fort Shelby, the Broderick Tower and the David Whitney Building were all once thought too far gone to save. They gained new life, however, through renovation captained by a special breed of owners determined to see the job through despite financial risk.
^ Here's my latest stab for downtown & downtown west. There are other vacant buildings, especially in DW, but they are generally smaller. As far as I know, there are no imminent rehabs for the buildings on the list although some like Municipal Courts are actively trying to lure tenants. (And it is good to see some other vacant buildings like 1115 Pine, The Alverne, and 1802 Pine being tackled.) What have I missed with say 50,000 sq. ft.+ buildings?
Downtown
1. Mercantile Exchange, 510 Locust St. - 270,000 sq. ft.
2. 505 Washington Ave. - 78,000 total square feet
3. Chemical Building, 721 Olive St. - 17-story, 177,000 sq. ft.
4. LaSalle Building, 509 Olive - 13-story, 33,150 sq. ft.
5. 917 Locust St. - 120,000 sq. ft.
6. 921-923 Locust St. (Locust & 10th buildings) - 120,000 total sq. ft.
7. Railway Exchange, 515 Olive - 1.2 million sq. ft.
8. One ATT Center, 900 Pine - 1.2 million sq. ft.
9. 200 S. Fourth St. - 28 story tower & 10 story tower (formerly Millennium Hotel) - approx. 300,00 total sq. ft.
10. Orpheum Theater, 416 N. 9th
Downtown West
1. Jefferson Arms, 401-415 N. Tucker - 500,000 sq. ft.
2. Municipal Courts Building, 1320 Market - 160,000 sq. ft.
3. International Shoe, 1509 Washington ~140,000 sq. ft.
4. 1706 Washington - 313,000 sq. ft. (old CPI building)
5. Butler Brothers Building, 1717 Olive St. - 718,000 sq. ft.
6. 706 N. Jefferson ~ 100,000 sq. ft. (old Imagine Schools)
7. 725 N. 23rd ~ 155,000 sq. ft. (old Commercial Letter)
Downtown
1. Mercantile Exchange, 510 Locust St. - 270,000 sq. ft.
2. 505 Washington Ave. - 78,000 total square feet
3. Chemical Building, 721 Olive St. - 17-story, 177,000 sq. ft.
4. LaSalle Building, 509 Olive - 13-story, 33,150 sq. ft.
5. 917 Locust St. - 120,000 sq. ft.
6. 921-923 Locust St. (Locust & 10th buildings) - 120,000 total sq. ft.
7. Railway Exchange, 515 Olive - 1.2 million sq. ft.
8. One ATT Center, 900 Pine - 1.2 million sq. ft.
9. 200 S. Fourth St. - 28 story tower & 10 story tower (formerly Millennium Hotel) - approx. 300,00 total sq. ft.
10. Orpheum Theater, 416 N. 9th
Downtown West
1. Jefferson Arms, 401-415 N. Tucker - 500,000 sq. ft.
2. Municipal Courts Building, 1320 Market - 160,000 sq. ft.
3. International Shoe, 1509 Washington ~140,000 sq. ft.
4. 1706 Washington - 313,000 sq. ft. (old CPI building)
5. Butler Brothers Building, 1717 Olive St. - 718,000 sq. ft.
6. 706 N. Jefferson ~ 100,000 sq. ft. (old Imagine Schools)
7. 725 N. 23rd ~ 155,000 sq. ft. (old Commercial Letter)
It will be 2020 before Downtown St. Louis begins to see major new construction downtown. Too many huge vacant buildings that need to be rehabbed first. We are making a lot of headway though and I predict that in the range of 5-10 years from now, it will look like St. Louis is having a high rise or more realistically a mid rise boom. To people that don't know it will look like downtown is rising from the dead, but we will know that it was 20+ years of laying the groundwork getting these historic buildings rehabbed.
Easily a couple more thousand units could be put online with the number of ghost buildings downtown.
Also these are just big "ghost" buildings, still a couple dozen heavily underutilized buildings in downtown west. With our growth rates, still another 20 years before we have a truly vibrant 24/7 type downtown. What sad is, a city like Dallas, Atlanta, or Denver have the growth rates to rehab all of our vacant buildings in a year, but they just don't have our bones.
Also these are just big "ghost" buildings, still a couple dozen heavily underutilized buildings in downtown west. With our growth rates, still another 20 years before we have a truly vibrant 24/7 type downtown. What sad is, a city like Dallas, Atlanta, or Denver have the growth rates to rehab all of our vacant buildings in a year, but they just don't have our bones.
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^ yes, there are more especially in DW... I posted a few more larger ones since your comment and I'd appreciate any others say 50,000 sq. ft. plus that are vacant/almost completely vacant.
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I don't know if "Ghost Buildings" is the right term. These buildings are just vacant, but here aren't issues of ownership or back taxes. "Ghost buildings" suggests that no one is claiming ownership of these buildings or that there are back taxes that no one accepts to be their responsibility. This is common in places like Detroit where there are buildings where local government claims that one person or legal entity owns the building, but that person or entity doesn't accept that they own the building. These are ghost buildings in that no one claims ownership and no one can legally establish ownership. That is MUCH worse than just vacant buildings. Let's not get carried away with describing St. Louis.