urbanSTL

Here is a link to my Downtown 2014 Projects list
http://urbanstl.com/forum/viewtopic.php ... 20#p230120

Here is a list of residential I've separated out... I'm counting almost 800 units recently completed or under construction and over 350 more planned not including intriguing other possibilities such as BPV or Laclede's Landing towers:

Recently Completed

Gallery 515 apartments - 515 Olive (102 units; Millennium Center 11 floor apartment conversion)
Lacassian Lofts -- renovation of 2200 Locust (27 units + ground floor commercial)
CitiParc at Pine - 1531 Pine (149 senior housing units; was vacant Plaza Square Building)
Tower OPOP - 411 N. 8th (128 units + ground floor restaurant)
406 units recently completed

Expected Completions 2014
Plaza Square improvements, including new garage (intended to create high occupancy rates)

2014 Expected Construction Starts with post-2014 completion

Under Construction
Arcade-Wright - 800 Olive (282 units + Webster U Gateway Campus))
The Alverne Building (1014 Locust) (81 units)
Marquette Building - 304 N. Broadway (10 condos converted from old Y space)
1214 Washington mixed-use (5 units + first floor commercial)
378 units under construction

Planned
720 Olive - 111 units (partial residential conversion of office building; offices consolidated to lower floors)
Chemical Building - 721 Olive (approx. 120 units)
2035 Lucas "Intrada Lofts" (57 units)
1900 Pine (87 units)
375 units planned

Keep an Eye On - Upcoming Announcements, Rumors and Innuendo
Possible residential conversion of Butler Bros. Building (1717 Olive)
Possible residential tower by Drury at Washington and Third (currently surface parking lot)
2nd Possible residential project in Laclede's Landing (unknown address)
Possible BPV residential tower
Possible purchase of 2nd Plaza Square building for senior housing

I think you need to move the Alverne down into planned if the dev doesnt even plan to start construction till 2016. Only doing basic demo.. Who knows if he will even start construction, has the money to start the project, or delay it due to the L. Gas building. That sound more like Chemical than it does Arcade

These numbers for the next 4 or so years depress me. Downtown is going to change very little the next few years

"Downtown's office market is tepid but the good times keep rolling along for the area's residential market. With that in mind, Sovereign Partners did a feasibility study of a plan to build a 16-story residential tower on top of KMOV, which occupies Gateway Tower's lowrise portion. The preliminary plan is for 80 residences ranging in size from 1,200 to 1,500 square feet"

http://m.stltoday.com/business/columns/ ... touch=true

^
That would be great!

^ i'm a little confused… the owner (Sovereign Partners) conducted a feasibility study and now they're selling the building? was the study conducted for marketing purposes? maybe the study is older than the article lets on?

EDIT: looks like roger has the same questions.

ShipWork sign gets me every time

^^ A residential tower @ Gateway Tower, conversion of the Stouffer (nee Millenium) Tower, a BPV tower, Laclede moving into the American General Building, along with the existing .400 (Sverdrup) Building could really change the vibe south of Market.

^ Unfortunately, I think Tim B or the editor took some liberties in the title or maybe added that fluff paragraph about a residential tower feasibility to get first scoop over the Business Journals and/or Alex/Geoff. A feasibility study done by the people who are trying to sell the building doesn't sound very encouraging to me. I also think this idea would work great at a number of locations including a second BofA tower being residential or adding a parking deck/residential tower to the Muni courts building development.

I'm getting my hopes back up that DeWitt will announce a phase II/BPV residential towers after Cards clinch their division. I'm getting less hopeful for a Drury tower on Lacledes Landings, my guess is their waiting on movement of a new Rams stadium or CVC investment into some additional ballroom space at the convention center.

I'm surprised no developer has shown interest in the Busch Stadium garages that flank Ballpark Village. I'd imagine they would do well as mixed use residential mid rises.

I was thinking the same thing. And if the development includes the Millennium Hotel site, it could nicely link the Ballpark to the Arch Grounds with, say, a broad walkway among the buildings.

Does anyone know what the height limits are for the Gateway Tower site?

Height Limits? Unofficially 630 feet?

urban_dilettante wrote:^ i'm a little confused… the owner (Sovereign Partners) conducted a feasibility study and now they're selling the building? was the study conducted for marketing purposes? maybe the study is older than the article lets on?

EDIT: looks like roger has the same questions.

The feasibility study just shows prospective buyers that they can get additional value from the property.

framer wrote:Does anyone know what the height limits are for the Gateway Tower site?

Here (<- note - large PDF download) is a map of the building zones. The Gateway Tower is in the Jefferson Memorial District zone (in blue on the map that encompasses the JNEM/Archgrounds and portions of the city immediately surrounding it.

Here are the height regulations from the JMD zone from the St. Louis Public Library's site:

26.64.040 Height regulations.

The height regulations are the same as those in the I central business district except that in no instance shall any portion of a building or structure including all appurtenances and super structures thereon, exceed a mean sea level elevation of seven hundred fifty-one (751) feet. It shall be unlawful to increase the height of an existing building or other structures located within this district unless it complies with the regulation of the district.
(Ord. 59979 § 17 (part), 1986.)

^ Now it mentions the Central Business District height regulations. Those are here:

From the CBD codes:

26.52.040 Height regulations.

Buildings may be erected to such height that the cubic contents of said building above the established grade shall not exceed the volume of a prism having a base equal to the projected horizontal area of the building and a height of two hundred (200) feet. In the case of buildings occupying a lot having frontage on intersecting streets and which buildings are so designed as to provide a setback or open space at one (1) corner or corners where such street intersections occur, or when such setback begins below the two hundred (200) foot height above the established grade, the volume determined by the above rule may be exceeded by an amount equal to the volume so taken out of the reference prism of two hundred (200) foot height; provided, however, that the total volume of the actual building shall not exceed by more than twenty-five percent (25%) the volume of said reference prism of two hundred (200) foot height.
(Ord. 59979 § 14 (part), 1986.)

Simple, no? In short, you take the property boundaries and draw an imaginary cube 200 feet tall. Take the volume of that cube, and that can be the volume of your building. So a perfectly square building built out to the edges of the property can only be 200 feet tall, but you can by code make the building taller by tapering the tower, hollowing out the center, or doing what the designers of the Gateway Tower did and have a shorter pedestal on one half of the property (a small-volume base) and a taller higher-volume tower on the other half. Here's a simple example of two cubes of the same volume but different heights:



Nowhere is there the arch specifically mentioned by name or by height in building codes. However, in the JMD zone only it does mention a specific hard height limit of "a mean sea level elevation of seven hundred fifty-one (751) feet". That's actually fairly limiting.

The arch grounds are 478' above sea level (reference, page 2), giving the 630'-tall arch a height above sea level of 1,108'. That means by code buildings in the immediate vicinity of the Archgrounds must be '357 shorter than the pinnacle of the Arch itself measuring from sea level.

So if you're building on ground at the same elevation above sea level as the Arch (an important qualification), that would limit a tower in the JMD zone to 273' in height. The Gateway Tower, for reference, is 260' tall.

-RBB

very good write up but a $160 fee for a Board of Adjustment hearing will throw all that out the window and give a variance for pretty much any height

Yep. Here's what Mayor Slay said about the building heights back in 2006 (in reference to towers proposed in the Bottle District):

Here’s how we will handle it: We’ll consider the impact of any new tall buildings added to the skyline very, very carefully. The “751 feet AMSL” language will be modified when the developers let us know exactly what they are planning to do — and when we’ve looked at the effect such buildings would have on the Arch.

So it's by no means a hard-and-fast rule.

-RBB

Great write-up RBB. Thanks for the info/clarification.

wabash wrote:Great write-up RBB. Thanks for the info/clarification.

-RBB