urbanSTL

Updated for the planned Dragon Trading Building rehab:

Approximately 1,181 units are under construction or planned for downtown

Under Construction
Arcade-Wright - 800 Olive (282 units + Webster U Gateway Campus))
Marquette Building - 304 N. Broadway (10 condos converted from old Y space)
720 Olive (111 units)
1900 Pine - Station Plaza (87 units)
CityView Plaza Square Building 40 (estimate 150 or so units)
1115 Pine (estimate 12 or so units)
Approx. 652 units under construction

Planned
Alverne Building (1014 Locust) (81 units) (2016 heavy construction start)
200 N. 4th (300 unit partial residential conversion of Crowne Plaza Hotel)
1701 Locust - Dragon Trading (57 units)
2000 Washington (5 units)
2035 Lucas & 2030 Delmar (86 units)
529 units planned

Keep an Eye On - Potential Projects Bandied About
BB for redevelopment of 2035 Lucas (Saint Louis Braiding Building) & 2030 Delmar
Possible BPV residential tower
Possible residential tower by Drury at Washington and Third
Possible residential conversion of old Millennium Hotel
Possible residential conversion (by Spinnaker?) of Metro's old HQ in Laclede's Landing


Cityview just received occupancy permits for 60 units on the top floors of Building 40 and I estimate about 90 more for the building. Also, I'm not sure if there is a reevaluation of the plans for the Crowne Plaza partial conversion to residential, but the new owners have said the hotel is performing well and they've kept it open past their previously announced closure date. 300 units would be a big project so if it doesn't move forward hopefully other projects will pick those up soon.

Love seeing that residential property occupancy rates are still hovering at 92%



http://www.jllproperty.com/Assets/Image ... 388299.pdf

roger wyoming II wrote:^ on the downside is that unfortunate estimate from the Downtown Partnership that we've only been adding about 350 residents a year for the past several years, which is less than last decade's performance.... we just need more units to come online and the good news is those seem to be coming with about 500 new units under construction (plus the rehab of one of the existing CityView towers) and another 500+ planned.

If all those get built out in the next 18-24 months that would add about 20% more rental apartments to the estimated 4,740 units we currently have downtown and certainly would boost new residents to a healthier level.

350 residents a year is actually not bad considering the 2015 Downtown Occupancy Report shows only 282 units added last year.

^ That report shows that there's a real need for condos in particular. 97.8% of condos in the Downtown core and 99.1% (!!!) of condos in Downtown West are are occupied currently. I don't think sales will ever come close to selling at pre-recession rates but there seems to be an opportunity there for someone wanting to find a building to convert into condos.

-RBB

But compare the 350 number to other peer cities and it's much more disappointing.

downtown2007 wrote:But compare the 350 number to other peer cities and it's much more disappointing.

True. But it's hard to sell what's not for sale. ^ Take the condos, for example. If you simply look at units sold there's not much moving. But look at the occupancy rates and the issue becomes clearer; there simply aren't units available to sell or buy. The issue now is units available, not a lack of interest in the market.

The number of units available for rent or sale in the greater downtown area is set to increase this year and next. But IMO there's room for even more housing.

There are a few reasons for that: It's still harder to get financing than it was pre-2008 (though I think that's easing a bit). Most of the 'easy' buildings to rehab are done already, so other rehab-able buildings are going to be harder to get done. There's been some uncertainty re: the MO HTC arrangement. And it seems either developers or financers (or more likely a bit of both) are still a bit gun-shy to commit to putting something together.

Someone really needs to kick Cordish/the Cardinals management in the pants re: a residential tower. If there's ever a sure thing in this area this is it. BPV phase I is a success; the team is riding a wave of success and popularity. They're sitting on prime real estate. Heck, I'm sure they could rent/sell units to the players or company staff. And you won't find a market anywhere with fewer units for sale as competition. They'll have few problems filling a residential tower, and IMO units will go quickly. And this is purely my speculation but I think these are more likely to be sold to folks who wouldn't otherwise consider living downtown, bringing in more residents for the city (as opposed to current residents moving from elsewhere in the city) and again, adding to the greater demand/lesser supply argument for Cordish.

I'd like to know what the status is of Drury's proposed residential tower in Laclede's Landing.

Any other easy opportunities? johnwarren's post about the sale of 1509 and 1706 Washington is intriguing. I don't know for certain but I think those would need much less work to convert to residential than would a vacant building.

-RBB

rbb wrote:there simply aren't units available to sell or buy. The issue now is units available, not a lack of interest in the market.

Not sure where you're getting that RBB. By my count there are 100+ condos available for sale downtown, many of which have been on the market for a while, most of which are priced below $200,000. That to me indicates there is plenty of supply, not enough interest in the existing inventory, and not much demand for new product or incentive for developers to bring new condos to market since they would be joining a somewhat saturated and very competitively priced market.

Here are the listings for Downtown condos:
http://www.weichert.com/search/realesta ... 02%2c63103

rbb wrote:If you simply look at units sold there's not much moving.

I agree with this. But that's not a good thing.

rbb wrote:IMO there's room for even more housing.

I agree with this as well, but for the time being demand appears to be almost entirely for rental units, not condos.

As for the Drury Laclede's Landing project, I don't think that has ever been anything more than someone saying, "Hey, maybe we could even put a tower on top of the garage down the road?!?!" To this point I think it's been more an off the cuff idea than any sort of concrete plan, and mostly just Drury's way of trying to soften the blow of announcing, "we may build a huge garage in Laclede's Landing."

^That link of listings is thoroughly depressing. A ton for sale in my building and some under $100/sqft. Thats crazy cheap compared to what most of us paid(~$120/sqft). . .and they are still not selling. What will it take to boost sales/prices downtown?

wabash wrote:

rbb wrote:there simply aren't units available to sell or buy. The issue now is units available, not a lack of interest in the market.

Not sure where you're getting that RBB. By my count there are 100+ condos available for sale downtown, many of which have been on the market for a while, most of which are priced below $200,000. That to me indicates there is plenty of supply, not enough interest in the existing inventory, and not much demand for new product or incentive for developers to bring new condos to market since they would be joining a somewhat saturated and very competitively priced market.

Here are the listings for Downtown condos:
http://www.weichert.com/search/realesta ... 02%2c63103

I'm basing that on the Downtown STL Housing Occupancy Report I'd linked to above. It's showing:

Downtown Core: 97.8 % Condominium Occupancy
Downtown: 95.5% Condominium Occupancy
Downtown West: 99.1% Condominium Occupancy

wabash wrote:

rbb wrote:If you simply look at units sold there's not much moving.

I agree with this. But that's not a good thing.

Again, according to the report it's because the buildings are full:

Data collected from the St. Louis Assessor’s Office reflects that the average condo sale price remained above $200,000 in 2014.

Even though fewer units were sold in 2014, data collected firsthand by Downtown, STL, Inc. reflects that occupancy rates are higher than they have been at any point over the last decade. These high occupancy rates have prompted some properties to convert rental units into condominiums.

I show 103 properties for sale in (roughly) the Downtown and Downtown West neighborhoods. Downtown STL reports there are 2,266 condo units currently in those two neighborhoods. That's about 4.5 percent of the number of those units. Figure that some of those for sale are owner-occupied and that's pretty close to their numbers of roughly 97% occupancy. That's a pretty strong number IMO. There's room to grow.

wabash wrote:

rbb wrote:IMO there's room for even more housing.

I agree with this as well, but for the time being demand appears to be almost entirely for rental units, not condos.

I believe 100% of the active residential projects are apartments currently, right? Or am I misremembering? I agree there should be more rental units coming on line than condos, but to my eye it would seem there's room for new condo units too.

wabash wrote:As for the Drury Laclede's Landing project, I don't think that has ever been anything more than someone saying, "Hey, maybe we could even put a tower on top of the garage down the road?!?!" To this point I think it's been more an off the cuff idea than any sort of concrete plan, and mostly just Drury's way of trying to soften the blow of announcing, "we may build a huge garage in Laclede's Landing."

I don't know what's been confirmed. You may be right there. I know the idea's been bounced around for years and there was talk of a 25-30 story tower, but I know of nothing concrete.

-RBB

^RBB that listing is off also because i know a number of people who are not listing simply because they know their property value isnt worth crap now or they couldnt sell anyway due to almost zero demand for condo sales(Me included). Good things are happening so i hope that can help boost values and sales up

^ I don't know if it is any comfort, but that is the case in many places still.

^^ All the current projects are apartment rentals except for the Lawrence Group building out 10 more condos from the old Y space at the Marquette and is moving the rest of the building to condos as well; that is why there are so many available there. Syndicate I believe was doing the same and it looks like that has gone well as there seem to be few on sale currently. I can see that happening for a limited number of other projects but I don't think we're ready for any kind of wave.

It would be interesting to compare the average number of days on the market and valuation compared to the Saint Louis condo market as a whole.

^Yep, the surface lots surrounding it are owned by the Post and are being marketed with the building.

Condo sales aren't doing well in most cities. They really never recovered after the Great Recession. So, don't view that as a referendum on downtown. How many people lost money at the crescent in Clayton? I've heard quite a few.

^ good point on the condo's, I think the three or four places they truly sell are NY City, Miami, San Fran and LA where their is a large foreign market or asset buying going on.

A good example on my end would be Oakland/Emeryville area where the rental market has taken off once San Fran/Silicon Valley wen sky high but their has very little movement in condo, especially new condo market considering the housing demands outstrips supply big time. I do some demand on the condo market in the outlying areas such as Walnut Creek/TriValley of the Bay area where small condo projects are starting to pop on smaller developments.

I own a loft in Downtown West and have been renting it out for 3 years after residing there for 7 years. We purchased it in 2006 and knew moving out that we wouldn't get our money back so we chose not to list it. That is the sad part of the story but it is a story told about condos in most major cities after the bubble burst.

The positive takeaway is that I have a great rental property that rents out the week I list it for $1 per sqft. a month. This pays the mortgage + expenses with a little left over and we are building equity.

I'm bullish on DT, especially DT West. The recent announcements of the Dragon Trading and rehabs around 20th a Washington are very positive. Now if we could just land more jobs DT might explode.

Thanks for the feedback, all.

I think if you're setting your bar for gauging interest downtown to whatever it was pre-2008 recession you're setting yourselves up to fail. Prices don't have to rebound all the way back to those levels for there to be a market for condos. It isn't fair to those who bought while prices were inflated, I know. But that doesn't mean that nobody wants to buy new condos next to those people.

I think it's encouraging that (again, according to the Zillow search I linked to above) there have been 74 condo sales year-to-date, and 122 in the last year (since 8/1/14, anyway). Just eyeballing, it appears most are in the $100-200,000 range. Downtown STL says the average price of a condo sold last year was roughly $200K, but there three condos in the Copia Lofts all sold on the same day for $1.4M apiece. I'm sure that bumped up the average just a bit.

Compare that to the city of Clayton. I haven't been able to find the population of their CBD only, but even outside of that there's a fair amount of multi-family housing throughout that would count as a condo sale. There have been 77 Condos sold in the entire city of Clayton YTD, and 147 sold since 8/1/14.

For a relatively dense suburban city of 16,000 residents ( 2,548.8 per square mile in Clayton compared to 3932.7 sq/mi in Downtown and 3748.0 sq/mi in DT West) vs . Downtown/Downtown West's sales aren't quite equal, but their combined population of 8,286 compares fairly well to Clayton's.

Like I said, I don't think all new residential should be condos, or even a majority. But people are buying downtown (and downtown west). Despite the units on the market now condos are being bought, and at a pretty decent clip. I'm no expert but based on the overall market improving I'd think sales in this area would continue to improve modestly as well. But there are next to no new units on the market, and all that's left of the existing units are the scraps, relatively speaking. There's room for at least some new rehabs or construction to be sold as condos IMO.

-RBB

I walked by 720 Olive today and Notice sings saying apartments for lease. So are the apartments in 720 done or just some pre-leasing?

jcity wrote:How many people lost money at the crescent in Clayton? I've heard quite a few.

"Lost money" like their property values dropped below their loan amounts? Or were there "quite a few" foreclosures? There's a big difference from realized losses and paper losses.