urbanSTL

Matt Drops The H wrote:

JMedwick wrote:

Matt Drops The H wrote:"New" construction, especially post-1950, in the city of St. Louis has contributed comparatively little.

I love generalities. Note though, that without post-1950 construction downtown St. Louis really would be a ghost town today.

Hah! Without 1950s-1990s demolition, downtown St. Louis might actually have the makeup to be a functional downtown. Who knows--maybe it never would have spiraled into such decline.

I think it is a little of both.

I think that Grover just made the Drurys a much improved site plan. Let's build it!

Research proves: investments in infrastructure yield economic spillover development.



As a consequence of the improvements to both Kingshighway and I-64, this development displays that the highway and interchange can postively impact St. Louis. The challenge that the company has addressed is fitting into the neighborhood and being more pedestrian friendly than conventional highway-adjacent hotel developments.



The benefit of pedestrian friendly and cohesion into the Kingshighway streetscape is not for FPSE alone, but will encourage tourists to consider walking to BJC and the CWE too.



This is tax revenue that St. Louis City needs and the developer has shown initiative to tailor it to the neighborhoods standards = good planning.

ecoabsence wrote:


If you take 1764 as a bencmark, new construction has made this city what it is. If you take 2000 or even 1980 as your benchmark, it's hard to say new construction has even kept a significant pace with rehab. Rehabilitation is a form of construction, yes, but not the same as from-the-ground-up construction. We have not seen enough truly new construction for us to think it's a reliable way to redevelop the city. Again, we need new construction, but we can't say anything about its staying power here until it shows some staying power.

Obviously, a lot of the rehabs in the city have been beneficiaries of the historic tax credit. If, in a parallel universe, there was a 25% credit not on rehabs, but on new construction, then we would likely be arguing the exact opposite of the above.



We chose to provide rehabs with a big subsidy, and the market responded.



In any event, we should save some of our protest capital for the architecture of the building itself. This building will be on a prominent corner of the city and it needs to be step above the other Drury projects.

From MayorSlay.com:

Charlie Drury is a great St. Louis booster who builds nice, successful hotels. If he proceeds with this project, I hope for a thoughtful design that takes good advantage of its prominent location. However, Drury Development should know that the company cannot expect a public subsidy for a hotel so close to others or my support for the use of eminent domain at this location.

http://www.mayorslay.com/desk/display.asp?deskID=1057

However, Drury Development should know that the company cannot expect a public subsidy for a hotel so close to others or my support for the use of eminent domain at this location...

....until I can figure out how I can get the most money and political support from Charlie Drury, then it's every home-owning city resident for him or herself. Let them wrecking balls fly!"

Matt Drops The H wrote:

Grover wrote:


^ Any reasonable example (San Francisco? Boston? What else?) includes significant and contributing "new" construction. Are there cities I'm missing where historic architecture has been especially important to economic development that are also absent significant new construction? And I'm not sure that St. Louis has accrued "massive" economic benefits of any kind for any reason. I love this city, but it has decayed for the past 50 years.

Well, the major example of a preservation-friendly city that has little new construction is New Orleans. Historic architecture is probably the crux of its very economy.

Wha?!?!? What is the emoticon for milk squirting out of my nose? You still claim StL's "chief asset and most reliable tool for economic development is our historic architecture" and you back this up by giving the example of New Orleans? Is this the same New Orleans with the massive port in the Gulf of Mexico, the port that ranks first in the WORLD for gross tonnage? Is this the same New Orleans with an oil distillation capacity second only to Texas? Then again, I'm sure the companies accessing these ports and the corporations refining and shipping NOLA oil are "mom and pop" shops locally owned by happy New Orleans residents - either that or major, multi-billion dollar, world-wide corporations providing NOLA and the state of Louisiana a huge, massively huge tax base and economy.



Quick Economics/Business lesson for you: Attempting to create an organic, StL unique economy with nothing but small businesses is, well, not only the most inefficient use of resources but probably the quickest way to make durable and non-durable goods as expensive as humanly possible. Big Businesses have a established supplier connections and supply chain processes in place that enable lower costs, ergo lower prices. Furthermore, consumers would have to be faced with multiple options for business competition to foster small business growth. In other words, people need regular access to JCPenny, Dillards, and Crate and Barrel to make viable an artisan organic clothier or a niche Vermont Maple furniture maker.



And humor me by entertaining this idea for a minute...



Does it happen to be the fact that New Orleans, throughout its entire history as a massively huge port and BIG BUSINESS CENTER, has over the years (or centuries), amassed a hugely beautiful and intricate cultural fabric - these would be all of the people that work(ed) to sustain that port-economy, by the way - that makes it one of the top ten most visited cities in the U.S.? Which has now paved the way for another facet of their economy - cultural tourism.



So, your example of NOLA, in reality, only bolsters my argument for promoting BUSINESS in the city of St. Louis; Business creates jobs and tax revenues, revenues are spent on improving the city, which along with the hope of jobs (from the businesses) creates an incentive for people to move to the city, which in turn creates demand for more jobs or businesses, which in turn puts more money into the city for improvements, which provides even more of an incentive to move to the city. By the way, this cycle perpetuates itself rather well - maybe exponentially but I haven't done the math. St. Louis is devoid of this cycle because our political and government structure is business averse - which is why StL residents have to shell out another 1% of their earnings to supplant a low tax base and why businesses (even small businesses) turn to Clayton to set up shop.

Matt Drops The H wrote:My point, though, was that all of the rehabbed housing in the city (since the 1999 historic rehab tax credit via the state) has contributed to the city's economy in more ways than any other economic development project.

And, quite honestly, historic rehab and the political environment that supports it have done very little for this city if not set us back even more when compared to other US cities.



I would go on to tell you the US cultural phenomenon of "urban chic" has contributed more to StL city than anything else, and is exactly why our gov't enacted historic tax credits. There's your lazy answer, homes. The city is perpetually reactionary. More people moving in? They seem to like old buildings? Let's try and lure developers to the area to rehab some of those old factories on Wash Ave. The larger question is what are they going to do to keep people here and coming in? Hint - Historic Rehab is not the answer.

Mayor Slay has weighed in:



http://www.mayorslay.com/desk/display.asp?deskID=1057

Grover wrote:Now this is the start of a great conversation (theoretically anyways). I'm only hesitant to bring it up because it will not muddle this thread on the proposed Drury project.



Clearly there would not exist much of what we consider valuable historic architecture without the industry/money that built it. The public library downtown is great, but we know what it replaced right? How about the Old Post Office? Wainright? Surely if many of us were alive when what stood there before had been leveled we would have screamed at the top of our lungs for preservation.

Right. That goes back to my point about one block in a major city experiencing several different iterations during the life of the city - when done correctly its called "progress". And, quite frankly, I don't think we're sabotaging the Drury thread. Every piece of new construction or renovation that takes place in the city affords us the opportunity to improve using the aforementioned business model.



Random thought: Make the other Drury tower an office building. Provide an incentive for businesses to locate there with the promise of the hotel next door, the Grove nightlife to entertain clients, and the Grove neighborhood as a place for some of these workers to live. The city could mandate new construction along the Kingshighway and Manchester sections of the Grove, and then restrict building within the core of the Grove to only rehabilitation. You loose the Lambskin temple, but you keep all of the old homes within the Grove intact. None of this happens without big business, none of this happens without strong civic leadership.



And Matt Drops the H and EcoAbsence - If you won't listen to me go on about the desperate need to drop the Earnings Tax (stimulate business) and then actively fight to bring Large Scale Commerce, maybe you'll listen to the swing demographic? This group of people, if swayed to move to the city, would have a far greater affect than anyone else on a) providing tax base and b) encouraging their old county neighbors to move with them - the folks that work downtown



http://www.urbanstl.com/viewtopic.php?p=134085#134085



This data is not surprising and speaks directly to my points on Big Business. The fact that our leadership does nothing to entice these great people to live here is absolutely unbelievable.

Oh, I see, you have yet to read the pdf from the other thread?

Matt Drops The H wrote:

ttricamo wrote:Oh, I see, you have yet to read the pdf from the other thread?

Which?

http://www.urbanstl.com/viewtopic.php?p=134085#134085



pdf file is at the top of this thread.

You're either extremely coy, or your level of inference is sub-par. You should probably re-read our conversation and then try to digest that survey data.



By the way,

Matt Drops The H wrote:"Bringing in business" is important. It simply shouldn't be the only route for economic development.

is logically null as economics and business are not mutually exclusive.

Matt Drops The H wrote:It [St. Louis] needs to do whatever it can to make St. Louis a place that young professionals actually want to stay. It needs to "trap" those Wash U, SLU, etc. grads that don't even consider staying in St. Louis once they get their diploma. They choose to leave not because there are no high-paying jobs, but because the reputation of the city is one of a dead city with low quality of life.

You're stuck in an Infinite Loop, and you still have yet to fully digest the data in that survey. The "young professionals" that work downtown, the best possible demographic to move into the city, want high end, big box retail.



Here's some quotes straight from the survey -



"More Retail for during the day....big end stores....not so much the boutiques as they tend to have

small selections."



"a 24 hour supermarket where we can go to pick up a salad for lunch or something, when you only

have 30 minutes for lunch this comes in handy..and a Walgreens to pick up prescriptions and etc.."



"A Target Store would be great!!"



I mean, it couldn't be more obvious what the potential new citizens of the city need to attract them here. The fact that you don't understand that, or refuse to believe it, blows my mind.



Civic leadership should treat the city, and it's potential, as a business and it's residents, current and new, as their customers. If you were in the latter example as civic leadership, you would be offering product B while your customers repeatedly requested product A - this is the current problem with our city government and the crux of the "Historic Rehab = greatest economic asset" fallacy. GET THE NET!

^^I haven't followed this debate, and frankly, I'm not even sure what the debate is about at this point, but you seem to believe that "retail" downtown and historic rehab are mutually exclusive, and that retail equates to "new construction". All of the things that downtown workers have requested in that survey can be easily accomplished through historic rehab, with the possible exception of the Target store.

Matt Drops The H wrote:


They choose to leave not because there are no high-paying jobs, but because the reputation of the city is one of a dead city with low quality of life.

It's somewhat a combination of both. But primarily young people (20-35 year olds) leave St. Louis because they don't see enough economic opportunity in their particular field. Many grad school/college students are loaded with debt. If you give them a choice between a $75,000 job in St. Louis and a $50,000 job in Chicago, Boston, Portland, etc, most will choose St. Louis. Unfortunately, most students find the opposite choice ($50 in St. Louis and $75 in Chicago), or no choice (no job in St. Louis versus $75 in Chicago).



Rehabs, coffee shops and independent books stores are definitely amenities, and I think they do factor into the decision. But they are very much a secondary consideration.



All of this is especially true given the bad U.S. economy.