^ To be honest KAI's move seems somewhat logical as it appears it is expanding its Build portion of the company.... they'll own there own space and build a warehouse on the property.
Seems like something that preferably would have gone into a Green Street development in the city. I also heard a Mr. McKee has some land.
Musical chairs as HOK does indeed leave Met Square for two floors at the Equitable Building, 10 S. Broadway.... I was kind of hoping that they'd move in as a tenant to a new infill tower -- even a modest one -- that they'd design. Oh well.
^I had to google/street view to see what they were referring too. Wow, yeah I forgot that was there!!
Should be a prime little piece considering location and Arch renovations.
600 Pandora Jewelry workers liberated from suburbs to this Baltimore office tower:
The Danish jewelry maker has signed an 88,000-square-foot lease with building naming rights at 250 W. Pratt St., meaning the company's logo will soon be visible on two sides of the building, including from seats in Camden Yards. Pandora is having the sign designed to glow orange during baseball season and purple during football season in tribute to the Orioles and the Ravens and to the company's nine-year presence in the Baltimore area....
Pandora Americas President Scott Burger said in an interview that the company's employee demographics skew younger, making the urban setting an attractive choice for the 600 workers that will come in the move....
"The type of office we're in now is very much a closed environment, and when you look at 250 W. Pratt, it's all glass," said Kevin Conklin, Pandora Americas' vice president of operations. "If you look at the teams moving over there, it's very much about being creative. So moving into a space downtown with a lot of energy and with a lot going on, it's something they were craving."
Employees also asked to locate in a place with an eclectic, historic feel, Conklin said, with easy access to highways. The 250 W. Pratt St. location met both of those needs.
St. Louis-based Express Scripts, a Fortune 100 company that provides the pharmacy benefits to 90 million people each year, is building a new 70,000-square-foot facility in North Huntingdon.
The new building, which is being built by development partner Clayco, will replace the company’s current 56,000-square-foot facility in nearby North Versailles. The move will take Express Scripts over the border from Allegheny County into Westmoreland.
So Saint Louis style! It looks like this would be akin to moving from Chesterfield Valley across the Daniel Boone to the bounty of St. Chuck's.
^ right..... I think City Hall could do a better job at selling downtown as the place to do business but corporate leaders actually need to desire being there. Perhaps a "West County Country Club Conservatism" that is stuck in the past is the best way to describe a culture that has way too much presence in Saint Louis.
St. Louis's current mayor is frozen, in my opinion.
He has evolved into a stiff despite the few ribbon-cutting and ground-breaking ceremonies he's attended downtown.
In his earlier terms, Slay's economic and development team was a lot more enthusiastic and aggressive about downtown.
Since the recession and the loss of May Company and other challenges, it seems his team's aggressiveness towards development in the city - particularly downtown - has fizzled, in my opinion. They are allowing others to guide development, it seems.
I could be very wrong because I'm certainly not privied to everything going on at City Hall, but it seems lately Slay waits for others (businesses, individual investors, organizations etc.) to bless and grace downtown instead of being a go-getter or spark to land businesses and infill development. It's as if he waits for them to find downtown worthy instead of being aggressive in promoting downtown.
Sure the team has worked hard to MAINTAIN businesses like LaClede, HOK, Peabody, but what about LURING NEW businesses and developers with incentives that any business or corporate entity would find hard to pass up.
Building CORTEX is great, but to me, city leaders seem too complacent when it comes to downtown.
^ My biggest worry is that Slay is comfortable with downtown as a growing residential and entertainment district while office jobs lags. He can still boast that there's been a billion+ in downtown investments in recent years even while office employment is bleak. Hopefully there is more behind the scenes going on with things like One ATT, etc. -- a great opportunity for a new HQ -- but I'm not really confident.
Here is an interesting mid-rise tower going up in downtown Cincy for Dunnhumby's new US HQ... it is filling in a rectangular surface lot and at 9 stories something like might work for one of our lots and fit the massing of some of the warehouses.
Anyway, the building will open next year with ground floor retail and house around 650 workers with room to grow to 1,000. The move is akin to say Nestle/Purina relocating from across Chouteau and into the heart of the CBD, which is an identifiable trend in the Queen City. If not N/P or W-F, Sigma/Aldrich making a similar move here would be great.
Stewart Title (previously LandSafe a Bank of America sub, before Stewart bought it out earlier this year) is moving it's 200 or so employees from 1831 chestnut (across the street from union station) by end of the year. Good news is they are in a process of picking one of 3 downtown locations. Half of their workers are from Illinois and the other half on the Missouri side so they wanted to be in the middle.
dbInSouthCity wrote:Stewart Title (previously LandSafe a Bank of America sub, before Stewart bought it out earlier this year) is moving it's 200 or so employees from 1831 chestnut (across the street from union station) by end of the year. Good news is they are in a process of picking one of 3 downtown locations. Half of their workers are from Illinois and the other half on the Missouri side so they wanted to be in the middle.
Interesting news. Do you know which three buildings? My guess: 600 Washington, 720 Olive (current Laclede Gas co office location), or 1015 Locust.
^ There's speculation that 720 Olive may be in for a residential conversion.... I wouldn't mind seeing something like the Millennium Center where offices were consolidated on the lower floors and residential went on the higher floors.
roger wyoming II wrote:^ There's speculation that 720 Olive may be in for a residential conversion.... I wouldn't mind seeing something like the Millennium Center where offices were consolidated on the lower floors and residential went on the higher floors.
That would be pretty sweet in my opinion. I've always liked the Laclede- it's an interesting example of International style architecture and it provides an interesting contrast to the neighboring Arcade and Chemical buildings as well as the OPO.
I also agree with dweebe and Arch about what is wrong with downtown- specifically, our increasingly ineffective and invisible leadership- but I'll stay positive for now and save my upcoming rant for another time.
^ that would be my preference as well... I think having as many office jobs in the core of the CBD would help the overall well-being of downtown versus having things spread out more like they've been of late. But a mix of jobs on lower floors and residents on top would be a nice second best. Union Trust is another office building that I wouldn't doubt will get a repurposing in the next few years.... not sure about Frisco Building.
roger wyoming II wrote:^ that would be my preference as well... I think having as many office jobs in the core of the CBD would help the overall well-being of downtown versus having things spread out more like they've been of late. But a mix of jobs on lower floors and residents on top would be a nice second best. Union Trust is another office building that I wouldn't doubt will get a repurposing in the next few years.... not sure about Frisco Building.
Last time I herd the Frisco Building was about 80% full.
Not all bad news from the latest Colliers report but ATT sure is a black eye for downtown....
CENTRAL BUSINESS DISTRICT
St. Louis’ CBD currently has an overall vacancy rate of 20.3%, down slightly from 20.8% last quarter. Class A vacancy rates declined from 20.1% a quarter ago to 19.8% currently. Though the vacancy rate is the highest of all the submarkets, absorption from first quarter to second was positive - nearly 140,000 square feet - which tells us some companies continue to expand following the major departure of AT&T’s 700,000 square feet of space earlier this year. Class A rents are up from $17.96 per square foot in second quarter 2013 to a current rate of $18.06 per square foot. Despite the positive absorption this quarter, AT&T is making plans to give back another 500,000-600,000 square feet over the next 24 months meaning absorption will most likely trend downward.
After almost 30-years, I don't see how the AT&T Tower - once unhinged by AT&T - will be considered a Class A building unless it is thoroughly renovated - inside and out.
If it is not renovated to secure multiple tenants looking for Class A space, downtown St. Louis will need new Class A space or it will continue to loose out to Clayton and Chesterfield.
My hope is the AT&T Tower will secure one major tenant for the whole building.
St. Louis' office market also is improving, Cassidy Turley says. The scarcity of available Class A space and the absence of new construction means that vacancy rates continue to head down and landlords are less inclined to offer rent concessions to get tenants.
