None of these sorts of shenanigans... Please and thank you.
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5million purchase price?MRNHS wrote:Looks like Hayden bought the building. It appears it will be mixed use, as we expected. I suppose this is good news, as the building should be full. But it really seems to speak the the weakness of the office market downtown.
http://www.stltoday.com/business/column ... 76dd4.html
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^ & ^^ are the grumblings over Hayden's purchase or the potential for residential conversion in general?
I personally think the model of the Millennium Center with residential up top and office on lower floors is a good one for buildings like the Millennium and 720 Olive putting design issues aside.
I personally think the model of the Millennium Center with residential up top and office on lower floors is a good one for buildings like the Millennium and 720 Olive putting design issues aside.
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It's hard to put design choices aside, though. This developer has a track record with historic buildings that involves lots of suspended ceilings and burgundy stained woodwork like your grandma had.
^Definitely hard to put aside. Hopefully the fact that this will be the tallest residential building in the City, second tallest in the region to the Plaza in Clayton, right on Post Office Plaza, and many units will have views of the stadium and incredible views of downtown the developer will go with better fixtures and maybe even (gasp) hire a designer.
I think the rumblings weren't that some floors will be res, or about the developer, but just that $5 mil is a pathetically low price for a major tower downtown.
I think the rumblings weren't that some floors will be res, or about the developer, but just that $5 mil is a pathetically low price for a major tower downtown.
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Per the P-D, Hayden plans to put in 111 apartments into the upper floors with work to begin next year. Office will be consolidated to lower floors. Also, while preliminary demo work continues on the Alverne, major construction won't begin until 2016.
The reason this building went so low in sale price is because it is going to cost at least that amount - almost double that amount IMO to renovate it. Laclede's offices alone are so dated and need to be completely ripped out (hence one of the reasons they are building in new downtown. Another, is the infrastructure of the Laclede Tower needs an over haul as well (HVAC/Plumbing - you name it).
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iirc, the owners pledged they'd put in the same $8 million or whatever 700 Market was getting in tax incentives to update the offices. There certainly are pros and cons to having LG move, but at least it looks like both will now be contributing buildings. If I had my way, though, I'd swap the office tenants in the BoA building next to 700 Market to 720 Olive and have that building be the one with mixed-use office/residential... I want as many office workers in the core of the core as possible.matguy70 wrote:The reason this building went so low in sale price is because it is going to cost at least that amount - almost double that amount IMO to renovate it. Laclede's offices alone are so dated and need to be completely ripped out (hence one of the reasons they are building in new downtown. Another, is the infrastructure of the Laclede Tower needs an over haul as well (HVAC/Plumbing - you name it).
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Or will that be "floor to drop ceiling glass"?gary kreie wrote:On vacation in NY my family stayed on the 33rd floor of a modern apartment tower in Manhattan for 4 nights, via airbnb. At 31 stories, upper floor apartments could be fairly spectacular with floor to ceiling glass.
What disappoints me is the interiors. Compare those photos to what this should be. Here is the website for a nearly identical project in Downtown Cleveland (former headquarters of Ohio Gas)...
http://www.residencesat1717.com/Suites/One-Bedroom
With the height and and windows, Laclede Gas has the potential to be the best apartment building in Downtown, but based on the interiors of the Millennium it will fall far short. Also compare that website to the Millennium website... http://www.stlouisapartmentsforyou.com/ ... y_515.html. Have a little pride.
As with many things in St. Louis rather than striving for something great, many developers are striving for just good enough.
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terence d wrote:None of these sorts of shenanigans... Please and thank you.
that is disgusting....who ever did that should be put in prison for 10 years at least.
Until STL has a college of art and design, expect attention to design detail on all fronts to lag, including the state of residential architecture. U Cinci DAAP is a strong design program, and a good number of corporate design studios are located in Cinci. It makes a difference.
This will offer more housing diversity which is good. Considering the quality, Hayden's properties will be the first to reduce rates (if demand falters).
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eh, i think that's a stretch. Wash U's Sam Fox School of Art and Design is highly regarded. This is one guy—not a corporation—who bought a building and made some cheap/bad design decisions. we're getting some pretty good contemporary residential these days, particularly from UIC, and we have local architecture firms (Space and Cannon come to mind) doing solid modern design. as construction picks up i'm sure we'll see more.onecity wrote:Until STL has a college of art and design, expect attention to design detail on all fronts to lag, including the state of residential architecture. U Cinci DAAP is a strong design program, and a good number of corporate design studios are located in Cinci. It makes a difference.
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Found a couple of photos of downtown from the Laclede Gas Tower. I was hoping to find one aimed toward the ballpark. From the seats at the Ballpark, you can see the tower, but I'm not sure if you can from the field.
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View from Laclede Gas by lynnjo, on Flickr
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View from Laclede Gas by lynnjo, on Flickr
View from Laclede Gas by lynnjo, on Flickr
View from Laclede Gas by lynnjo, on Flickr- 8,155
^ Somebody commented we just may have to settle on 720 Olive as the BPV residential tower.
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I completely disagree on the person who commented on the Laclede Building being the BPV building.
It may offer good views however i think it's a no brainer now to build a new BPV high-rise residential.
Not only would they be sold but likely they might have to build a 2nd tower.
The Cardinals are basically Saint.Louis's blood when it comes to sports & i could see die hard fans from around the world trying to nab exclusive condo/apartment specially the very top floors..
The Laclede building will help with the cbd residential component making the area more livelier
It may offer good views however i think it's a no brainer now to build a new BPV high-rise residential.
Not only would they be sold but likely they might have to build a 2nd tower.
The Cardinals are basically Saint.Louis's blood when it comes to sports & i could see die hard fans from around the world trying to nab exclusive condo/apartment specially the very top floors..
The Laclede building will help with the cbd residential component making the area more livelier
I've never seen a Sam Fox portfolio. I've seen countless MIAD, Cinci, CIA, UIUC, KU, UW, CCS, Art Center, Pratt, IIT, portfolios, and there are often a fair amount of non-web design jobs in Cinci, the Cleve, Chicago, Milwaukee, MPLS, etc, that just don't exist in any critical mass in STL. I can go on coroflot.com and find tons of portfolios for all the aforementioned schools, but nothing for "sam fox" or "washington university." My take is Sam Fox is fine-arts-centric, and that doesn't usually translate to jobs and a broad design culture the way tech, design schools, and having loads of graphic and industrial designers in your city does. In other words, Sam Fox is more Art museum than Fast Company, and that really blunts its impact.onecity wrote:Until STL has a college of art and design, expect attention to design detail on all fronts to lag, including the state of residential architecture. U Cinci DAAP is a strong design program, and a good number of corporate design studios are located in Cinci. It makes a difference.
eh, i think that's a stretch. Wash U's Sam Fox School of Art and Design is highly regarded. This is one guy—not a corporation—who bought a building and made some cheap/bad design decisions. we're getting some pretty good contemporary residential these days, particularly from UIC, and we have local architecture firms (Space and Cannon come to mind) doing solid modern design. as construction picks up i'm sure we'll see more.
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^ i don't keep up with the design world so i'll defer to your experience re design schools. i still don't think one poorly-designed interior by one small developer represents an overall lack of good design in St. Louis, though.
Design is just somewhat off the radar here. Until the companies in Cortex get to the phase of making things, this is a real nuts and bolts, cost driven town, and that translates to a lower overall average level of design.
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Meanwhile, still ZERO progress on the Chemical Building front.
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^^ does product design necessarily translate to architectural design though? cleveland, chicago and minneapolis are definitely ahead of us in terms of contemporary architectural design, but chicago and minneapolis are also building way more than we are. cleveland is an interesting case, and maybe there the design culture does make the difference. i haven't seen much out of Cincinnati that has WOWd me architecturally. hopefully as we start to build more a respectable fraction of our new structures will be forward-looking design-wise.