urbanSTL

Oh bullsh*t back at you...First off, where did the word "blast" come from?...never did I use that so don't put fukking words in my mouth. I said "going after"...And if you don't think that saying St. Louis has "no spirit, no jobs...nothing" isn't "going after" us, then I don't know what to say...

You need to relax a bit, pal.

sirshankalot wrote:Oh bullsh*t back at you...First off, where did the word "blast" come from?...never did I use that so don't put fukking words in my mouth. I said "going after"...And if you don't think that saying St. Louis has "no spirit, no jobs...nothing" isn't "going after" us, then I don't know what to say...

You need to relax a bit, pal.

You posted an article headlined "Trump Blasts St. Louis in Campaign Speech". And saying St. Louis has a job shortage is probably the most honest thing Trump has said all year.

I think Ed G's comment on the web page actually put Trump's comment in its correct context and summed up the cheesy news post all in one statement. Jobs do matter and Trump has found a way to say it just as the saying goes, its the economy stupid,

They dont seem that harsh, and the P-D tells us St. louis lost another 2700 jobs last month. And it's population is getting close to down to an all time low. Losing its 'spirit' is putting it rather mildly. The media cant get any deeper than 'image' and emotion. Not 'helpful'.

Well...whatever, Trump isn't lying about STL these days. It's a painful place to live right now.

From what I've heard, the construction labor costs in St. Louis are too high to justify the meager leasing rents they get downtown, therefor we haven't see as many new developments in the CBD. Only Dominium with every last little TIF, credit, tool that they can possibly pull together. So, we all want to see more development, more people, more businesses move to the city correct?
Here are some ideas for the city in particular:

-Right to Work, hopefully the state Legislature will overturn Nixon's veto (haha, failed governor post Ferguson debacle )
-increase in immigrant population, this will happen when the strong unions are busted in the city/ region. They are almost 100% white whenever i see a worksite. where are the migrant workers? where are more black workers? are there enough programs in the north city/county area? apprenticeships, etc?
-earnings tax, we just need to figure out someway to sunset this constant "excuse" for businesses to come downtown
-billion dollar city budget?! really? for what? time to slash and burn city hall. how in the hell does the city need enough workers to fill city hall PLUS 1320 Market/ former Abrams courthouse? The city is smaller than it was when City Hall was built and they all used to fit in the original building... again, time to cut cut cut.

As someone else said, St. Louis has more potential than almost any other city, sure we won't be Chicago or NYC, even Minneapolis, but we sure as HELL shouldn't be losing to hick towns like Indy or Nashville or even KC. St. Louis was built to be a top five, top top ten city. will we fall out of the top 20? probably. it's ridiculous and it's due to a complete lack of leadership. County IDIOTS, i'm talking to you CIVIC PROGRESS (total joke). the city is the engine and will be the attraction of younger people to the region, not westport or chesterfield or even Clayton for that matter. the 100% goal should be to rebuild the CBD to the CWE. a lot is happening, but a lot more needs to happen. from the corridor, development can spill north and south into pockets of the city. Again, we need to make it cost-competitive to rebuild here, and construction unions are HOLDING US BACK! Even KC doesn't have the union power they do here, and look at their CBD! new towers are going up! if we lose out to KC , that's just pathetic.

^ Not buying the construction cost argument. Does it damper development based on speculation? somewhat but believe that has a lot to do with capital requirements. In other words, anchor tenant goes a long ways in getting financing in a slow growth region. But their is no significant cost difference regional which hasn't prevented Express Scripts, RGA, Edward Jones, Monsanto and so on from building new campuses. The cost of going horizontal instead of vertical is a much bigger difference if you are looking for cost savings and a big reason why US Metals Site/CORTEX will not go much higher then 5-6 stories because the site is big enough to get the square footage. Not too mention the fact that construction costs are not any cheaper whether you look at Denver, Minneapolis, or Chicago.

Finally, from my viewpoint being in contracting. A lot of contractors and subs are already union shop because of the intense craft trades involved and the fluctuating changes from project to project. Housing and rehab is a different story but not your not going to build a tower on the cheap with questionable labor from outstate because of right to work.

Denver, Minneapolis, or Chicago.

hahaha. yes, those cities rents are MUCH higher. Chicago can obviously absorb the higher labor union costs. Talk to ANY developer. Do you just "assume" the labor costs aren't higher here or have you talked to an actual developer? Again, i'd love for every person to make a fair wage, but now we are losing out to cities like Nashville, Indy, KC, where the unions are weak to non-existent. those are now our competitors. They are able to build there. we are not cost-competitive. It's funny how people either refuse to believe this or are just so pro-union, they can't take their blinders off..

^ Jcity, can only speak to my experience as a construction manager that has both union and non-union crews on my projects. Can not speak to individual agreements for a specific region. But companies in the region have shown to pay the premium for Class A office space as most companies will pay San Fran's sky high plus +60 square footage versus the Oakland market at $36-37 out here in the Bay. Good example is Square who would come ahead if they moved across the bay. Better yet, I don't understand the reason for paying premium on real estate when their server farms and customer service could be in downtown St Louis in the ample Class B space or rehab existing building stock

I just don't see right to work having meaningful impact unless you are talking housing, small frame construction. Heck, I believe Houston metro region built some huge number of residential units last year to the point that it flooded the market and rental prices as a whole dropped. But the issue, is you have to attract the jobs to attract the people

Minneapolis doesn't include their operating expenses in those numbers, so their figures are actually $5.00-8.00 higher than the "base rent"..
Yes, in terms of new office construction downtown, I'd say the main culprit is demand, and sadly there isn't any! I guess the same could be argued for new loft developments too, which is why we haven't seen much new construction or rehab as of late downtown, aside from Arcade. Even though occupancy downtown is 93%...
My point is again, is that the cost to build here is higher than it should be. Our costs should be the same as Des Moines, Nashville, Indy, KC. Not Chicago, Denver or Minneapolis. Our unions are as strong as cities who's rental rates are many times higher.
Oh, and I really hope this minimum wage hike is shot down. This will not be good for the city if the county doesn't match it.

^ you really think the unions are keeping Saint Louis development back compared to KC? Evidence?

again, i'm only repeating what I've heard from developers in the city. Sadly, our rents downtown don't justify buildings like the Crossing. Why people would rather live in dt Clayton over dt St. Louis is beyond me. Clayton is far more dead after business hours than downtown St. Louis. Downtown also has 150 restaurants while Clayton has maybe 50.. So much more to do, but the perception / reality of safety is there, so it's good that things seemed to have gotten better over the last few weeks. I hear there will be more good news to come on some new developments downtown..

^ keeping fingers crossed on new downtown developments! And I'm always open to hard data, and my understanding that Missouri's state prevailing wages are somewhat higher in Saint Louis than KC, but again I just haven't seen anything solid that that is holding back construction here. We have plenty in the City/County, and the lack of downtown new construction has more to do with locational preferences and the influence of historical tax credits. Just my 2c. worth.

One thing more about One Light that you alluded to with why wealthy choose dt Clayton over dt STL, my recollection is that it has attracted some pretty wealthy/influential people to live in dt KC and that has had kind of a "game-changing" effect... if we can do the same with a BPV tower, I think that will open some eyes of the County set. Just think of Dave Peacock, Bob Blitz and Joe Buck had large units downtown (even if they didn't actually live there a whole lot!)

^ I wouldn't be surprised if a few more large bond/sales tax measures pop up for several growing metro areas with Congress pretty much at a standstill with a long term transportation bill. Out here in the San Francisco Bay, discussion on the possibility of BART putting a sales tax measure on the ballot as well as both Santa Clara and Alameda county entertaining as such. Not too mention California's special state session with the intention to put together additional/finding another $6 billion in revenues over 10 years for transportation

Jcity, curious if you can add anymore to your comment about possibility of some more good news to come on downtown development... like KC did, I really don't see new construction downtown whether it be Class A space, hotel rooms and or residential unless city chips in on square footage cost.

^ great points. i concur about the walking in particular.