urbanSTL

^ Yes. They'll be sold and demo'd, but the price keeps going up and up.

Channel 2 has their truck parked on the Federal Mogul site with the microwave antenna mast raised. I wonder if they'll have something on tonight's news?

Post Dispatch article posted just now:
http://www.stltoday.com/business/local/ ... 009c7.html

Mentions IKEA

I hope Channel 2 covers the story. Glad to see P-D is catching up, too. The traditional media has a lot of resources an online forum lacks... like salaried journalists who have the time to have the connversations needed to get the information about which we're all speculating. (That's not technically a run-on sentence.) They can actually get a Pace representative on the phone and then put him in front of a camera.

As I drove westbound on 40/64 yesterday, I was struck by what a good idea height would be for this development. Visibility eastbound will be great. Because of the double-decker highway, though, visibility westbound may require a second floor just to be seen. If Target wanted to locate on the site, a traditional store would have to be two levels just to fit. But that height also would give them amazing visibility.

Good to see old media catching up.

“It’s a property we’ve look at for quite some time,” he said. “Now is the time for retail development.”

Pace’s site plan shows five stores in four buildings on the site of the former factory and an adjoining tract on Vandeventer Avenue. Projected store sizes range from 11,000 to 80,000 square feet in a development totaling 166,000 square feet. Buildings would be along Forest Park and Vandeventer avenues, with parking lots in the rear.

Heitz declined to identify potential tenants for Midtown Station but said Pace will try “very hard” in the next six months to line up retailers. A price tag has yet to be fixed to the project but Pace said it will be funded by Pace Realty Investors, an affiliated real estate investment fund.

Heitz said Midtown Station would benefit from its proximity to SLU, the BJC HealthCare complex and affluent parts of the Central West End. Recent growth at CORTEX, just a few blocks west of the Midtown Station site, also played a role in proceeding with new retail development, he said.

“We’ve looked at this over the years and with the momentum that CORTEX is getting, that weighed in,” Heitz said.

Pace also is marketing a large retail site within CORTEX. Heitz said he has heard the talk that IKEA is looking at the site along Forest Park Avenue west of Vandeventer. He noted that Pace represents IKEA in looking at potential store sites in the St. Louis area but declined to comment on any specific location.

Presbyterian wrote:As I drove westbound on 40/64 yesterday, I was struck by what a good idea height would be for this development. Visibility eastbound will be great. Because of the double-decker highway, though, visibility westbound may require a second floor just to be seen. If Target wanted to locate on the site, a traditional store would have to be two levels just to fit. But that height also would give them amazing visibility.

They could always paint the roof white with a big red Target. They do that with their stores near airports like O'Hare and LaGuardia.

So I know its been stated that residential requires more remediation than commercial so i thought i'd ask how much more remediation is required? I assume both will require extensive excavation and replacement of topsoil. Is it that the asbestos content for residential must be below X ppm while for commercial it must be Y ppm. Also I'm sure some parts of the site are more contaminated than others, does this concept take that into account?

Do hotels require the same level of remediation as residential? If not I would think a hotel along Vandeventer might add a better mix of uses for the site and add to the street wall there.

Am I the only one thinking they need to be thinking about a metrolink stop at Vandeventer? Neither Boyle nor Grand are close enough IMO plus i always thought there should be one there anyway. I relize it sort of late to the party but i think they should consider shifting the Boyle stop to the West side of Boyle to better center it between the CWE and a future Vandeventer stop.

Wouldn't that Parking lot be incredibly loud with the Hwy 40 echo chamber right behind it...?

Overall I am reserving judgement. A Boulevard Concept would not bring in the influx of sales tax dollars that a retailer like target does. Its also a competing interest to Brentwood Promenade which is sucking up ALOT of the cities sales tax dollars currently. On the flip side its hard to get excited about parking lots. Also in St Louis I'm more accustomed to ambitious projects that are scaled down as they go through a number of financial hurdles. If that were the case here what would be left...?

Last night KSDK did a pretty long segment (second story in) about the two outlet malls opening in Chesterfield Valley in August. The reporter was darn near orgasmic in her almost breathless description of these places. Might as well been written by the developers PR firms.

We'll see how they react to this.

STLEnginerd wrote:Wouldn't that Parking lot be incredibly loud with the Hwy 40 echo chamber right behind it...?

I've never worried about the impact of highway noise on a parking lot.

dweebe wrote:Channel 2 has their truck parked on the Federal Mogul site with the microwave antenna mast raised. I wonder if they'll have something on tonight's news?

Lead segment at 6pm. This website got a shout out about the brochure.

Place nice guys. They're watching us.

^ Very nice.

Here it is: http://fox2now.com/2013/07/29/big-box-r ... o-midtown/

^ Right. And Roddy claimed that he was waiting for "something special". Who's going to break it to him?

^ already one planned for between Sarah and Boyle

Glad to know the local media is not only sourcing from here (hello, media guys) but is also crediting NextSTL as the source.

Q: The Fox 2 story noted that "what's not a secret" is that there is another development going in at the NE corner of FPP and Vandeventer, where the Waterway gas station currently sits, about $60-70M in new student housing...
What is this development?
Is there a thread on it already?

The Mobile station development has been mentioned via Twitter, etc. - don't think there's a thread here. The plans are pretty cool - hoping to be able to publish them soon.

^How did the Spring viaduct work? I spent a decade at SLU but never managed to go south down Spring. Was it between the two levels of 40?