urbanSTL

^ yeah, it's nice but it's peripheral. i don't think many people are moving to Nashville because of that. there are lots and lots of cities in Appalachia—many of them not doing so well.

Nashville continues to boom IMO because in no particular order:

• Has a strong sense identity as the "Country Music Capital" making it the best place for aspiring musicians outside of Vegas or the coastal cultural capitals.  
• This identity has also helped Nashville cement itself as the biggest tourist destination in the region, particularly among young people. This exposure has caused many of my friends to decide to start their lives there.
• The relatively small urban area has forced development skywards. New skyscrapers and mixed use buildings creates a certain boomtown vibe that self perpetuates. The amount of young people moving to Nashville has turned it into a millennial paradise, which also self perpetuates.

 
To bring this back to an STL point of view:

• Our historic architecture and general urbanity blows Nashville out of the water. Their neighborhoods don't hold a candle to our neighborhoods. Their transit doesn't hold up against ours at all
•  Downtown Nashville kicks downtown STL's ass and that has a lot to do with why STL lags behind. It's the front door to the region and it's neither vibrant nor polished. Focusing on reviving downtown is how we bring new people to the city.
• St. Louis doesn't have a distinguished cultural identity like Nashville. IMO something STL should focus on promoting is its craft beer scene, which is constantly picked as the best in the country. Unfortunately the average person staying downtown would have no idea because there is very little craft beer presence downtown. Imagine if Wash Ave and the Landing were filled with the tasting rooms of 15-20 of our best local breweries. We would have an identity.

GoHarvOrGoHome wrote: ↑

Dec 18, 2020

Nashville continues to boom IMO because in no particular order:

• Has a strong sense identity as the "Country Music Capital" making it the best place for aspiring musicians outside of Vegas or the coastal cultural capitals.  
• This identity has also helped Nashville cement itself as the biggest tourist destination in the region, particularly among young people. This exposure has caused many of my friends to decide to start their lives there.
• The relatively small urban area has forced development skywards. New skyscrapers and mixed use buildings creates a certain boomtown vibe that self perpetuates. The amount of young people moving to Nashville has turned it into a millennial paradise, which also self perpetuates.

 
To bring this back to an STL point of view:

• Our historic architecture and general urbanity blows Nashville out of the water. Their neighborhoods don't hold a candle to our neighborhoods. Their transit doesn't hold up against ours at all
•  Downtown Nashville kicks downtown STL's ass and that has a lot to do with why STL lags behind. It's the front door to the region and it's neither vibrant nor polished. Focusing on reviving downtown is how we bring new people to the city.
• St. Louis doesn't have a distinguished cultural identity like Nashville. IMO something STL should focus on promoting is its craft beer scene, which is constantly picked as the best in the country. Unfortunately the average person staying downtown would have no idea because there is very little craft beer presence downtown. Imagine if Wash Ave and the Landing were filled with the tasting rooms of 15-20 of our best local breweries. We would have an identity.

I spend a lot of time in Nashville for work and often compare the 2 regions.  Your assessment is spot on.  Also very frustrating that we haven't taken advantage of our comparative strengths.

Yikes!

Stltoday - Surveillance video captures warning message broadcast from RV prior to Nashville explosion

https://www.stltoday.com/news/national/ ... 7154b.html

GoHarvOrGoHome wrote: ↑

Dec 18, 2020

Nashville continues to boom IMO because in no particular order:

Sorry, had to do this.

an explosive city if you ask me

Is it just me or has been painfully little reportage on the suicide bombing/bomber? Where was he radicalized? Where did he learn how to build bombs? What was the bomb made from? Where did he get the materials for his bomb? How was that acquisition not noticed? Did he have help?

^ i did read somewhere (NY Times?) that he was a retired IT person or something with experience in electronics, which likely aided in the bomb-making.

Stopped off in Nashville last night (1/12) and stayed into the afternoon yesterday (1/13). Stopped off since an 8 hour drive from Port St. Joe to Nashville was tiring. I used this stop opportunity to take some project photos and use my drone to get new perspectives. Additional drone pictures available in the "Chris Stritzel's Drone" thread.

I'll start this post off with photos of the aftermath of the 2nd Avenue North Christmas Day Bombing. The roads are all closed off surrounding the blast site, but there are no rules in place about flying drones over the mess, which is what I did. I did find the American flag draped over a building at 2nd and Commerce to be a bit interesting. A bright American flag draped over a historic building with all of its windows blown out and boarded up.. It's surreal seeing this block in this state, especially since I walked down this street in August.










Buildings in the surrounding area also had broken windows.



There is an ongoing effort from property owners, developers, the City of Nashville, and others to rebuild the buildings on 2nd Avenue. However, I think 5-7 of them will have to be demolished because they're too far gone. So architects and others will rely on numerous pictures of the buildings to recreate them as much as possible. It will be at least 2.5 years until this block resembles what was lost somewhat. Other buildings, like the stable ones with windows blown out, will be restored and back to normal by the Late Summer or Early Fall. Some property owners I was able to contact say they're going to renovate some of the buildings to bring the office spaces up to "modern Class A standards". 

Moving on, the 5th and Broadway development has come along nicely and is nearly finished. I know "The Place" apartments and the "501 Commerce" office building are open but the main retail spaces and National Museum of African American Music are not yet open. This development also includes an Apple Store, which is strange for being along Lower Broadway, which is where all the honky tonk bars are. From what I can see, I like the pedestrian area that runs in a n "L" shape through the development. This was built on the site of the former Nashville Convention Center.






The Broadwest Development, which includes a Conrad by Hilton Hotel, condos, office and retail space, is coming along nicely. They're still working on the hotel/condo tower structure portion.


Just a few blocks away, Greystar and Concord Hospitality are developing a Curio Hotel and Apartment building.



The Four Seasons Hotel and Residences is continuing to rise into the sky on 1st Avenue South.





Same goes for the Embassy Suites/1Hotel across from the Music City Center. In person, this is absolutely massive.




On 3rd Avenue South, and just a few steps away from Lower Broadway, a Moxy Hotel was built into an old warehouse building. A few new floors were added to the building.


Down at Vanderbilt, their new central tower and dorm facilities are coming along nicely.



To end this post, here some shots around downtown at night. Lower Broadway, Printers Alley, and the skyline are featured.

Looking at that bridge, it would have been pretty rad to keep the upper deck of the MacArthur as a bike/ped bridge.  Of course it doesn't really go anywhere, so some greenway connection work to the confluence trail would be necessary.

I haven't spent much time in Downtown Nashville.  Mostly driving through.  My only thoughts driving through Nashville most center around "where are all the houses?" Our highways cut through tons of neighborhoods.

bwcrow1s wrote:Looking at that bridge, it would have been pretty rad to keep the upper deck of the MacArthur as a bike/ped bridge.  Of course it doesn't really go anywhere, so some greenway connection work to the confluence trail would be necessary.

I haven't spent much time in Downtown Nashville.  Mostly driving through.  My only thoughts driving through Nashville most center around "where are all the houses?" Our highways cut through tons of neighborhoods.

The houses are there, just they’re outside of the more tourist/business areas.

Nashville BJ: Oracle Corp. reveals River North tech hub plans with record-breaking 8,500 jobs

"Tech giant Oracle Corp. wants to create as many as 8,500 jobs in Nashville and transform about 70 acres of industrial riverfront land into a 21st century tech hub.
...
The company stressed that no final decision had been made — though if the company picks Nashville, it would rank as a record-breaking economic development announcement for the city and state, eclipsing the 5,000 jobs that Amazon.com Inc. (Nasdaq: AMZN) announced for downtown in fall 2018.
...
Oracle is under contract to buy a large swath of the River North site on the East Bank of the Cumberland River, immediately north of Topgolf, between the river and Cowan Street. Oracle is buying that land from Chicago-based Monroe Investment Partners, led by founding principal Don Allen. He began buying land on the East Bank more than 20 years ago. Though the flood of May 2010 inundated the site, Allen stuck with his investment and went on to buy additional properties. He amassed 105 acres in total, before selling a slice of it in summer 2019 to developers MRP Realty and Creek Lane Capital, who are building a $250 million mixed-use development.
...
Oracle expects to invest up to $1.2 billion and build 1.2 million square feet of office space over the next 10 years.

Oracle aims to employ 2,500 people at the campus by the end of 2027, growing to 8,500 jobs by the end of 2031. (Don't be surprised if the company hits those targets faster: When announcing job counts and hiring timelines, companies often err on the side of conservative estimates, as their incentives are usually tied to those projections and include clawback provisions if they fall short).

The full-time jobs would pay an average of $110,000 a year, and include software engineering, sales and consulting roles. For perspective, Davidson County's median household income is about $60,000."

It’s embarrassing how much STL’s ass is getting kicked. Embarrassing.

whitherSTL wrote: ↑

Apr 15, 2021

It’s embarrassing how much STL’s ass is getting kicked. Embarrassing.

Is it more embarrassing that we don’t get things like this or I have zero faith anyone here is even trying to get anything like this?

When I saw this the first thing I thought was, it isn’t like we ever were in the running anyway, and I doubt we even tried.

jshank83 wrote: ↑

Apr 15, 2021

whitherSTL wrote: ↑

Apr 15, 2021

It’s embarrassing how much STL’s ass is getting kicked. Embarrassing.

Is it more embarrassing that we don’t get things like this or I have zero faith anyone here is even trying to get anything like this?

When I saw this the first thing I thought was, it isn’t like we ever were in the running anyway, and I doubt we even tried.

We didn’t even try, guaranteed.

Agree that it's depressing that we never get news like this, but in our defense, pretty much every city with a few exceptions is getting their ass kicked by Nashville. It's pretty wild seeing how much that city has changed in the last ten years.

Unless we improve our local tech employee pool, attracting mega tech company moves like this will continue to be an impossibility.

Indy has done very well as well in terms of tech, and they started out with a worse endowment than we did (no native tech-focused university for starters, Purdue is not super close).

Maybe later this decade the tides will turn in our favor till then we’ll wait patiently our turn.


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100% agree. I've never seen another city as self-defeating as STL. It's the thing that has always bugged me when I see the general pride from people in cities like KC and Indy. Talk to people from there and they are convinced they live in the next superstar city and will be competing with Dallas and Seattle soon (slight exaggeration).

No one - and I mean no one - sh!ts on St. Louis more than St. Louisans. And it absolutely has an effect on the morale of the city.

I think this is absolutely true. 

All too often, St. Louisans don't know how good they've got it. 

St. Louis has the ability to grow in the banking, crop science, healthcare and geospatial categories. While it would be nice to get someone like Amazon or Oracle, like Nashville, St. Louis already had the foundation laid in the categories I mentioned. Should we pursue tech companies in a bid to get them here? Sure, but our specialty right now appears to be what I mentioned.

One day, the growth in superstar cities like Nashville and Austin will stop as tech companies can only grow so much. There will always be a need for banking/finance, crop science, healthcare and geospatial technologies, and that's where St. Louis will benefit. We will be a superstar city again one day, just we shouldn't be chasing after companies and trends that get bigger and bigger and then will bust one day.

The growth in Nashville is cool, don't get me wrong, but do we really want buildings that are repetitive after a while?