urbanSTL

I've been sitting on my thoughts for a while, hoping I'd come up with something more eloquent. And this could have been posted on any number of stories that involve companies moving out of the city. But no, this is really beginning to piss me off.

I do not know what these companies (or agencies) are thinking when they decide to move to or expand in more and more suburban areas.

I live outside of St. Louis now, in a smaller, more sprawly, conservative midwestern city because out of college I couldn't find an engineering position in a somewhat urban area of St. Louis (commuting to Earth City didn't really appeal).

Actually, I work for a defense contractor in a downtown, that just moved there from an industrial area... so I don't believe downtown couldn't be a "secure" option for NGA if they tried. My coworkers constantly talk about how much better it is to be downtown and how walking around for lunch instead of driving to the nearest drive-thru has done wonders for employee morale. I would not be there now if they were still at their old location. No one I know wants to live or work (granted, yes, I'm posting on this forum) in Fenton, Melville, rural Illinois, etc - that includes all of my high school friends from far west county. If I worked for a company that announced it was moving to a place like this and I wasn't 100% happy with my job I would begin looking for another. I know I'm not the only 20-something in that boat.

Every time I'm home I wish I could live there instead. But companies there continue to buck the trend occurring everywhere else of moving to more urban areas to attract "young talent." Now, I keep crossing my fingers that will begin to occur soon (and great things are happening on a residential level), but obviously we will be behind if it happens.

deformative wrote:I've been sitting on my thoughts for a while, hoping I'd come up with something more eloquent. And this could have been posted on any number of stories that involve companies moving out of the city. But no, this is really beginning to piss me off.

I do not know what these companies (or agencies) are thinking when they decide to move to or expand in more and more suburban areas.

I live outside of St. Louis now, in a smaller, more sprawly, conservative midwestern city because out of college I couldn't find an engineering position in a somewhat urban area of St. Louis (commuting to Earth City didn't really appeal).

Actually, I work for a defense contractor in a downtown, that just moved there from an industrial area... so I don't believe downtown couldn't be a "secure" option for NGA if they tried. My coworkers constantly talk about how much better it is to be downtown and how walking around for lunch instead of driving to the nearest drive-thru has done wonders for employee morale. I would not be there now if they were still at their old location. No one I know wants to live or work (granted, yes, I'm posting on this forum) in Fenton, Melville, rural Illinois, etc - that includes all of my high school friends from far west county. If I worked for a company that announced it was moving to a place like this and I wasn't 100% happy with my job I would begin looking for another. I know I'm not the only 20-something in that boat.

Every time I'm home I wish I could live there instead. But companies there continue to buck the trend occurring everywhere else of moving to more urban areas to attract "young talent." Now, I keep crossing my fingers that will begin to occur soon (and great things are happening on a residential level), but obviously we will be behind if it happens.

Agreed. The severe (and growing) disinvestment in the City by all of the St. Louis metro area employers is the ultimate downfall of our City, and the biggest single hindrance to our City realizing its potential. People wonder why places like Cincinnati, Minneapolis, Pittsburgh and Denver have bigger, prettier downtown skylines than ours, and it's largely because more of those cities' employers invest in their respective downtowns with big, shiny, pretty, modern-looking new buildings.

Our Mastercard and Visa regional HQs are in St. Charles County. Centene and Enterprise (along with a plurality of our area's law firms and financial institutions) global HQs are in Clayton. Express Scripts is in Berkeley, and Boeing is nearby elsewhere in NorCo. Monsanto is in Creve Coeur, and adding hundreds of jobs in Chesterfield. AT&T is soon moving hundreds of jobs out there, as well. Edward Jones is in Des Peres. That's just off the top of my head.

That is a massive metric *****-ton of corporate investment (be it directly, via the corporations themselves spending on the infrastructure and landscape surrounding their offices, or indirectly, via tax-base dollars) that the City will never see. How is the City supposed to do anything without that money, short of continually increasing sales and earnings taxes, thereby making it less attractive to live and work in? How can it possibly hope to compete when similarly-sized cities don't miss out on those funds?

And like you said, the City loses badly two-fold: once in the way that I described above, and twice because our entire region misses out on attracting young educated talent because if they have a choice to work for a company's regional HQ located in the heart of downtown Pittsburgh, and that same company's regional HQ in Chesterfield, all other things equal they will choose Pittsburgh almost every time.

Like many things about St. Louis, it's a maddeningly frustratingly vicious loop of self-fulfilling defeat, and it makes us fall farther and farther behind each year.

I am not surprised the corporate, and political culturehere seems to be forever stuck in 1982. Then they wonder why young people aren't moving here. It also wouldn't surprise me, that the major companies, had be ran by the same group of people for almost 30 years. My theory why I think Downtown Pittsburgh is doing so well is because the Allegheny mountains probably hinder Sprawl, and the corporate climate of Pittsburgh wants those high up mountain views from the offices, that a campus can't provide well.

The city dose not have a plan to grow jobs downtown, I feel the Mayors office for the past 20 years is just waiting for some large numbers of jobs to fall out of the sky one day. The needs to make a plan to lure tech jobs and start ups to downtown for example the city can make a policy if you move jobs downtown the 1% tax is cut to .5 % for the first 5 out of 10 years or .5% for the first 10 out of 20.

The city should talk Sigma to moving downtown. Even if the city has to offer them some TIF to do it. Yes it is just shuffling the deck but at least it would give downtown a big boost. Sigma in there location now dose nothing to make the city more urban.

If it weren't for the City these municipalities would never exist.. The City should be beyond the first choice for these jobs.. & as far as crime goes if jobs were to be located in areas of North City i could bet you crime would go down dramatically the same with South City as well .. Right now the city needs to have a mindset that its us against them and we do anything to have these jobs stay here. Fenton could give a rats ass of how the city feels nor could the other munies as well ..Too me they are all leeches sucking the life out of the city just to gain more power...All i can say is Kudos for Pittsburgh & other cities but our main focus should be on Saint.Louis.
Even all the good Pittsburgh has done they aren't gaining any population & are still losing regional population the same with Cleveland. Cincinnati is going good as well but they are stagnant as well the same with Saint.Louis
Out of the 4 Saint.Louis has the great potential but i think the city truly needs a major image shift & get rid of these inferiorities .. Slowly killing us worrying about what every other city is doing!

Based upon the history of the site, it almost seems as if the only/best use for the site, is a museum of some sort. I know that would irk some, but how can you ignore the history present at that site....? Maybe there are other good uses, but recognizing the history of the site, is a must for any new development there. At least they'll have a lot of time to figure it out, since NGA is not moving for a while.

Does anyone know of the past history of that area is? Meaning would there be issues with soil or groundwater contamination in the area that could make redevelopment complicated. It doesn't look like it would be a practical area for any residential development easily.

When the mention other locations. I was thinking there was something else going in the Fenton site so its possible that location may not work due to someone else gets there beforehand.

The current site and surrounding area. Is it possible to add some sort of riverfront park around there with marina access and also to create some connecting walking/cycling trails from the riverfront to neighborhoods across 55 from the site?

Wouldn't it make a great location for another government agency? If it's owned by the Air Force I'd love to see them find another tenant for the property.

I think the National Historic Site certainly has solid potential as a recreational/tourist asset, especially if it can be weaved into other assets along the south riverfront/Broadway corridor. There already are some really neat attractions in the corridor -- coupling the site with Jefferson Barracks would be an excellent Civil War tour, for example... and future attractions like Sugar Loaf Mound and a redeveloped Lemp Brewery would add even more richness and potential.

NGIA requires state-of-the-art technology that many other agencies wouldn't. The building might make a great upgrade for another agency.

I don't remember them saying why the current facility wouldn't work other than "it's more cost effective to build new."

^why? if not this then what? Mckee has no plan, he has never had actual plan for northside, his whole plan was the get a few commerical centers developed and hope someone did the rest.

roger wyoming II wrote:^ I think the broad vision is solid.... anchor a few key sites with new office/employment (which supposedly is his forte) and work with others on the residential portions, etc.

The P-I site has strong potential as a dense jobs center and the blocks north present a great opportunity for infill residential... making those a no go zone would be a major setback for the potential to build a great city,

Looking at the land needed it starts to make me wonder how much of a tradeoff will it be by tying up that much land. The question then comes would it be worth it? Since if you could get some other development done there instead it may be better off they locate somewhere else. But it would make sense if the alternative is nothing.

^^ that was where I was going with it. basically is there a better alternative that could be done or not.

The issue in large part is that the powers that be and the culture is still centered around the baby boomer generation with their views on development and whatnot and people stuck in the past. There is still in that generation and older the whole "don't go North of Delmar" mindset which has stifled the region overall and causes such division.

How about something like this the British GCHQ (their CIA) looks like its in the middle of a neighborhood











176-acre
Cost- $560,000,000
Height- 21 feet
Diameter 600 Feet
6000 employees.

dbInSouthCity wrote:How about something like this the British GCHQ (their CIA) looks like its in the middle of a neighborhood

176-acre
Cost- $560,000,000
Height- 21 feet
Diameter 600 Feet
6000 employees.

That is a neighborhood in the middle of green pastures.

They're looking for 50 acres... so why are we trying to give them 120?

I totally understand the notion of not accepting mediocre because we believe we can't do better or whatever, but in this case, I think we have to bite the bullet and do it.

We HAVE to keep these jobs in the city, and I don't see another alternative. And, honestly, I'm not sure I have the confidence that anything will happen in that area any time soon. I think this is a worthwhile trade-off myself. I really do.