And talk about book ends... If this is build and so is the Bottle district, the two tallest buildings would be on opposite sides of the CBD.
That is actually a pretty good description of the original plan that Eero Saarinen had for the St. Louis skyline. His concept was tall buildings on either end of the city slowly tapering down in a reverse arch to compliment the arch in the middle, almost as thought the whole city where the memorial. If you've ever seen any of his original drawings it looks quite spectacular. If the news of this tower means that this might actually be realized, that would be awesome in my eyes.
I agree with the statement of 2-3 30-40 story structures instead which would spread out development instead of creating a gigantic block megastructure that may come to resemble the Detroit Renaissance, Atlanta Peachtree, and Houston Center. Even Met Square looks anti-urban by lacking retail and daily activity business establishments on the first floor to interact with the street. Let's not forget about all the parking garage space they built. This 81 story tower will definitely come with an overload of parking unless the major tenant agrees to subsidizing Metrolink passes for their employees.
City are you listening? Push McGowan to include transit passes!
SMSPlanstu wrote:I agree with the statement of 2-3 30-40 story structures instead which would spread out development instead of creating a gigantic block megastructure that may come to resemble the Detroit Renaissance, Atlanta Peachtree, and Houston Center. Even Met Square looks anti-urban by lacking retail and daily activity business establishments on the first floor to interact with the street. Let's not forget about all the parking garage space they built. This 81 story tower will definitely come with an overload of parking unless the major tenant agrees to subsidizing Metrolink passes for their employees.
If one company has put up most of the financing and wants to be in this building, then it should be built. They will probably not want to be cut up into several buildings. Besides that, this building will bring alot of attention downtown, and 2-3 30-40 story towers (if not more/bigger) could follow. It's about time St. Louis started to think big. It's apparent not eveyone gets it yet, but don't worry everyone will warm up to it when it happens. Transit passes are are great idea, and hopefully parking space will not be made as much of an issue as it is in every other project downtown.
That fact that it keeps growing, now twice as tall as Met Square.
The fact that it will be one of the tallest buildings in the country.
The fact that a loft developer is now going to develop this monster.
The fact that M|W attracted some global mega-tenant that is going to put their name on the building and occupy probably close to half a million square feet of office space, but no one else has a clue.
The fact that he keeps dropping teasers.
This is all very strange and I am not buying it.
If this is real that is great news, but I get the feeling Kevin McGowan is lurking on this board and having quite a laugh.
The one thing I find fish is the fact that people are saying that the 85% financing is in place. If so, there probably would of been some sort of announcement by now.
If this is real that is great news, but I get the feeling Kevin McGowan is lurking on this board and having quite a laugh.
and that would be ...
UNPROFESSIONAL to say the least.
I'm sure he would be running his name into the gutter annoucing false and fabricated information at seminars and progress meetings, to Mayor Slay and other officials and corporate professionals.
I had to get up and walk around a couple times during this thread, after it was stated the tower would be 81 instead of 71. Yikes.
A couple thoughts.
IF this project gets going, it will be fantastic for St. Louis. I only hope that the major tennant for the building isn't from downtown St. Louis. I could take a county or area company moving downtown, but would most definitely prefer an out of area company. It would really strengthen the local job market, instead of just moving jobs around the area.
It's plausible that a company could be coming in from the outside, considering the current market trends of more and more expensive rents on the coasts, and the revival of the city of St. Louis. As many have stated, once you move here, you fall in love with it. Perhaps theres an outside company looking to lower their cost of operations.
Or, consider another factor that there are a lot of mergers going on. Maybe there is a merger that is being worked on that would be able to fill the office space in this building.
Most of that, is my mind racing trying to figure out who it could be that is committed to that amount of office space.
Now, regarding concern for the cannibalization of downtown. I understand it, but I can't imagine that McGowan wouldn't consider this when working on a project like this. Before (w/ the Met Building), it wasn't as big of a concern. People just wanted new space. And in regards to the street level aspect...IMO, this is the most important aspect of any in new projects. Does it contribute to the urbanistic lifestyle, and now just look cool in a postcard.
Frankly, I don't care what the skyline looks like. This could be a huge catalyst in the push to get the Chouteau Lake done, which as you all know is my favorite project. What we need to concern ourselves with is not how it looks, or where it will go, but how it will fit into the urban fabric of our city.
Trent, I think alot of people on the board look forward to hearing what you have to say. I agree with your above post 100% Hearing that Kevin McGowan is saying an 81 story is in the works is great news. Hearing a new company is moving downtown and bringing jobs with it would be even better. Hearing that all of the above is true and that tower is mixed use and will incorporate street interaction would be the best case scenario.
bpe235 wrote:I gues the Mcgowans aren't too worried about this real estate bubble that other developers are apearently worried about on some of the CWE threads...I wonder where along the proposed lake kevin is thinking? this is hard for me to fathom.... What is the building on the new website and why would they have it on there if it wasn't theirs.? Is that tower gonna be built too? What is this about other towers the mcgowans have planned...since when did they become a large enough firm to handle these massive projects?
Real Estate prices in St. Louis tend to be lower than average anyway. So while the prices on both coasts crash, the less expensive homes and business spaces in St. Louis and much of the midwest could attract some cash. There are winners in every major market bust. Some even got rich off of buying devalued property during the Depression.
trent wrote:Frankly, I don't care what the skyline looks like.
I agree in principal... but we aren't Pittsburgh or Atlanta. I have met people from Europe and Asia that say "St. Louis -- that where the arch is... isn't it" We are up there with San Fran (golden gate) and NYC (just all of NYC) as a unique and distinguishable skyline. TRUE to you and me who take it for granted - it may be nothing... but it is a valuable resource for the city. Would I choose "preserving the arches status as the largest structure on the sky line" at the expense of "a huge 500,000 ft^2 company coming downtown" hell no... but I AM worried about the ONE THING that sets us apart from Pittsburgh, Minneapolis, and the countless other cities that are trying to get the SAME companies and have LOW rents compared to NYC and Cali.... we can't over glamorize nor overlook the power of the skyline....
I think this has been said, but my guess would be Edward Jones. They their large campus at Manchester and 270 and a second campus near Dorsett and 270. Many of the large investment bank/brokerage firms have their name splashed across vanity type buildings and if I had to pick a company to put their name on this building that's who it would be.
The arch is iconic - no matter what else is built it will remain so. Is the Sydney Opera House the tallest structure in Sydney? Is the Golden Gate Bridge the tallest? The Statue of Liberty? The Seattle Space Needle??? I think that some of us here remember specific buildings, the tallest, the oldest, etc. But no matter what, the arch will remain the iconic symbol of St. Louis as long as it stands.
They're building an 80 floor residential tower here called the Eureka Tower, ( http://www.eurekatower.com.au/main.cfm ) it's supposed to be the tallest resiential building in the southern hempishere (which isn't saying much but still), and it's the tallest building in melbourne by 30 stories! It's in the middle of other high rise (20-35) buildings, so it doesn't look horribly out of place, but it does dominate the southern half of the city's skyline.
With a building of this height, I'm just concerned about the design. Buildings seldom look like they do in 1st 2nd 3rd even 9th renderings. I just hope they do it right, and not make it look like some curtainwall monolith
That's not even the point. The point is; who released the latest bit of news to us? Not Kevin McGowan. It was Alonzo P Hawk with 14 posts. Nothing against him, I just wouldn't exactly call this a release from the Drudge Report. So yes, nothing wrong with a little skepticism w/o more verification.
For what it's worth, not sure I agree with changing the title of the thread from 71 to 81.... 71/81 sounds more conservative at this stage.
matguy70 wrote:
If this is real that is great news, but I get the feeling Kevin McGowan is lurking on this board and having quite a laugh.
and that would be ...
UNPROFESSIONAL to say the least.
I'm sure he would be running his name into the gutter annoucing false and fabricated information at seminars and progress meetings, to Mayor Slay and other officials and corporate professionals.
^I agree. This is still at the rumour stage. I am not taking it seriously.
Yet, it makes an interesting conversation. Even if 71/81 is totally imaginary, it is harmless to discuss possible locations, designs, impact, etc. of a building like this.
Alonzo P. Hawk is a legit SLU student. I wasn't in the class, so I can't comment further, but it's not as if McGowan has only reported this to this forum. Everywhere he goes he seems to talk about this.
MattnSTL wrote:it's not as if McGowan has only reported this to this forum. Everywhere he goes he seems to talk about this.
You would talk about it too if you were partially behind the biggest thing in St. Louis history. I imagine he's not allowed to make an 'announcement' because of details that are being worked through, but he probably can get away with talking about it to small groups of people.
Also, how horrible are the reporters in this town? Even though this is just a rumor I'd imagine it'd be a huge story if a reporter could dig up some info. The PD should hire one of us to replace Van Der Werf.
Also, how horrible are the reporters in this town? Even though this is just a rumor I'd imagine it'd be a huge story if a reporter could dig up some info. The PD should hire one of us to replace Van Der Werf.
^Good point!
Also, it is interesting to see someone vouch for Alonzo Hawks. I hope there is truth in this. Mostly because I am excited that developers might be seeing a market for new construction. And while I am usually a density over height person, an 81 story building makes a bold statement about our comeback city. I cannot deny that watching 71/81 going up would be exciting and instill pride for anyone interested in STL.
i say again .... a super tall building next to the stadium makes a hell of a lot of sense. The views alone would creat very valuable office or residential space.
I have to say though, this is all really frusterating. We've been sitting on a 71 (now 81) story rumor for months now with no real announcement. After all that waiting, we finally see the rendering on the McGowan/Walsh website only to find out that it's not theirs? That's downright strange. Now it's 81 stories. I just want a legitimate proposal to actually come by. I'd also like an explanation to why MW would put a rendering of a building on their website if it's not theirs or has nothing to do with them.
As most that have met him or listened to him speak probably know by now, Kevin McGowan is not a terribly detail-oriented person. I suspect that the confusion over the height of the building and the website rendering is partially a result of this. I wasn't at the class, so I will leave it to Alonzo P Hawk to confirm or deny, but it could be that the building is the equivalent of 81 stories tall (with the ~150' HD antenna on top), and/or Kevin was just engaging in a little semantic fudgery to make the project sound even more exciting.
The same goes for the rendering on the website. That rendering is quite clearly of the same building that McGowan|Walsh presented as the MW Tower in their Packard/Motor Lofts sales office in June. I suspect that Kevin meant that the rendering on their website was an old rendering when he said that it was "not their tower". At the panel event at Copia - in July?, either Nat or Kevin - don't remember which - said that the renderings had changed from the ones displayed on the Loft Tour, but that they were not ready to release the new ones yet - maybe because the new renderings would give away the location. It is also very possbile that they simply want to wait to release the new renderings until the official announcement is made. You create more "buzz" that way.
I also had to laugh at the comment about Kevin lurking on this forum. At Copia, he said that he has never heard of this forum (sorry guys), and has stated before that he is "all asses and elbows when it comes to computers", whatever that means.
