urbanSTL

jakektu wrote:Why are the new retail spaces such as Park Pacific garage and MX garage not filling up? It's even been a struggle to fill the block near the Schnucks garage. A few years ago I thought the retail excuse was the lack of available spaces like these. But now that the space is there they are sitting empty.

Yes and add to that the old lions choice and mosaic spots. I would think these would be two hot spots

And the spaces in the Bogen and the Wash Ave. Apartments on either side of Tucker at Wash Ave. Empty.

The new residents and hotel guests will add more customers Downtown. I see Locust and Olive being very vibrant after all these vacant buildings are occupied again soon (Alverne, Arcade, Roberts Tower, etc). Then again, many of these residents may work in other neighborhoods, and will not be around in the daytime when most businesses are at peak hours.

So the constant stream of good news in the Ikea/slu/west end area has me both happy and worried. I'm wondering if this will steal away more thunder from downtown. . .and maybe even hurt the residency rate. I say this because seeing all this positive new in that area really has me thinking of moving there from my downtown loft. I don't want to give up on downtown but it just seems so blah lately. Maybe its just me. The few new loft projects downtown are nice, but they still are not addressing adding meaningful daytime population as a lot of these new residents will probably already work down here or leave during the day.

Ive notice most of my posts so far have been questioning downtown. I apologize if i am coming off a little negative or not optimistic. I really want to see good things happen downtown

Downtown is in fact very stagnant ..I know for a fact Culinaria is struggling... With the loss of some big employers such as AT&T im wondering how downtown can woo more jobs there..Gaining residents is great but with the lack of retail it's not going to go much further than what we have now and sadly momentum may dwindle...

Downtown really has lost it's mojo. He'll I lived DT for 9 + years and left for another hood in the City. I guess area's evolve. However I really don't like what I am seeing. The place is rather bland and boring. When was the last time a city resident said... I can't wait to go DT to visit this hot new restaurant?

Don't get me wrong overall the area has changed in some ways for the positive I remember days when I wouldn't walk from 16th and Wash to Tucker at night alone. Long before Wash Ave received a upgrade. That said the area stinks now and it lacks a true pulse and sense of purpose.

I think downtown will be alright, I just think it is going through some growing pains right now. I mean downtown is still in its infancy in terms of development, big things are happening in the CWE, but how long has the CWE been the "IT" neighborhood in the city?

I do think things have slowed down a bit, but in all honesty downtown is a lot better than it was 10 or even 2 years ago. The demand for downtown living is still there and downtown is still growing at a healthy clip, I just don't think its reached that critical mass yet. I say we are still a good 10 years away from having a "vibrant" downtown, because our downtown was so dead and we started to revive it later than many other cities.

I would say that downtown needs a few things to take it to the next level. Improve streetscapes and beautification, a real plan for development (form based code currently being development), increased transit connectivity (north/south metrolink and st. louis streetcar), and obviously more jobs and residences.

With all that sad, I'm still a believer in downtown and I think we just had an off year (2013) in terms of development and looking forward to 2014 there is a lot of exciting stuff going on.

With the new apartments, hotels, C+A+R, BPV, etc., Downtown will be much better in about 2016. I wish it were attracting development like Midtown, CWE, The Loop, and Clayton, but for now it isn't. When all these projects are done, it will be time to get serious. The newly renovated buildings will light up the street with retail. The streetcar will of course been a big help as well in a few years. Downtown may be lagging behind other Central Corridor neighborhoods, but it just needs our patience. It's the calm before the storm at the moment. In 2016, I believe, it will hit its growth spurt, and in 2020 it will have grown into something that will exceed our expectations.

I live in the CWE but go to downtown restaurants every chance I get. I think all city residents need to be committed to downtown. Hope we don't make the mistake of focusing on our little hip neighborhoods and let the core decline (the region has been there/done that and we all know how that turned out).
Downtown is so much bigger than any other neighborhood that it will need way more people for it to appear full again.
Protect the historic buildings and keep working on growing tech companies and residential capacity. Downtown will cross the threshold one day.

BrickCity4470 wrote:Downtown is in fact very stagnant ..I know for a fact Culinaria is struggling... With the loss of some big employers such as AT&T im wondering how downtown can woo more jobs there..Gaining residents is great but with the lack of retail it's not going to go much further than what we have now and sadly momentum may dwindle...

you really think Culinaria is struggling? It seems like there are always lot of people waiting in the Cashier line almost every time I am there.

OPOP Tower, Arcade, Chemical, and a (hopefully) increased presence of Webster U. will help stabilize and bolster the retail offerings and street life downtown.

What's really troubling to me is that we haven't seen a new restaurant or bar open up there for quite a while. We've actually had one leave (the London Tea Room). Downtown's strongest sector has been the restaurant/entertainment sector, but it seems like even that is slowing down. I'm hoping this is just due to the weather and will pick back up after this brutal winter.

We had Alpha Brewing, Hiro, Alumni Club, Bellas Froyo, Flying Cow, and Docket open last year. There is work underway for 2 places in the 1100 block of Washington that will open this year. Hopefully a few inspiring places open this year, especially in the Mosaics spot.

I think that we've just been spoiled by the insane amount of good news coming out of other parts of the city. In the long run, what's good for these urban and transit connected neighborhoods is good for downtown. Most of the people moving into these new developments would rather work downtown (or at least Clayton) than Creve Coeur or Maryland Heights and employers will take notice.

I think a part of the problem with the retail scene is people in the suburbs just don't want to go downtown (not counting events or sports and most just leave right after). What I mean is I never herd any one in the burbs say to me hey Sean what to meet up downtown or something. So lets figure out a way to get people to go downtown not for spots but just to go downtown.

moorlander wrote:^ nice detective skills. I'm a long time fan. He loves his "double doubles" from Tim Horton's.

Same here, so I had to acknowledge your clever reference to him.

jakektu wrote:Why are the new retail spaces such as Park Pacific garage and MX garage not filling up? It's even been a struggle to fill the block near the Schnucks garage. A few years ago I thought the retail excuse was the lack of available spaces like these. But now that the space is there they are sitting empty.

Great question. I remain bullish on downtown personally, but objectively, I have to wonder if it's one step forward, or two steps back, or if it's just a bit too soon to tell. And yes, while I realize the residential boom downtown is now over a decade old and that failed attempts to revive downtown go back even further, there are several projects that should be complete in the next few years that could have a significant impact, and the proposed streetcar route could be a game changer as well.

But it has been awhile since a restaurant has opened to significant fanfare in downtown. All of the places you mentioned still have vacant ground floor retail space. Our last downtown department store closed just shy of its 100th anniversary last year. And I don't count Ballpark Village as a major plus just yet, at least not until we see if it's attracting patrons on the days when the Cardinals aren't welcoming 40k people dressed in red downtown. Any possibility of Culinaria struggling is news to me. I don't get as many opportunities to spend time in downtown as I'd like, but when I'm in downtown, I'm likely to wind up in Culinaria. And it always seems to be busy to me, although the atrocious winter weather and the opening of Fields Foods may have put a dent in their numbers over the last couple of months.

So I'm left to wonder the same thing I asked earlier in this thread and in the discussion about the former Macy's Downtown: What exactly is the city doing to retain and attract retailers? Does the mayor's office even give a sh!t anymore? What's the downtown partnership doing? When Houston's DT Macy's closed and Houston Pavilions faltered, the mayor appointed a task force and came up with a seemingly solid action plan just months later. I know the downtown partnership recently had a change in leadership, but what difference does that make when it seems (at least to me) like there's no leadership downtown?

There are still many reasons to be optimistic. The Saint Louis University Law School will continue to have a positive impact. The National Blues Museum will be a great addition to Mercantile Exchange. The Arcade and Chemical buildings will add even more life and potential to Olive Street, and perhaps that will bring retail back to the original east-west retail corridor. The renovation of the Gateway Arch grounds, while not as imaginative as I'd like, should make travel between the grounds and downtown much more inviting, and Tucker Boulevard provides a nice entryway and potential for clean-slate development to bridge downtown with the Near North Side. My glass is still half-full, but I still want to know what's next for downtown.

One thing is that a lot of people consider "Downtown" to be everything from the river to Clayton. They see skyscrapers and assume it's all Downtown. To them, IKEA is going Downtown. So is the Whole Foods. So is CORTEX. And all the other Central Corridor projects. In a way, a win for any Central Corridor neighborhood is a win for Downtown. Maybe not on paper, but in the eyes of thousands of people who don't distinguish between those neighborhoods. To them, something like Midtown Station is "making Downtown nicer."

The boundaries for what Downtown is supposed to be were drawn eons ago. A region's Downtown is supposed to be its central business district and retail, dining and entertainment epicenter. It can be said that in St. Louis this would, in fact, stretch from the river to Clayton:



To many people, all the development happening in/around the neighborhoods seen here is improving their image of Downtown. We're a minority here, however. We get technical about this stuff. We believe B.B. King's in Grand Center isn't really much of a gain for Downtown, it's a gain for Midtown. But really, anything good that happens anywhere in the Central Corridor is a gain for the entire Central Corridor. Sure, it sucks that Clayton beat out Downtown to getting that 30 story Montgomery Bank Tower, coming soon. Something of that size should be going to BPV more than anywhere else. But it's not. Downtown still has some massive, vacant historic buildings it needs to find occupants for before it sees a lot of new high-rise construction like that. Clayton does not have the same problem.

What I'm saying is that the whole corridor is lighting up right now. CWE may be doing better than any other neighborhood in the corridor at the moment, but Downtown will have its day. There are lots of wonderful projects happening down there right now and we just have to be patient for them to finish. Before the end of the decade, Downtown should have no vacant buildings any more. The 2020's will be an era of high-rise construction on a scale we haven't seen since the '70s and '80s. You will easily be able to walk directly from Clayton to the Arch and see limited to no blight on almost any street you choose to walk down.

I see this decade as a time of planting the seeds for the future. The St. Louis that will grow from them will be mighty, but we'll have to give it time to grow up. I know we've been saying that for years now, but hey, the Central Corridor is hot right now, and it's taking off! In 2020, St. Louis will be FLYING! And I tell you what, when we get to that point, I'll be happier than a pig in sh-it!

It's super boring to say but what we need is jobs. It's really hard and expensive to do business nowadays. The silver lining is that it's harder and more expensive to do business in other places. We need jobs. People need jobs.