KSDK ran a good story today on the greatest building boom in the city since the 1960s:
http://www.ksdk.com/story/news/2014/06/ ... /11292573/

It followed a brief mention of the IKEA groundbreaking happening tomorrow and mentioned the Citywalk, Zoo expansion, Mercedes, BJC and Shriner's projects as examples of projects under construction that are transforming the City as well as the recently completed Cortona.

Les Toenges of the construction trades said we appear to be just in the beginning of the greatest wave of construction since the 1960s... said it's kind of like being in the second inning of the game and in five years the city will look much different than it did two years ago. Pretty much Gateway City bait!

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I'm trying to come up with what would satisfy me if we indeed have a building boom for the next five or so years....

Downtown, I'd definitely want to have nearly all of the historic buildings downtown taken care of (Mercantile, Jefferson Arms, etc.) as well as a handful of new residential towers and ample mid-rise infill throughout downtown, including Laclede's Landing. On the office front, modest construction concentrated in BPV and a new 22nd St. mixed-use area starting to take form would do. I'd also like to see the beginnings of quality infill helping the transition between Downtown South/Soulard-Lafayette Square.

Elsewhere in the central corridor, I'd like to see continued infill in Midtown and a well-designed Midtown Station. Grand Center should be an active spot, with at least one or two mid-rises and a prominent tower at the Grand/Lindell dog park. For CWE, ample mid-rises and prominent towers at key locations like Kingshighway and Lindell; and of course Cortex getting nearly built out.

For South City, I'd take an emphasis on quality adaptive re-uses of commercial and office buildings with the Lemp Brewery as the feather in the cap but also would like to see some modest multi-family new construction. For North City, seeing the warehouse district between Laclede's Landing and the Stan Span become a hot spot, more projects like North Sarah, and real momentum in Northside Regeneration would be great.

Overall, I think the above is not too ambitious... essentially it would be like catching up to where some of our peer cities already are at or underway with. Having a modest number of tallish towers, steady mid-rise and near-completion of our major historic buildings along with the beginning of the development of essentially new districts like 22nd Street, Laclede's Landing North and Chouteau/Railyard Village sounds good to me for a to-do list rounding out this decade.