MattnSTL wrote:It's a shame Cohen gets such a nice profit for holding the centre hostage for so long.
I doubt that he made as much profit as it seems at first blush. I'm sure the Centre has been losing money ever since he bought it. And no doubt the city has been sticking him with the biggest tax bill they could manage. Let's just wish him good riddance and be done with him!
Developer John Steffen has plans to transform a major piece of downtown St. Louis, converting the four-story St. Louis Centre into a luxury condo development and the One City Centre office building into a combined $110 million mixed-use development called 600 Washington.
Steffen, president of St. Louis-based Pyramid Construction, also has several other buildings under contract in the vicinity of the mostly empty shopping mall, including the former Dillard's building at 601 Washington, owned by Gundaker Commercial Group. Steffen already owns 305 N. Broadway, which he plans to develop into condos. Steffen also has the Jefferson Arms building under contract from owner Barry Cohen.
trent wrote:This is truly wonderful news. I saw the rendering and just smiled. Good-bye St. Louis Centre...you will not be missed.
I do have one positive memory of St. Louis Centre. It must have been in the early or mid 90's my best friend's dad took us down there and there was some kind of festival or something going on because there were people all over. They had a basketball court set up just inside on the bottom level and we got to play inside the centre, with a crowd watching our game.
-Hopefully in the future that kind of thing will be happening downtown all of the time, not just during events. This development will surely add to the momentum!
I have lots of good memories from St. Louis Center, but they all came from the time it opened until about 1990.
My last experience with it, was several years ago, I was attending a training seminar at the US Bank building, and we had lunch at the food court. It was truly disgusting how much the Center had changed. I vowed that time that I would never again use the Center (unless it was redeveloped).
I am proud to say that I've never had the misfortune of walking into St. Louis Centre. I have, however, marveled at how ugly the building looks from the outside.
As a kid, I remember looking forward to going shopping downtown at St. Louis Centre. It was always bustling, the place to be especially during the holidays.
Then, when I moved back to STL five years ago, I told my aunt I was going to go downtown to the mall.
"No you're not," she said, then explained.
It may no longer be the mall anymore, but at least it won't be a shameful attempt at one.
This will really tie together Washington Ave, The Landing, and the upcoming Bottle District together for real.
With the Ballpark Village coming together in the next two years as well..
Wow.
What an amazing time to be in St. Louis to watch it all happen.
So am I the only one shopping at the place until like the point when Dillards closed? My mom use to take us there to buy suits for weddings, shoes for school, or just to to hang out, if she needed to buy Mexican pesos at the Bank next door.
Well, folks, I'm showing my age here, but I remember long before the place was built. If you don't know what downtown shopping was like before St. Louis Center, I'm here to tell you the Center was not an improvement. People used to come from all over the midwest to shop in St. Louis before downtown began to decline. Even though Chicago was more than three times the size of St. Louis, they had only two more large department stores than downtown St. Louis had. I always thought that was rather impressive. Ah, for the days of Famous & Barr, Stix Baer & Fuller, Skruggs Vandervoort & Barney, Boyd Richardson, plus all the specialty stores, restaurants, cafeterias, etc....St. Louis Center was built to save downtown shopping, but instead distroyed it. (I hated how Dillard's closed all the floors to only three in the old downtown Stix.)
That said, the new development won't bring all that back, but it sure is a 1000% improvement to what's there now, and with projects like this, who knows? With all the people living downtown, St. Louis just may return to being a shopping mecca again.
Haha Marmar, you always get the old memories started. First of all, I hated Stix, Baer & Fuller becoming Dillards. And when they shrunk it to 3 Floors, that was the end for me. Stix was a real department store. They turned it into a suburban store - and not even that good.
Old St. Louis Centre was originally a nice mall, but that isn't what we needed. Before St. Louis Centre, you walked out of Famous-Barr to shops on the streets. From what I can tell, this new plan will bring back that experience. This plan appears simple, but exactly what is needed. We don't need some super, duper structure and grandiose scheme. We just needs some streetlevel retail and the removal of an eyesore. The condo's will bring in a few more people. In my opinion, this project can be summed up in two words - wise & simple. A beautiful combination.
Boyd's was located in a building at Olive and 6th, where a parking lot now sits. I had always heard that May was land banking that block to someday build a headquarters building on. Guess that won't be happening anytime soon.
Marmar wrote:Well, folks, I'm showing my age here, but I remember long before the place was built. If you don't know what downtown shopping was like before St. Louis Center, I'm here to tell you the Center was not an improvement. People used to come from all over the midwest to shop in St. Louis before downtown began to decline. Even though Chicago was more than three times the size of St. Louis, they had only two more large department stores than downtown St. Louis had. I always thought that was rather impressive. Ah, for the days of Famous & Barr, Stix Baer & Fuller, Skruggs Vandervoort & Barney, Boyd Richardson, plus all the specialty stores, restaurants, cafeterias, etc....St. Louis Center was built to save downtown shopping, but instead distroyed it. (I hated how Dillard's closed all the floors to only three in the old downtown Stix.)
That said, the new development won't bring all that back, but it sure is a 1000% improvement to what's there now, and with projects like this, who knows? With all the people living downtown, St. Louis just may return to being a shopping mecca again.
Hopefully I'll be able to take my kids downtown to shop and tell them, "I remember when none of these stores were here, and the streets were empty." and there'll be so much going on they won't be able to believe me.
Yeah, Expat, I hated that too, closing five floors off was bad enough, but losing the name "Stix Baer & Fuller" was saddest. I remember when I'd call the store, the operator would say "Stix...Bay-ah...and Full-ah", oh so New Yorkish...I loved it! And I remember when the elevators in all the big stores had real live operators!! I think Famous & Barr was the first to install the new operatorless elevators.
Oops! Getting off subject...sorry, miss those days!
I'm late in responding to this since I was out of town for the long weekend. I left town on a high note after a day of errand-running, since my last stop was Borders, and I found the good news in the Biz Journal there.
I got some strange looks from others as I pumped my fist and said "Yes!" after picking up the paper- behavior usually reserved for a Cardinals home run. At the risk of repeating what's already been said here, I felt as if my #1 prayer for downtown had been answered. Also, I agree with DeBaliviere, as I think anything is truly possible for downtown now that this eyesore is headed for an extreme makeover.
I vaguely remember the days before Saint Louis Centre was built. My family shopped at Famous-Barr most of the time, but I also spent a lot of time in Stix, Baer & Fuller and Boyd's. Even though my mom and grandmother liked the shops in between Famous and Stix, and killed a lot of time in the old Woolworths, they initially thought Saint Louis Centre was a good thing for downtown. I thought so too, as I was 11 years old then, unaware that it would bring downtown more harm than good.
I had pleasant memories of the place until 1990 or 1991. Once the mid- and high-end specialty stores began leaving for the Galleria, the mall's fate was painfully obvious. Around the same time, Famous-Barr phased out Santaland, stripped down the store's merchandise mix, and designated the Galleria location as its flagship. They may have held on through the lean years, and I'm grateful for it, but they definitely watered down the quality of shopping in their downtown store. Stix was never the same after it shrunk significantly and became Dillard's, and my family stopped shopping in that store after those changes were made.
I quit shopping in the Centre about five years ago, because it was simply too depressing to walk through those doors. I've shopped at Famous Barr throughout the Centre's existence, and I make as many of my purchases at that store as possible. I'll miss the name, the headquarters, and the job losses still sting, but I'm looking forward to the store carrying on as a Macy's location.
The plans for 600 Washington represent the best possible scenario IMHO- since the Centre will be completely reworked and transformed into a desirable mixed-use complex. I thought it would have to be demolished for such a transformation to take place. Based on the one rendering, it looks aesthetically pleasing, much more so than the Centre ever did. (I thought its design was cool when I was a kid, but I quickly realized how garish it always was!)
And while we're dreaming about national retailers coming back to downtown to join Macy's, why not Target? I'd love to see a major retail store occupy the first one or two levels of the old Stix/Dillard's space. I doubt that we have the critical mass and demographics for a Target at this point, but who knows? Detroit's had a Borders for some time now, so I think we'll see at least one of these big names in downtown soon.
I don't believe in the magic bullet theory, in which one development can transform downtown. However, this development will make a significant difference in the way that Saint Louisans, visitors, and investors view our downtown simply by ridding our city of one of its worst eyesores.
What's great is that the downtown Famous/Macy's has weathered the storm and its future looks bright. I work just a few blocks from the downtown store, and it's already a popular shopping option for many my co-workers, so just imagine the boost in sales that the store will realize once residents start moving into the 600 Washington, The Marquette, the Dillards Building, Old Post Office Square, etc.
Someone who works at Pyramid (assuming by the email address.) Posted a comment over at Urban Review saying that most of the bridges will be demolished.
DeBaliviere- I agree, the downtown Macy's future looks bright! It looks like Federated won't fix what isn't broken, i.e., I don't expect any major changes beyond the merchandise mix anytime soon.
Citylover wrote:Someone who works at Pyramid (assuming by the email address.) Posted a comment over at Urban Review saying that most of the bridges will be demolished.
^ I just finished reading those comments. I'm glad to hear the bridges will be removed. I do wonder, though, about the restoration of the facades on the Railway Exchange and former Stix, Baer & Fuller buildings.
The Post-Dispatch article in Saturday's edition about 600 Washington featured a quote from a Federated (parent company of Famous-Barr, s/t/b Macy's) spokesperson. She said Federated was unaware of Pyramid's plans for redoing Saint Louis Centre, but that the company welcomed the investment in downtown.
Restoring the facade of the Railway Exchange Building would be doable, but no doubt it'll be costly. Will Pyramid foot the bill for that, or will their next step be to talk with Federated brass about how the project will relate with Macy's just across the street? I'm sure there's a logical solution, and Pyramid probably already has the answer. Before we knew this, the bridge over Locust was the big question. Now that we know it'll be demolished, there's yet another question to answer...
The all-out demolition of the bridges will reall improve the pedestrian experience. Unfortunately, the parking garage across from SLC at 6th and Locust has a similar overhang over the sidewalk, but oh well, I'm just happy about 600 Washington!
ThreeOneFour wrote:I'm sure there's a logical solution, and Pyramid probably already has the answer.
I would suspect they already do. Confidentiality agreements on this project were signed way back in October, so this has been going on for a long time. I'm sure they have figured out all the angles by now.
The Central Scrutinizer wrote:I would suspect they already do. Confidentiality agreements on this project were signed way back in October, so this has been going on for a long time. I'm sure they have figured out all the angles by now.
That makes sense- I figure this was in the works long before the masses received the good news last Friday! I'm sure we'll find out soon how Pyramid plans to address the holes left in the US Bank, Railway Exchange (Famous/Macy's), and the Stix/Dillard's buildings.
Those holes are just a few of the many challenges this project presents, and based on what I've seen, I think Pyramid has done a great job of addressing these challenges and other Centre shortcomings in their plans for 600 Washington.
I think Macy's needs to totally re-do all of the windows around the base of the Railway building. The windows used to be slightly larger, and many of them are covered. They should totally open this store up to the street again. It could be something that NO OTHER store in the region could be. Huge open windows where you could actually see the entire floor by looking in. Someone needs to get on this. The "suburban style" downtown isn't going to cut it. I bet those ceilings are even higher than they are now too.
