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PostMay 06, 2010#551

shadrach wrote:Glad to make you all laugh but exactly WHO are the tenants going to be?

The leasing company, Partnership for Downtown, and the City (i.e. their restrictive sign ordinance) really need to work in concert, in some way, to make sure this key location truly delivers on its potential.

(maybe 'Partnership' should take the lead on this.)
The City needs to make sure every development delivers on its potential. The City should do everything in its power to ensure a development/building doesn't have the chips stacked against it from inception. If a business or development fails, our fragile city will fail, which is why you'd hope that there would be an office in the City that studies the plans of these types of potential developments, mandates certain initial occupany thresholds, provides demographic information on efficient tenant mixes, works with the developer to lure a large chain to the development, and ensures the building is renovated to certain (historic) standards (if need be).

Do we have an office that acts in this capacity? Not by name, but that actually does something like this?

Also, your statement begins to allude to why a large chain works so well in these types of developments: Anchor Stores. Hate them all you'd like, but plenty of West County strip malls do very well with a large chain store as an anchor with small, locally owned shops surrounding it. There is no reason why that same successful equation couldn't be implemented in a design such as this.
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PostMay 06, 2010#552

to clarify my intent regarding the city's restrictive sign ordinance.

It killed Left Bank Books' street presence and stifles creativity.

Also, it mandates size but not construction quality (crack-n-peel vinyl letters on painted plywood are OK as long as it's within the size requirement.) How backwards!
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PostMay 06, 2010#553

shadrach wrote:(maybe 'Partnership' should take the lead on this.)
They're definitely involved.
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PostMay 06, 2010#554

shadrach wrote:to clarify my intent regarding the city's restrictive sign ordinance.

It killed Left Bank Books' street presence and stifles creativity.

Also, it mandates size but not construction quality (crack-n-peel vinyl letters on painted plywood are OK as long as it's within the size requirement.) How backwards!
RIGHT!

I had a dream that the sign below was moved to the corner of the Left Bank Books building and was repainted to read "Left Bank" vertically and "Books" across the top and bottom (or "Books" vertically, "Left" at the top and "Bank" at the bottom - a variation on the dream) - what a dream!

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PostMay 06, 2010#555

ttricamo wrote:Also, your statement begins to allude to why a large chain works so well in these types of developments: Anchor Stores. Hate them all you'd like, but plenty of West County strip malls do very well with a large chain store as an anchor with small, locally owned shops surrounding it. There is no reason why that same successful equation couldn't be implemented in a design such as this.
That's what I find frustrating. We already have the ideal anchor for downtown: Macy's.

The trouble is, Macy's is an island unto itself, which is nothing new since St. Louis Centre hasn't been viable for a decade. Around the time at which Macy's Inc. (then Federated Department Stores) purchased May Company and converted the former Famous-Barr flagship into Macy's, it looked like foot traffic was beginning to pick up at the store. However, now that Macy's has essentially eliminated just about any trace of May Company corporate jobs from the upper floors of the Railway Exchange, it seems like foot traffic in the store has dropped once again.

I'm hopeful that the forthcoming purchase of the Railway Exchange Building and the renovation/shrinkage of Macy's will make the store more viable. The trouble is, the last I heard, Macy's was only interested in signing a five-year lease for the store once it is turned over to new owners (not sure what the status is on that, nothing happened by the original closing date). So the city cannot afford to wait much longer to make the area around Macy's more attractive to developers. Getting residents into the former Stix Baer & Fuller/Dillard's Building (I assume it's still being called The Laurel?) and workers into One City Centre and the Railway Exchange Building again will help significantly. But Macy's needs more businesses around it, i.e., downtown's anchor needs some specialty shops nearby to draw more people, and Macy's needs to improve the merchandise mix when it renovates and downsizes the store. I don't want to see downtown lose a crucial building block, or a selling point since we're one of the few cities in the U.S. that still has a downtown department store.
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PostMay 06, 2010#556

shadrach wrote:to clarify my intent regarding the city's restrictive sign ordinance.

It killed Left Bank Books' street presence and stifles creativity.

Also, it mandates size but not construction quality (crack-n-peel vinyl letters on painted plywood are OK as long as it's within the size requirement.) How backwards!
Is there anyone we can contact to try and have the sign ordinance changed?
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PostMay 07, 2010#557


A key to the success of the office tower is providing ample parking. Hastie’s group has signed several new office tenants in the tower. Law firm Lewis, Rice & Fingersh moved 250 employees to the tower from elsewhere downtown earlier this year, and accounting firm LarsonAllen is moving more than 100 employees from Town & Country this spring.

Those tenants, and office tenants in the U.S. Bank Plaza office building at 504 N. Seventh St., next to St. Louis Centre, have pre-leased all of the available 750 parking spaces that will be built inside the existing mall structure.

Minneapolis-based U.S. Bank, which owns the U.S. Bank Plaza office tower next to St. Louis Centre, has earmarked $1 million toward a lease for 400 spaces in the new parking garage, including 300 spaces for Thompson Coburn. U.S. Bank initially planned to build a parking garage on a plaza in front of the U.S. Bank Plaza, but opted last year to work with Hastie’s group to use the mall for parking instead.
“There’s a lot of momentum in the (One City Centre) tower, and this helps,” Hastie said of the financing for St. Louis Centre. “We live in the Show-Me State, and people want to see work begin on St. Louis Centre.”
Hastie and Overland-based Clayco are co-developers of the mall overhaul. Clayco is general contractor, Environmental Operations is performing the demolition, and Clayco subsidiary Forum Studio is the architect. The structural engineer is Alper Audi, and the civil engineer is Stock & Associates.
Last month, construction crews began converting the entire third and fourth floors of the former mall and two-thirds of the second floor to parking. A pedestrian bridge over Seventh Street linking St. Louis Centre to U.S. Bank Plaza will remain, as will a single bridge over Sixth Street to the mall’s existing 1,510-car garage. But skybridges over Washington Avenue and Locust Street will be torn down. “We are working on that right now,” Hastie said about the long-stalled demo date for the massive skybridge linking St. Louis Centre to the Laurel building at 601 Washington Ave.
Connecticut-based Spinnaker Real Estate, is leading the effort to lease the retail space, and there are tentative plans for a movie theater. The retail space will be converted to grey-box condition by the end of November, meaning retailers could open in 2011.


Addressing the hesitancy of retailers to open new stores during the recession, Spinnaker Chairman and CEO Clayton Fowler said the timing is better than it was four years ago, when Spinnaker partnered with Pyramid to develop retail in St. Louis Centre. “We’re on the right side of the real estate cycle,” Fowler said. “We’re very optimistic that the continued march forward of this part of downtown can go forward.”
http://stlouis.bizjournals.com/stlouis/ ... tml?page=2
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PostMay 07, 2010#558

How can they keep saying that about parking? There has been ample parking for years. Maybe St Louisans don't like parking in the air so it's about the surface and on street parking. Perhaps we should model downtown after South Lindbergh.
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PostMay 07, 2010#559

There has been ample parking for years.
But not every office building has parking in it or across the street :lol:

It's pretty frustrating, this parking garage mentality. I work downtown and walk a quarter mile to my garage daily, it's not that big a deal.

The public's aversion to walking can be baffling sometimes.
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PostMay 07, 2010#560

lukethedrifter wrote:How can they keep saying that about parking? There has been ample parking for years. Maybe St Louisans don't like parking in the air so it's about the surface and on street parking. Perhaps we should model downtown after South Lindbergh.
Good question, but if parking that has yet to be built is fully leased then there's demand. Dealing with the surface lots is the real issue in my opinion.
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PostMay 07, 2010#561

Alex Ihnen wrote:
lukethedrifter wrote:How can they keep saying that about parking? There has been ample parking for years. Maybe St Louisans don't like parking in the air so it's about the surface and on street parking. Perhaps we should model downtown after South Lindbergh.
Good question, but if parking that has yet to be built is fully leased then there's demand. Dealing with the surface lots is the real issue in my opinion.
In a manner of speaking. Or you could say we're just moving parking over a block or two leaving another unfilled parking garage.
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PostMay 07, 2010#562

^ Right. As said in the P-D story, it's all about parking distribution. It's normal to have a sorting of parking in a downtown. Let's hope that if there are underutilized garages that they can be taken down and something new built!
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PostMay 07, 2010#563

On the plus side, there will be sufficient parking for the Railway Exchange once it's rehabbed and tenants move in, as well as the Mercantile Library Complex and future infill development on the surface lots at the northwest and southwest corners of 7th and Locust.
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PostMay 07, 2010#564

Alex Ihnen wrote:^ Right. As said in the P-D story, it's all about parking distribution. It's normal to have a sorting of parking in a downtown. Let's hope that if there are underutilized garages that they can be taken down and something new built!
But what about all those first floor parking garage restaurants?? Who will think of them??
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PostMay 07, 2010#565

lukethedrifter wrote:
Alex Ihnen wrote:^ Right. As said in the P-D story, it's all about parking distribution. It's normal to have a sorting of parking in a downtown. Let's hope that if there are underutilized garages that they can be taken down and something new built!
But what about all those first floor parking garage restaurants?? Who will think of them??
:lol:

But seriously, can someone document them for an urbanSTL story? I think it would be interesting.
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PostMay 07, 2010#566

My primary regret about the idea of putting parking in the old St. Louis Centre is the missed opportunity to build a garage on the US Bank Plaza site instead. US Bank Plaza might be the most useless real estate in downtown, with the exception of the softball field at Ballpark Village, of course. :wink:

When I drove by this morning, crews on a crane were taking down the banners advertising The Laurel at the corner of Seventh and Locust streets across from Macy's, so hopefully we'll see some exterior work underway very soon. I'm also glad they're planning on removing the skybridge to Macy's- that alone will make that moribund-looking block a bit more attractive. As long as developers can fill the empty spaces with something besides Sooper Cheep Smokes and refrain from putting up banners for event parking, this should turn out better than other garages downtown, and it will still be a far cry better than the building looks in its present condition.

Still, I threw up in my mouth a bit when I read the line about the "key to success for the project is ample parking". If that was really the key to success, downtown St. Louis just might be the most vibrant downtown in the world! :roll: :P
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PostMay 07, 2010#567

^ Right, but just because parking downtown is ample, doesn't mean it's in the right place. One of the problems with downtown is that development has been stagnant so the reshuffling that takes place in Boston or Chicago hasn't happened. Businesses move, parking moves. Again, let's hope we can identify obsolete/uneeded parking and do something with it.
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PostMay 07, 2010#568

Construction has started:

MORE
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PostMay 07, 2010#569

Alex Ihnen wrote:Right, but just because parking downtown is ample, doesn't mean it's in the right place. One of the problems with downtown is that development has been stagnant so the reshuffling that takes place in Boston or Chicago hasn't happened. Businesses move, parking moves. Again, let's hope we can identify obsolete/uneeded parking and do something with it.
Excellent point. However, I still find this development somewhat (I say 'somewhat' because I'm still pleased to see something going on there after all these years) irksome because that specific part of downtown has no dearth of parking garages. What I'd really to see is a moratorium on additional parking structures and lots to allow for a comprehensive study of downtown parking supply and demand, but I know that is wishful thinking.

The garage across the street really needs to lose the ground level parking as well. The ground floor of the garage on the NE corner of Sixth and Locust streets was converted into parking several years ago after the space, which was formerly home to Woolworth's, sat vacant for many years. (Before the construction of St. Louis Centre, Woolworth's occupied the NW corner of that intersection.)
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PostMay 07, 2010#570

threeonefour wrote:What I'd really to see is a moratorium on additional parking structures and lots to allow for a comprehensive study of downtown parking supply and demand, but I know that is wishful thinking.
Isn't this basically what Barb Geisman said in the P-D article?
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PostMay 07, 2010#571

Personally, I want to see the parking lots planned all reach completion, to show demand in people visiting Downtown leading to more development. And, I want to fill the presupposed need by non-Downtown supporters for parking, such as the ambivalent commuter or suburbanite here mostly for sports; fill their parking glut perceptions. After this, others will be compelled into satisfaction over their options for parking, and God willing some of these people will eventually accept walking distances of a half-mile or more and maybe, maybe, some of the heavier ones can get healthier.

Personally, I’d love to see sections of Downtown dedicated to parking, such as the “Choteau Lake” lots or the large lots NW of the convention center. Focus the parking in these sections. Get people parking here primarily, and get them walking everywhere else. Eh, one can dream.

My one real dream: Hopefully these new parking lots collectively can transition towards eventual development of the older parking lots into new uses.

Biggest dream: Taking the two Chestnut parking lots next to Kiener Plaza, tearing them down, and putting significant skyscrapers in their place. I think these two blocks are the most prime pieces of real estate, save the SE corner of 10th and Market; with the needs of the preexisting parking lots being met elsewhere for overflow commuters, I’d love to see them eventually developed into new existences of more important meaning. Perhaps not for years, but I’d want to see those parking lots not be missed by the commuter market, then see them torn down and rebuilt with beautiful glass & steel reaching 500’ above them. For a company considering relocating to StL and building a new marquee corporate HQ, there are hardly any places in the US with a better geography, with views right at the Arch and adjacent park grounds.
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PostMay 07, 2010#572

^ No can do on 10th & Market. We need to preserve the green space there for a north-south greenway axis between the Gateway Mall and Chouteau Lake.
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PostMay 07, 2010#573

Alex Ihnen wrote:Isn't this basically what Barb Geisman said in the P-D article?
Well, actually, Barb Geisman said she didn't think there would be any more freestanding garages downtown, but I didn't see any specific recommendation for a moratorium.

While that is encouraging news from her, I still think there should be a comprehensive study of downtown's parking needs, as garages that are not utilized as much could be ideal sites for new construction at some point.
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PostMay 07, 2010#574

Mill204 wrote:^ No can do on 10th & Market. We need to preserve the green space there for a north-south greenway axis between the Gateway Mall and Chouteau Lake.
:lol:

Good one.
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PostMay 08, 2010#575

Moorlander wrote:
I am glad I finally get to see a different view of it, and I actually quite like the looks of it.
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