urbanSTL

Moorlander wrote:to quote southslider

The problem is that Union Station is set up for trains to pull into the station, not merely stop along the way. That setup worked when St. Louis was a major rail destination itself, but not now, when we're simply on Amtrak routes from Chicago to KC and Texas, it's not as practical.

ttricamo wrote:

Moorlander wrote:to quote southslider

The problem is that Union Station is set up for trains to pull into the station, not merely stop along the way. That setup worked when St. Louis was a major rail destination itself, but not now, when we're simply on Amtrak routes from Chicago to KC and Texas, it's not as practical.

I've been in several major, and minor, train stations that require trains to pull in then back out in order to continue along the tracks. Isn't that part of why train passenger cars have seats facing fore and aft? Define practical. Are you, or south slider, saying utilizing US as a train station is impractical from the perspective of having trains reverse out of the station? While I might consider that a downside (but would first need to better understand the financial impact from a planning and operational standpoint), I think the growth potential - as US once again becoming a major hub and the affect it would have on the shops in US as well as that part of Mid-town - far out weighs the downside.



Arguably, having the train physically stop in US for, say, 15 minutes would be a perfect opportunity to market the city.

lamiaposta wrote:

ttricamo wrote:

Moorlander wrote:to quote southslider

I've been in several major, and minor, train stations that require trains to pull in then back out in order to continue along the tracks. Isn't that part of why train passenger cars have seats facing fore and aft? Define practical. Are you, or south slider, saying utilizing US as a train station is impractical from the perspective of having trains reverse out of the station? While I might consider that a downside (but would first need to better understand the financial impact from a planning and operational standpoint), I think the growth potential - as US once again becoming a major hub and the affect it would have on the shops in US as well as that part of Mid-town - far out weighs the downside.



Arguably, having the train physically stop in US for, say, 15 minutes would be a perfect opportunity to market the city.

Honestly, we can debate this to the cows come home, but it is too late. The new train station is built and Union Station as we know it or want it to be is doomed. End of story.

ttricamo wrote:Sad but true. I think I'm going to look for a nice place to live in Kirkwood or Webster Groves.

innov8ion wrote:

ttricamo wrote:Sad but true. I think I'm going to look for a nice place to live in Kirkwood or Webster Groves.

You live on the Hill and you're considering moving because Union Station likely won't be reutilized as a train station?

matguy70 wrote:Doomed? Well maybe as a train station - but that was doomed the day Union Station reopened.



Now as for Houlihan's in U.S. --- I haven't heard it is closing. Where did this come from? In fact, I talked to the manager today and there is no talk inside of closing the restaurant at all. In fact he said they are slated to have the refurbished / new style decor sometime in this winter.



Need some facts.



As for Starbucks closing in U.S. - that's because Starbucks is closing many stores and U.S. just happens to be on the list.

Think about it what it feels like when you hop off a train in Penn or the 30th Street Station. For that matter, think about the impression people get when they hop off a train in Kirkwood, a station surrounded by numerous attractions and businesses.

Wabash wrote:

Think about it what it feels like when you hop off a train in Penn or the 30th Street Station. For that matter, think about the impression people get when they hop off a train in Kirkwood, a station surrounded by numerous attractions and businesses.

I'm assuming you're talking about New York Penn station which is actually a complete hole in the ground for lack of a more vulgar term. Although it doesn't seem properly managed at this time, St. Louis is fortunate to still have Union Station. Penn Station was bulldozed to build Madison Square Garden and is now a claustrophobic network of dingy hallways and cheesy chain stores. Although they do have a Houlihan's if that is what you're really after.

However, the misuse of Union Station is a clear example of civic leadership's one-off decisions when it comes to our city.

P-D, 1983 wrote:Negotiations have begun between Amtrak and the firm handling the redevelopment of Union Station to make the building once again the city's terminal for rail passenger service.



Amtrak moved out of the deteriorating Union Station in October 1978 and opened its own terminal four blocks away, at 550 South 16th Street. But the new station is remote and difficult to find, Amtrak officials said. 'We'd like to be out closer to Market Street again, 'said W. Douglas Varn, Amtrak's senior director for station policy and planning.



Union Station is more convenient for passengers coming from Highway 40, Varn noted. Amtrak's new station was meant to be temporary, and Amtrak always has intended to return to a renovated Union Station, he said.



But Amtrak has rejected a suggestion by the Rouse Co., of Columbia, Md., that it build a new terminal at the back of the Union Station property. Amtrak sent the redeveloper a counterproposal to locate the terminal within the 60-acre station property, closer to Market Street.



A spokesman for the Rouse Co. said that the firm had just received the proposal Friday. He declined to comment on its contents before the firm had studied it. Amtrak officials also declined to elaborate.



The Rouse Co. is supervising the proposed conversion of the Union Station property into a hotel and entertainment center with shops, restaurants and recreational activities. The station faces Market Street, between 18th and 20th streets. The estimated cost of the project is $125 million. Oppenheimer Properties Inc. of New York owns the station property.



Harry Pollay, the Rouse Co. officer in charge of the Union Station project, said Friday that using any part of the station building for an Amtrak terminal was definitely out.



William Wullenjohn of the Citizens Committee for an Improved Rail Passenger Station said that one other location -- a parking lot owned by Union Station across 20th Street -- could be used for the new terminal. But that site has no platforms, and building them would be expensive, he said.



'It's second-best, but it's certainly better than what Rouse offered back at the rear of the property. It's critical for Amtrak to be back up near Market, 'Wullenjohn said. The group has lobbied for the return of train service to Union Station.

P-D, 1986 wrote:The owners of Union Station and Amtrak officials have reached a tentative agreement to build a new Amtrak station at the foot of 16th Street, sources say.



The site is one block southeast of Union Station's big train shed.



The station would be a one-story structure of brick, stone and glass that would be designed to resemble a turn-of-the century railroad station.



It would replace and be just west of a bare-bones structure at 550 South 16th Street that was erected as a temporary station after Amtrak moved from Union Station in 1978. The site of the station proposed - as well as the existing one - is on property just south of the Highway 40 overpass.



Under the agreement, the owners of Union Station would build the station and lease it to Amtrak, said Steven Miller, senior vice president of Oppenheimer Properties Inc. of New York. Oppenheimer owns the Union Station complex.



Miller said the only major stumbling block for the new station was the question of whether Congress will authorize a federal subsidy to keep Amtrak in business.



''I think everybody is just waiting now to see what happens with their budget,'' he said.



Miller confirmed progress also on two other developments related to Union Station:



A potential joint venture involving Oppenheimer, developer Garrett A. Balke and AMC Entertainment Inc. to build an 11-screen movie theater complex adjacent to the turn-of-the-century power plant on the property. Balke is renovating the power plant as an office and entertainment complex. The theater complex would be linked with it.



Development of a large parking lot primarily for Union Station employees on the site of a part of the old REA building, which is being demolished. The lot would be across 18th Street, southeast of the station's train shed.



Amtrak and Union Station officials have been trying for more than three years to find a mutually agreeable spot for a new station. Some railroad buffs pushed for a site closer to or in the main Union Station complex.



But the station's developers said that was no longer possible because Amtrak trains could not get close enough to the train shed to load and unload. The area south of the shed is a large parking lot, and trains wouldblock traffic. That land also is set aside for later expansion of the project, they said.



Miller said the site at the foot of 16th would be easier to find than the existing station ''and give Amtrak the visibility it wants.''



Eugene Mackey III, president of an architectural firm that did preliminary sketches for the station, said it would be ''small, nifty and similar to many turn-of-the-century train stations.''



Debbie Marciniak, an Amtrak spokeswoman in Chicago, said Monday that ''a tentativeagreement has been reached for a site and a design.''



She said she was unable to discuss any other details. But she noted that Congress had authorized $606.1 million for Amtrak for the fiscal year starting in October, even though the money had yet to be appropriated.

stlwriterman wrote:

Wabash wrote:

Think about it what it feels like when you hop off a train in Penn or the 30th Street Station. For that matter, think about the impression people get when they hop off a train in Kirkwood, a station surrounded by numerous attractions and businesses.

I'm assuming you're talking about New York Penn station which is actually a complete hole in the ground for lack of a more vulgar term. Although it doesn't seem properly managed at this time, St. Louis is fortunate to still have Union Station. Penn Station was bulldozed to build Madison Square Garden and is now a claustrophobic network of dingy hallways and cheesy chain stores. Although they do have a Houlihan's if that is what you're really after.

Penn Station may be a hole, but it is a functioning train station. A quite busy one, actually. And when you leave it, you're in midtown Manhattan.

Union Station is a non-functioning train station that's now a half-empty tourist mall, and when you leave it, you're on the far edge of downtown St. Louis.

I'd take Penn, thank you.

matguy70 wrote:The city had nothing really to do with Union Station being utilized as a train station.

matguy70 wrote:As for Amtrak not utilizing Union Station... well that is the U.S. Government - not anything else. Amtrak - which ultimately is the government - did not want to pay a private entity for usage, nor did they want to back in their trains in St. Louis.

P-D, 1983 wrote:Financing for the $134.9 million renovation of St. Louis' historic Union Station was completed this week, with a small group of investors anteing up the final $34.9 million.



'Ground breaking 'for the huge project, one of the largest renovations ever, is being held today in the once- elegant Grand Hall, with about 300 guests in attendance. The target date for reopening is the summer of 1985. Then, what is now an abandoned and decaying terminal will have been turned into an innovative entertainment and luxury complex, officials say.



Oppenheimer & Co. Inc. of New York City owns and is financing the project; Rouse Co. of Columbia, Md., is in charge of development and management of the complex.



On July 13, brokers at five branches of Oppenheimer Properties Inc. began offering limited partnerships to raise the remaining $34,875,000 for the Union Station project.



The shares, which are structured to give buyers hefty tax shelters, were being sold in units of $155,0 each, payable in five installments. Oppenheimer's brokers in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and Houston took parts of the total of 225 units to be sold.



The units sold like hotcakes. By Monday, all the units were gone, said Steven Miller, senior vice president of Oppenheimer Properties, a subsidiary of Oppenheimer & Co. 'In the Chicago office, they had about four times as many offers to buy as they had units to sell, 'he said.



Oppenheimer, which bought the station property from another development group in May 1979, was able to raise $90 million through private loans. Then last September the city got a $10 million Urban Development Action Grant, which is being lent to Oppenheimer.



Oppenheimer's limited partnership offering allows investors to take advantage of federal investment tax credits that are given to owners and developers of federally designated historic properties, such as Union Station. Miller said Oppenheimer had structured several of its small investment packages in the past to take advantage of the incentive, 'but we've done nothing of this magnitude before.



'We have been told, 'he added, 'that this is the largest historic rehabilitation project ever to take place. '



For each unit in the limited partnership for Union Station, the buyer invests $155,000, but pays the money in five annual installments. The initial payment is $24,000. Thereafter, the buyer pays $53,000 the second year; $50,000 the third year; $17,000 the fourth year; and $11,000 the fifth year.



In return, the buyer gets a tax credit of $109,289 per unit over three years because of the 25 percent tax incentive, plus additional tax credits on personal property.



Because of the way a unit is structured, Miller said, the amount of the tax credit or tax write-off, exceeds the amount paid by the buyer during the first three years. Any losses also can be written off. After that, the buyer starts getting part of the profits from the hotel, shops and other revenue- producing attractions scheduled to be completed in 1985. So in a sense, Miller said, the buyer, in effect, 'never has any money invested in the deal. '



Oppenheimer estimated in a marketing guide for the units that at the end of 12 years, a buyer who invested $155,000 would get a cumulative, after-tax cash flow net of $186,776, in addition to getting back the $155,000.



Miller said an advantage to buying a share in Union Station, as opposed to investing the money in something more conventional, is having the use of the money during the 12-year-period.



'The historic renovation tax credit was a major incentive to the investors because of the up-front returns, 'Miller said. 'The investor's tax benefits exceed what he puts up. Plus, the project has a lot of sex appeal, and is projected to have good potential in the later years. '



But not just anyone could invest. Oppenheimer said only 'accredited investors 'were being sought. Specifically, the prospectus for the project said investors must have a net worth of $1 million, or an income that exceeds $200,000 or own a business in which all of the owners meet the income or net worth requirements.



Despite the limits on who could invest, Miller said he was not particularly surprised at how quickly the buyers took the units.



'It's what we had hoped for, 'he said.

Then last September the city got a $10 million Urban Development Action Grant, which is being lent to Oppenheimer.

ttricamo wrote:Rather, rehabilitation is a small piece of a large, complex plan that must be nurtured and maintained by our civic leaders. This "plan" includes other, more important variables such as aggressively growing the city's revenue base while protecting our interests and assets, controlling crime and homelessness, and providing excellent educational institutions. While this approach seems quite simplistic and fundamental to a 26 year old such as myslef, our civic leaders, in the words of Obama, "just don't get it."

ttricamo wrote:Is anyone aware of any public/private partnerships between the city and local think tanks on how to improve the city, bring business into the city, etc.? Perhaps someone could PM me with information on how to join one of these advocacy groups?

innov8ion wrote:But we likely could use more creativity and openness in addressing them. That involves facilitation by secure and wise leadership to capture the collective genius.

innov8ion wrote:Don't you think that observation is likely naive? It doesn't take a genius to understand the challenges that St. Louis faces.

innov8ion wrote:But we likely could use more creativity and openness in addressing them. That involves facilitation by secure and wise leadership to capture the collective genius.