I know this may sound cynical but with Indiana's new anti-LGBT law and with tech companies canceling expansions in that state if I was Slay or the people running Cortex I would try to sell to those companies (like Angie's list ) to expand here instead.
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^the big one I think would be the former start-up that Salesforce bought a year or two ago.... they have 2,000 employees and were planning to grow and possibly even build a new tower.... we got a ready-made one just a bit down I-70, Salesforce! The San Fran based company was among the most vocal in opposition.
Agee with stlien, you will hear a lot but don't expect much actions out of these companies. I would go one step further, what change to the law that will happen will be minimal at best making it even easier for companies to turn around and pat themselves on the back for being on the moral side of their mission statements.
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Indiana will be fine, NCAA is grounded their for ages and Indianapolis will get their plus of having a heavy weight like Salesforce.com come into town vs. a small gain here and there that St. Louis sees. The reality, it will be a long time for a St. Louis start up to fill ATT One Center. Where as Salesforce could easily, has the capital and backing and will probably double the workforce in Indianapolis.
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Indiana will be fine, NCAA is grounded their for ages and Indianapolis will get their plus of having a heavy weight like Salesforce.com come into town vs. a small gain here and there that St. Louis sees. The reality, it will be a long time for a St. Louis start up to fill ATT One Center. Where as Salesforce could easily, has the capital and backing and will probably double the workforce in Indianapolis.
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^ I can't recall what the Indy start-up company was called before Salesforce bought it, but I think that is the type of breakout milestone that we'll want to reach within the next couple years.
As for ATT One Center, I wonder how many floors of a tower that size will need to be leased for it to be something other than an albatross. If Company X anchored it with say 15 floors and other companies added another 10, would that be worth it to the owner to put the money needed into it for the new leases? I do like the thought of it being sort of a tech-oriented cluster anchored by a mature, well-known company but also attracting smaller firms and start-ups. The building would give a nice, modern balance to the historic buildings which the downtown tech scene is currently clustered. (Although I love the thought of infill behind the Lammert for t-rex expansion as well.)
As for ATT One Center, I wonder how many floors of a tower that size will need to be leased for it to be something other than an albatross. If Company X anchored it with say 15 floors and other companies added another 10, would that be worth it to the owner to put the money needed into it for the new leases? I do like the thought of it being sort of a tech-oriented cluster anchored by a mature, well-known company but also attracting smaller firms and start-ups. The building would give a nice, modern balance to the historic buildings which the downtown tech scene is currently clustered. (Although I love the thought of infill behind the Lammert for t-rex expansion as well.)
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.roger wyoming II wrote:^ I find it baffling that people could think that a struggling downtown and city would benefit more from a Near North RIverfront stadium than adding 4,000 highly-paid professionals to the CBD. An NFL is a nice-to-have as is an attractive Arch grounds, but jobs and residents are the meat and potatoes of a thriving city.... that needs to be the focus. If we get a new stadium, fine, but it is foolish to think that it is somehow superior to the benefit of thousands of professional jobs.
Who says it's one or the other? Indy, Seattle, Minneapolis, Santa Clara, and other cities have learned that keeping an NFL team attracts those 4000 highly skilled tech experts to want to live and work downtown. If the Rams leave, we might lose that many tech jobs since we will officially be known as a city in retreat. Now the County and City will not use any taxes for the stadium. State portion is matched by player state income tax. The rest of the stadium is paid by the NFL and the users. The city 6M portion is just $10 per ticket. Charge the users. So unless you attend a game, this is totally free for you. But people just enjoy stopping any development for fun I guess.
The marketing automation company that salesforce.com bought in Indy was called exact target. They have 1800 employees in one tower downtown. Salesforce has decided to make Indy it's second major city. Obviously a huge win for Indy to go along with Angie's list. Their tech startup scene is ahead of St. Louis due to the economics of the exact target exit and the Angie's IPO.
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Good to know that St. Louisers have such confidence in Indy. If only they had such confidence in St. Louis......dredger wrote:Agee with stlien, you will hear a lot but don't expect much actions out of these companies. I would go one step further, what change to the law that will happen will be minimal at best making it even easier for companies to turn around and pat themselves on the back for being on the moral side of their mission statements.
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Indiana will be fine, NCAA is grounded their for ages and Indianapolis will get their plus of having a heavy weight like Salesforce.com come into town vs. a small gain here and there that St. Louis sees. The reality, it will be a long time for a St. Louis start up to fill ATT One Center. Where as Salesforce could easily, has the capital and backing and will probably double the workforce in Indianapolis.
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You and dbl did. You agreed that it would be better to take a stadium over 4.000 new well paid downtown workers quote, "all day everyday and twice on Sundays." That truly baffles me.gary kreie wrote: Who says it's one or the other?
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for the love of god, you're speculating without boundaries. i challenge you to find any research supporting a claim that the NFL has attracted highly-skilled tech experts to any downtown anywhere.gary kreie wrote: Who says it's one or the other? Indy, Seattle, Minneapolis, Santa Clara, and other cities have learned that keeping an NFL team attracts those 4000 highly skilled tech experts to want to live and work downtown. If the Rams leave, we might lose that many tech jobs since we will officially be known as a city in retreat.
i also find it curious that this post by Alderman Ogilvie was conveniently ignored by all the football champions over in the Sports forum:
This will make your head spin, but this is how earnings tax works for the Rams, (or pretty close anyway)
If a Rams player does not live in the City of St. Louis:
Then: The year is calculated at 260 working days, and they play 10 games a season. 10 games is 3.8% of the season. So they pay earnings tax on 3.8% of their salary. Meaning if a player earns $1,000,000 salary, they pay the 1% earnings tax on 38,000 (Just like an alderman!) or a total of $380.00 - yep, thats it! Wait, its actually much less. Earnings tax applies to income after you've paid federal and state taxes. So the $1,000,000 player is really only paying on 1% of 3.8% of $600,000, or a grand total of about $230. Yes, that's it. A typical Rams player pays much less earning tax than a teacher. The same goes for all their coaching staff and management and so on.
The team also does not pay the .5% payroll portion of the earnings tax, since "Rams Inc" is located in St. Louis County. We do still collect the ticket tax and sales tax on Rams tickets, which overall is something a little shy of $3 million a year. Those taxes are paid by fans though, not the Rams. Of course, $3 million in sales and ticket taxes is much less than the City pays on the mortgage on just the Dome portion of the Convention Center ($6 million a year). So in general, The Rams are probably a net annual loss in terms of tax revenue to the City. (A real analysis is obviously more complicated than I can do here).
On the Question of St. Louis County and Stenger, and on doing this without a vote in the City or County - it should be pretty clear that just "Extending" the Dome debt requires a public vote in St. Louis City and County. As County Exec, Stenger can obviously force a vote in the County, where prospects may not be that good. In the City, its abundantly clear by ordinance this requires a vote. I know there's been polling. I think the state / Nixon looked at the polling, and decided the County was too risky to go for a vote and jeopardize not getting money they were counting on. So its just the City and State! Keep in mind, St. Louis City is about 12% of the region's population now. A stadium is a pretty heavy burden...
Scott Ogilvie
24th Ward Alderman
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yes, because IN ITS CURRENT FORM it creates another massive sea of parking on the riverfront that'll destroy any potential for urban land use for the foreseeable future. we keep doing this sh*t over and over and over and then we wonder "why oh why is downtown so undesirable?" BECAUSE ITS MOSTLY SURFACE PARKING. don't bother with the "if no stadium then in ten years it'll look the same" argument because, in fact, there has been recent investment in the north riverfront and if the economy continues to improve we can likely expect more. even if it takes more than ten years, i'd rather the land develop slowly into something urban than another parking lot.gary kreie wrote:If the stadium were totally free, which it likely will be for you, would you still oppose it? Why?
i'll reiterate that i'm not opposed to a stadium, even on the north riverfront. i'm opposed to the current plan to clear-cut the north riverfront for a surface lot that's 3 to 4 times the size of the stadium. if fans want more tailgating space then this belongs in a corn field or on the east side, not downtown.
AGAIN: http://vanishingstl.blogspot.com/2015/0 ... north.html
With little fanfare, St. Louis-StationDigital has released its BETA version.
The webpage and mobile app are cleaner. The mobile app's interface is visually appealing and is on par with the bigger streaming services such as Pandora and Spotify.
And so far it seems, however, as if there is less buffering and a shortened lag time between songs - meaning songs turnover is quicker.
It also sounds crispier.
All videos were released late March 2015.
StationDigital Plus
Video below shows CEO Lou Rossi discussing the future of StationDigital services.
Promo video for investors/financial relations.
The webpage and mobile app are cleaner. The mobile app's interface is visually appealing and is on par with the bigger streaming services such as Pandora and Spotify.
And so far it seems, however, as if there is less buffering and a shortened lag time between songs - meaning songs turnover is quicker.
It also sounds crispier.
All videos were released late March 2015.
StationDigital Plus
Video below shows CEO Lou Rossi discussing the future of StationDigital services.
Promo video for investors/financial relations.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch: StationDigital revamps music streaming app
Pretty big need IT wise for the region as per BIzjournals article. Any thoughts on how accurate these numbers are Believe the 25,000 job openings number stated in the article is a typo and should be 2,500)? How the region can go further in developing talent?
My first thought was going back to launch code and how at one they were going to incorporate housing into a CORTEX location. Wonder if their is some rethinking on that front or maybe expanding their St. Louis HQ now that are expanding into KC next. However, maybe a public private partnership between launch code & St. Louis Community College looking into developing a tech based downtown campus would be a better idea.
Why St. Louis doesn’t have enough IT professionals to fill job openings
http://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/blog ... onals.html
More than 25,000 information technology jobs opened up in St. Louis over the past 12 months, an increase of 8.24 percent from the previous year, according to research from TEKsystems, the third largest IT consulting firm in St. Louis, with more than 500 employees locally.
Java developers and project managers remain the most in-demand skill set within those IT jobs. Software engineers, .Net developers, network analysts and business analysts are also desired skills.
My first thought was going back to launch code and how at one they were going to incorporate housing into a CORTEX location. Wonder if their is some rethinking on that front or maybe expanding their St. Louis HQ now that are expanding into KC next. However, maybe a public private partnership between launch code & St. Louis Community College looking into developing a tech based downtown campus would be a better idea.
Why St. Louis doesn’t have enough IT professionals to fill job openings
http://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/blog ... onals.html
More than 25,000 information technology jobs opened up in St. Louis over the past 12 months, an increase of 8.24 percent from the previous year, according to research from TEKsystems, the third largest IT consulting firm in St. Louis, with more than 500 employees locally.
Java developers and project managers remain the most in-demand skill set within those IT jobs. Software engineers, .Net developers, network analysts and business analysts are also desired skills.
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I don't mean to dis our tech scene, but this kind of thing is just a reminder of how we're just a small spec in the universe...
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Google appears set to take up 250,000 sq. ft. in this 500,000 sq. ft. in NYC's mixed-use "SuperPier" on top of 3 million sq. ft. elsewhere in town.
We had such high hopes for the SuperPier. As originally described, it was going to be this great hub on the Hudson River for startups and other businesses to base themselves and create a thriving community of entrepreneurs. And it was going to offer some great public spaces, filled with shops and restaurants and a rooftop park.
All of those amenities are still part of the project, the redevelopment of Pier 57 at West 15th Street. But what's apparently missing will be the variety of business tenants. Instead, it looks like we'll get just one — Google — which apparently has outgrown its massive 2.9 million-square-foot New York base at 111 Eighth Avenue in Chelsea and wants 250,000 more square feet close by. Google's already expanded to other nearby locations, like Chelsea Market, and has plans to grow into a former Nabisco factory....
I hope google will come here -- eventually they have to, don't they? If they do, I wonder where they'd look at... it appears they increasingly are seeking creative spaces and while I don't think we could offer anything similar to a SuperPier, I think we have opportunities to offer something along the lines of Bakery Square in Pittsburgh and Ponce Market in Atlanta. Not sure if Cortex would be the right fit.
Google appears set to take up 250,000 sq. ft. in this 500,000 sq. ft. in NYC's mixed-use "SuperPier" on top of 3 million sq. ft. elsewhere in town.
We had such high hopes for the SuperPier. As originally described, it was going to be this great hub on the Hudson River for startups and other businesses to base themselves and create a thriving community of entrepreneurs. And it was going to offer some great public spaces, filled with shops and restaurants and a rooftop park.
All of those amenities are still part of the project, the redevelopment of Pier 57 at West 15th Street. But what's apparently missing will be the variety of business tenants. Instead, it looks like we'll get just one — Google — which apparently has outgrown its massive 2.9 million-square-foot New York base at 111 Eighth Avenue in Chelsea and wants 250,000 more square feet close by. Google's already expanded to other nearby locations, like Chelsea Market, and has plans to grow into a former Nabisco factory....
I hope google will come here -- eventually they have to, don't they? If they do, I wonder where they'd look at... it appears they increasingly are seeking creative spaces and while I don't think we could offer anything similar to a SuperPier, I think we have opportunities to offer something along the lines of Bakery Square in Pittsburgh and Ponce Market in Atlanta. Not sure if Cortex would be the right fit.
I hear all of our young tech talent really want to work at Westport. j/k
Of course NYC kicks our azz, lets focus on the strydes we are making! We are progressing rather nicely from where we came from 5ish yrs ago 
http://www.anabaptistredux.com/wp-conte ... r-Life.jpg
I really enjoy this article from St. Louis construction news record latest edition on the fiber infrastructure put in place downtown but undeveloped. Within the same month current edition is a pretty good article on Ameren rebuilding downtown's electrical grid.
http://www.stlouiscnr.com/columns/artic ... or_google/
http://www.stlouiscnr.com/current_issue
http://www.stlouiscnr.com/columns/artic ... or_google/
http://www.stlouiscnr.com/current_issue
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dredger wrote:I really enjoy this article from St. Louis construction news record latest edition on the fiber infrastructure put in place downtown but undeveloped. Within the same month current edition is a pretty good article on Ameren rebuilding downtown's electrical grid.
http://www.stlouiscnr.com/columns/artic ... or_google/
http://www.stlouiscnr.com/current_issue
Thanks for posting. I think the article starting on page 8 of the current issue would be very interesting to many on here.
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Good for these two growing tech companies who have bought their own buildings in the burbs.
http://www.stltoday.com/business/column ... 64c22.html
http://www.stltoday.com/business/local/ ... 8f917.html
But man, if more were to choose the city like GadellNet did (to Vandeventer & Tower Grove) we really could be killing it with modest buildings in the Greater Cortex and downtown/midtown getting eaten up slowly but surely.
^ that is an interesting article... a good issue all around.
http://www.stltoday.com/business/column ... 64c22.html
http://www.stltoday.com/business/local/ ... 8f917.html
But man, if more were to choose the city like GadellNet did (to Vandeventer & Tower Grove) we really could be killing it with modest buildings in the Greater Cortex and downtown/midtown getting eaten up slowly but surely.
^ that is an interesting article... a good issue all around.
^ that second article underscores why WWT is staying out west: a lot of tech/engineering firms set up shop in Maryland heights/Westport.
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As most of you know, Charter is acquiring Time Warner to become the 2nd largest cable provider in the nation, behind Comcast.
What does this mean for the over 3000 people employed here in STL and their large presence here? I understand there will be synergies, but who will the overlap affect?
Anyone have some insight on this? Know what the vibe coming out of the local office is?
What does this mean for the over 3000 people employed here in STL and their large presence here? I understand there will be synergies, but who will the overlap affect?
Anyone have some insight on this? Know what the vibe coming out of the local office is?
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There was an article in the post or bj yesterday where Stenger had just gotten of the phone with Charter and was quite optomistic. Too bad we're not getting a shiny new HQ just outside the left field wall.