urbanSTL

bonwich wrote:

Bernsen said the target audience for the Bottle District is not only people from the local area looking for something new to do on Saturday night -- including metro-easters -- but also St. Louis' rapidly growing tourist trade. That could take a bite out of the business of St. Clair and Madison county hotels and restaurants.



Bernsen said there are 20 million overnight stays in the St. Louis region every year.



"One of the issues with that market is that a lot of that base comes to see a baseball game or comes to see the Arch, but they don't stay in the city," Bernsen said. "We want to provide a stickiness to the downtown area that lures them here and keeps them here."

Now let me see if I understand this correctly. This guy is promoting a $300 million development aimed in large part at people who go out on Saturday nights and people who come in for an activity that only occurs 71 days out of the year? And where is he seeing this "rapidly growing tourist trade"?

Yeah, you're right bonwich. Since that was this guy's quote I'm sure the financial backers are putting up hundreds of millions on those two reasons alone. Hell, I'm sure they'll shutter the whole thing when baseball games aren't happening. Anyone else want to spit some of that typical St. Louis negativity? CS, I'm sure you'll have something Debbie Downerish to say, right?

bonwich wrote:

Bernsen said the target audience for the Bottle District is not only people from the local area looking for something new to do on Saturday night -- including metro-easters -- but also St. Louis' rapidly growing tourist trade. That could take a bite out of the business of St. Clair and Madison county hotels and restaurants.



Bernsen said there are 20 million overnight stays in the St. Louis region every year.



"One of the issues with that market is that a lot of that base comes to see a baseball game or comes to see the Arch, but they don't stay in the city," Bernsen said. "We want to provide a stickiness to the downtown area that lures them here and keeps them here."

Now let me see if I understand this correctly. This guy is promoting a $300 million development aimed in large part at people who go out on Saturday nights and people who come in for an activity that only occurs 71 days out of the year? And where is he seeing this "rapidly growing tourist trade"?

You make a valid point. I assume they've done some research to indicate that it will work.

Who made the valid point? Bonwich is saying that the project will fail since they're counting on Saturday Nighters and Baseball Game goers. I'm the one who said they wouldn't have put up hundreds of millions without research. As usual, your negativity is misdirected.



Wah Wahhhh.

Well, CS, first of all someone has to accept a bet before you claim they owe you anything, but that is beside the point. You're right about the fact that he didn't literally say it will fail in his post. A skill called reading comprehension, however, would lead an intelligent reader to infer that he's saying St. Louis tourism isn't growing, the BD is counting on the growth of St. Louis tourism to survive, and will therefore fail.



Commenting on my financial situation is ignorant as you know nothing about it. My commenting on your negative attitude however is just an attempt to have you lighten up and quit putting down everything in every post you make. Anyone who reads the board would know all about that.



<-- CS



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debbie_Downer

Ok, quit your crying games SoulardD and Central Scrutinizer. If you want to argue, PM each other so the rest of us can just view relevant content.



Based on the article, I'm a little concerned that they didn't mention a residential, hotel, or office component. At $300 million, that doesn't save a lot of space for residential, particularly if they are still planning parking underground and a lot of retail.



I'm happy that this is still on the table, but I hope they wisely build residential into the project, or else it will become just another weekend destination (like the landing), but without any historical charm.

The Central Scrutinizer wrote:Sounds like I hit a nerve. I would loan you the money, but I don't think your McDonald's salary would pay it back.



Now stop derailing the thread.

Well at least by having no intelligent response you concede that you're wrong. As far as derailing the thread goes, I'm glad this article is enforcing the fact that the BD will happen and that those spewing unfounded negativity were, like CS, wrong.



I agree Metz, there does need to be residential. In fact I think Union Station would benefit from residential in the same way that the BD would.

Well, you (SoulardD) seem to be reading a whole lot into my post that wasn't explicitly stated. I didn't say it would fail; I did say that it seemed really a stretch that a $300M development would point to its prime targets as Saturday night partiers and baseball traffic, both of which have existed downtown since...well, since any other massive project was hatched as well.



And you all you did was metacomplain: "Typical St. Louis negativity." But you didn't come up with any facts supporting the guy's statement that there's some sort of tourism boom in town.



I submit: This is all just more of the same. For the 30-some years that I've been watching closely, downtown proponents have kept coming up with silver bullets (Plaza Square; Mansion House; Busch Stadium II; Laclede's Landing; Gateway Mall; Union Station; Union Market; St. Louis Centre; the Admiral; Kiel/Savvis/Scottrade; Jones Dome; Renaissance Hotel) that generally have required huge public subsidies and but also never seem to have achieved a reasonable return on investment (a subjective evaluation, of course). In many cases, all kind of us Negative Nellies yelled and screamed (and even attempted to reason) that there were giant holes in the plans.



The same general group of people is still running the show, with the same general view that sports, gambling and parking are the primary growth engines downtown. (Oh, yeah. And "green space.")



One final point: No investors have put up anywhere near $300M yet. What do you guess, there's maybe $5M-$10M of real money in this project thus far. Lotsa plans, lotsa promises -- but nothing that addresses the very real fact that regionally, we're a near-flat population growth area, and that isn't exactly conducive to public investment in yet another "entertainment district."

Bonwich, yes, maybe I was infering alot but the rest of your post seemed to confirm my inference. None of the silver bullets you mention contain Residential, Entertainment, and Commercial. The BD (at least originally) did. Nothing about the BD is counting on gambling, parking or green space, and though you've watched downtown for 30 years you have to admit it had never made the progress that it has in the last 5. I think that adding all of that up validifies my metacomplaints about "Typical St. Louis Negativity". Put the past behind and be positive about the future.

The Central Scrutinizer wrote:^Bonwich, lot's of good points (as usual).



There is a lot of great information on this board, but there is a subset of very naive posters I like to call the "Naivitistas(tm)", and the conversation usually goes something like this:



Naivitista: We should build 8 residential towers along the river front at 90 stories each, with ground level retail!



Realist: Ummmm....Is there a demand for this? Where will the money come from?



Naivitista: We don't need your St. Louis negativity.

Except that in this instance the conversation went like this:



Negativistas: BD will never happen. St. Louis will Crumble. The sky is falling.



Belleville News-Democrat Article: The BD is happening and 300 million is committed.



Naivitista: Wow, my positive attitude was justified and good things really are happening in this city. Middle finger to the negativistas.

SoulardD wrote:Bonwich, yes, maybe I was infering alot but the rest of your post seemed to confirm my inference. None of the silver bullets you mention contain Residential, Entertainment, and Commercial. The BD (at least originally) did.

Many of those projects overlapped each other, as well as overlapping other projects not mentioned (e.g. Columbus Square). You also might want to look up some of the initial and stage-2 claims of the developers of Laclede's Landing. And as you admit, nobody really knows what the Bottle District comprises at this point anyway.

Nothing about the BD is counting on gambling, parking or green space, and though you've watched downtown for 30 years you have to admit it had never made the progress that it has in the last 5.

No, I don't. Each of the relative boom times had parallels to this one. Busch II and the new hotels supposedly "energized" downtown. And had you been around for the successive openings of St. Louis Centre and Union Station, you would have thought all of our problems were behind us with all those thousands of surburbanites who were pouring in day and night to shop and look.

I think that adding all of that up validifies my metacomplaints about "Typical St. Louis Negativity". Put the past behind and be positive about the future.

What's that quote again about people who ignore history?



You're welcome to your rose-colored glasses, and I'm certainly not saying we don't need new projects. I've just never seen the allure of the Bottle District, yet another "entertainment district" that appears to rely on cannibalization of a stagnant population- and job-growth region for its initial success.

The difference between then and now is that Downtown's population is doubling every couple of years NOW. It was shrinking THEN. That's just through my rose colored glasses, though.

This is by no means empirical, but I do tend to talk to lots of the restaurant folks downtown, and their views of how the population boom has affected their business might diverge slightly from yours.

The difference between then and now is that Downtown's population is doubling every couple of years NOW. It was shrinking THEN. That's just through my rose colored glasses, though.

1. See above.

2. If you believe a "doubling every couple of years" growth rate can be sustained, I have some uninsured, very high commission mutual funds I'd like to sell you.

3. The City's population may be growing, but even if it is, I doubt it's keeping up with the national average. And the regional population base certainly isn't.

bonwich wrote:This is by no means empirical, but I do tend to talk to lots of the restaurant folks downtown, and their views of how the population boom has affected their business might diverge slightly from yours.

The difference between then and now is that Downtown's population is doubling every couple of years NOW. It was shrinking THEN. That's just through my rose colored glasses, though.

1. See above.

2. If you believe a "doubling every couple of years" growth rate can be sustained, I have some uninsured, very high commission mutual funds I'd like to sell you.

3. The City's population may be growing, but even if it is, I doubt it's keeping up with the national average. And the regional population base certainly isn't.

It's awfully condescending of you to assume that I think Downtown's population will continue to double every couple of years forever.

The regional population base isn't growing, but if downtown can continue to eat up business, patrons, and residents from the exurbs at the expense of strip malls and cul-de-sac'ed subdivisions I'm all for it.



I'm also interested in your response to CS's question.

It's awfully condescending of you to assume that I think Downtown's population will continue to double every couple of years forever.

You could afford to choose your words more carefully and to learn to back up your statements with citations. First of all, you said "is doubling every couple of years." That implies that it did so once (doubled), and then did (or is about to do it) again.



However:

In April, the P-D wrote:About 4,900 new units of housing are expected to become available in the next three years, according to Downtown St. Louis Partnership. It's projected to add about 7,600 new residents, based on the average number of residents already living in rental and for-sale units downtown.



And 66 percent of residents who live in properties developed since 2000 earn more than $50,000 a year, according to a 2004 downtown housing report.



Almost 10,000 people call downtown St. Louis home now.

Perhaps you're privy to some other statistics that indicate a faster growth rate than this?

The regional population base isn't growing, but if downtown can start to eat up business, patrons, and residents from the exurbs at the expense of strip malls and cul-de-sac'ed subdivisions I'm all for it.



I'm also interested in your response to CS's question.

Spoken like a true urban cannibal.



As for CS's question: A recurring theme I've heard from downtown restaurateurs is that they're disappointed in the percentage of their business that they perceive is coming from downtown residents. I can't speak to the point of expanded hours, since most of these places are new or relatively new and started out with lunch, dinner (and sometimes weekend) hours. And yes, they all seem to think there's incremental improvement as time goes on -- but I've also heard overtones that the initial estimates on which they based some of their decisions were too optimistic.

^

I've gotten the feeling that the restaurant business might be slower with residents. But I have always thought that it would be strange to suspect that residents would eat out at a sitdown upper-scale restaurant like Copia or even a bar like the Dubliner every night or even often. In no location that I've ever lived have I spent that much on dinner much more than once every weekend or two. There aren't enough faster places, or delis, as we've said many places on this board. I think these would be more successful. Especially if they were run well and felt clean.

bonwich wrote:
You could afford to choose your words more carefully and to learn to back up your statements with citations. First of all, you said "is doubling every couple of years." That implies that it did so once (doubled), and then did (or is about to do it) again.

First, it's ridiculous for you to make up a definition of what I said. If you want a source to back up the population boom, how about this quote from an April 10th AP article, "People are starting to come back, too. As evidence: After a half-century of decline, the city's population rose for the third straight year in 2005, to nearly 353,000. Cloar said the population of downtown, now 10,000, is expected to double by 2010."

bonwich wrote:
Spoken like a true urban cannibal.

I'm sorry, but I think I speak for many on the "Urban St. Louis" board when I say that a city's resurgence (especially such a culturally and architecturally rich city like St. Louis) at the expense of soulless farm land eating, vinyl siding soaked exurbs is definitely not a bad thing.





Now if we're past putting each other down, what restauranteurs are you referring to, if you don't mind my asking?

But I have always thought that it would be strange to suspect that residents would eat out at a sitdown upper-scale restaurant like Copia or even a bar like the Dubliner every night or even often.

Uh oh.

First, it's ridiculous for you to make up a definition of what I said. If you want a source to back up the population boom, how about this quote from an April 10th AP article, "People are starting to come back, too. As evidence: After a half-century of decline, the city's population rose for the third straight year in 2005, to nearly 353,000. Cloar said the population of downtown, now 10,000, is expected to double by 2010."

Hmmm. In 2006, Cloar said the population of downtown was expected to double by 2010. And you said (forgive me if I quote exactly) "Downtown's population is doubling every couple of years NOW."



And I'm the one who's "ridiculous" and "mak(ing) up a definition"? Geez, I hope you don't use the same level of math and communications skills when you apply for a bank loan for your new loft or downtown business.



As for your other question: Privileged conversations. I respect the term "off the record."