urbanSTL

TheWayoftheArch.... I was about to write something similar to what you had. I think both tracks will attract businesses from different areas of the region. I also bet that anyone who patronizes the Earth City track on a regular basis may even visit the facility in the Bottle District for a different track layout. The two tracks may play well off each other in the long run. I don't think either has to worry about the others existence, especially with all the amenities that will be in the immediate vicinity to the track in the Bottle District. It still would have been nice for the track in the Bottle District to have been the only one in the region, but that goes the same for a lot of things...

I think that the success of other big cities' downtowns has alot to do with the fact that downtown is bigger, better, and has unique things to do that are no where else in that city. People have to come downtown for those experiences. I feel that our downtown is actually the opposite. You have to leave downtown to shop, find recreation, see a movie, etc. I think that needs to change. Just my opinion.

I tend to agree with you, Soulard. St. Louis Centre is kind of a microcosm of downtown's problems - when it opened, it was popular due to the fact that it featured unique stores that couldn't be found anywhere else in the region. When the Galleria opened and Chesterfield expanded, adding many of the same retailers that made SLC unique, interest in SLC dried up (I know there were other problems with SLC like parking, safety, limited hours, etc., but I'm just trying to draw a comparison).



Downtown needs more unique attractions. Would it kill a group of people from an office in Clayton to come downtown for a little teambuilding?

I tend to agree with you, Soulard. St. Louis Centre is kind of a microcosm of downtown's problems - when it opened, it was popular due to the fact that it featured unique stores that couldn't be found anywhere else in the region. When the Galleria opened and Chesterfield expanded, adding many of the same retailers that made SLC unique, interest in SLC dried up (I know there were other problems with SLC like parking, safety, limited hours, etc., but I'm just trying to draw a comparison).

Think about it. Cheesecake Factory, Crate & Barrel, P.F. Changs, etc. All came to where? Brentwood! These things should be unique to downtown! I mean, where the hell is that St.Louis Mills thing? I think it's pretty close to Columbia, MO right?



I think the Bottle District better get some big name retailers / unique things to do if it wants to be successful. Parking will always cause problems in downtown areas, but people deal with it to experience all that downtowns have to offer. (But not in much STL because there isn't a whole lot downtown that isn't elsewhere.) The safety and limited hours problems would not be such an issue if there were more people/places/things downtown that warranted staying open, more security. So now there won't be an F1 St.Louis there, only a Grand Prix something or other that's Smaller than the one in Earth City?. Does anyone else think there's a problem here?

Even suburbanites who don't care for downtown are willing to come there when they don't have any other options - downtown needs to be the focus for the region and it needs more cultural attractions, shopping, businesses, restaurants, etc.



Knowing our luck, if Ikea ever decided to open a downtown store, they'd probably open another one in Brentwood or Chesterfield a few weeks later.

The Earth City indoor kart track will be near Harrah's and Ameristar, while the Downtown / Bottle District track will be near Pinnacle and the Queen. So, I don't see a problem. Our region can likely support multiple indoor kart tracks, just as it does casinos, even with many like myself never patronizing any of these types of businesses. To each his own, his choice of entertainment and preferred venue.

Think about it. Cheesecake Factory, Crate & Barrel, P.F. Changs, etc. All came to where? Brentwood! These things should be unique to downtown! I mean, where the hell is that St.Louis Mills thing? I think it's pretty close to Columbia, MO right?

The thing is those, these are businesses, and they are out to make money! The way they are going to make the most money is to locate where their customers live. They have to match up the demographics. If Crate and Barrel, The Cheescake Factory or the Mills opened in downtown, I'm sure that people that visit those places multiple times a month may only go there once a month if even that if it is downtown. These days people like convience, and going downtown to shop from Brentwood and Chesterfield just doesn't work. I mean, my mom is at Crate and Barrel about 5, 6 times a month, and I know she wouldn't drive to downtown that often to shop there. I think downtown should go after businesses that will capture tourist business as well as downtown residence. Stores like Borders, Gap, P.F. Changs and Whole Foods.

In order for our city to be a great one, it has to be big. It is expanding magnificently and people are coming. Established "districts" are becoming more and more historic with charm and renewed/developing districts of the city are starting to grow and eventually will attach. Though Brentwood is part of the county, in cities like Chicago, it would be still be part of the city (i.e. our west side). So, it's ok for restaurants like Cheescake factory to be there. Eventually Metrolink will connect all of this. Though I don't like having two F1 in St. Louis region, it's okay. Great cities like Boston didn't become great b/c of attractions like F1, they became great b/c of the things that define the city (the accent, the beans, the seafood, the architecture etc.).



Let's make St. Louis great by building on the little things you love about St. Louis. Having said that, I was just in London and walked on their Millenium Bridge over the River Thames to the Tate Modern. I hope one day, E. St. Louis will be better such that we can do something for pedestrians only over the Mississippi. The view is awesome.

I see us as being one of the greatest in the midwest if not the US.

A little ambitious, but I'm glad to see people are pumped up.

Great cities like Boston didn't become great b/c of attractions like F1, they became great b/c of the things that define the city (the accent, the beans, the seafood, the architecture etc.).

How about the fact that people didn't freak out and move out of the city? I'm sure that helped. I mean c'mon, if our city wan't abandoned in the first place we'd be in a much better position. Since it was, however, you have to convince people to come to the city. Ridiculous. Hopefully people will change thier mentality when great projects like the Bottle District prove to them that the city is back.

Are there any updates as to when actual ground breaking will take place?

I happened to drive by there the other day and noticed a cheap banner (more of a sheet than banner) on one of the buildings announcing "The future site of the Bottle District.



Also the housing that is being rehabbed at 10th & Cass looks very similar to the apartments at Chouteau and Tucker any info on these?

WKnDACity wrote:Are there any updates as to when actual ground breaking will take place?

Their website still says:



"The Bottle District is set to break ground in May of 2005. An official ceremony will shortly follow. Stay tuned for details!"



This was found under: thebottledistrict.com --> district details --> construction updates

St. Louis City cannot rely on entertainment or a niche lifestyle to fully bring back people. It may work for Gays, young professionals, and empty nesters, but the stabilizing growth is not from these people.



It is the middle class that stabilizes a city and secures a city's longevity.

The middle class exists in many places on the southside like Carondelet, but their needs to be more even in St. Louis Hills which has swung away from the middle. The following is an article that throws cold water in our face for a wake up call if we do not address the needs of the middle:

Andrew Ferguson is a columnist for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.



Sprawl and `Slurbs' Are the Wave of the Future: Andrew Ferguson

April 26 (Bloomberg) --



When author and historian Joel Kotkin travels around the U.S. in his role as a consultant to city planners, he hears his clients repeat the same misconceptions again and again. He calls them urban legends.



``The one you hear most often is, `Cities are on the rebound! People are moving back to the cities!''' he says. ``It takes different forms. The latest one I'm hearing is: `Empty nesters are flocking back to the cities!'''



There's a problem with legends, of course. They're not true. And so it is with the urban legends Kotkin keeps hearing.



Consider those empty nesters -- parents whose children have grown up and moved out. No matter how much civic boosters may wish it to be true, this affluent and highly desirable demographic is not returning to live in U.S. downtowns.



``If anything, the data show just the opposite,'' Kotkin says. ``If empty nesters decide to sell the family house in the suburbs, they move to a condo -- in the suburbs. Or they move to the Sun Belt -- to a suburb.''



The same goes for one urban legend after another, those little fairy tales that urban planners tell to convince themselves that cities are making a comeback.



Urbs versus Burbs



Is it true, for example, that gentrification is inspiring companies to put their headquarters in cities?



Is it true that cities can cultivate a vibrant and viable civic culture without middle-class families?



Is it true that most companies require an urban setting to do business in?



The answers, says Kotkin, are: No, no, and probably not.



An urban setting, he concedes, just might help you do business, depending on what business you're in.



``I suppose some kind of companies need to be in a city,'' he says. ``Bail bondsmen need to be near the courthouse. But that's about it.''



You can understand why city managers, urban planners and ``metropolitan elites'' repeat the urban legends, mostly to one another. They're deflecting an uncomfortable truth.



And the truth is that in the great struggle between cities and suburbs, raging now for a century or more, the verdict is finally in: Cities lost. The vast majority of people prefer the ``burbs.'' The long-predicted comeback of the traditional city isn't in the cards.



`Dream World'



For those of us who love cities, it's hard to believe that the future of civilized life lies in the suburbs. You call that civilized?



``Metropolitan elites live in a dream world,'' Kotkin says. ``If 1,000 people move into lower downtown Denver in the last year, the elites think it's a trend: stories in the newspaper, panel discussions, general celebration. Meanwhile, 10,000 people leave the city for the suburbs, and the elites ignore it.''



Traditional U.S. cities stopped growing 50 years ago and are now shrinking. Since 1950, almost all the growth in U.S. metropolitan areas has been beyond the city limits, in suburbs -- sprawl, in a word.



And the trend seems to be accelerating. Census data released earlier this month show that during the 1990s, one city after another lost population, even as the counties surrounding them grew. In Ohio, for example, Cincinnati's Hamilton County shrunk by 2.4 percent. Neighboring Boone County, in Kentucky, grew 49.3 percent. Even further out from the city, Grant County, Kentucky, grew by 42.2 percent.



From Washington to Cleveland to Denver, the trend was the same.



Hip and Cool



There are lots of obvious reasons for the cities' decline -- the decentralizing effects of telecommunications, the loss of manufacturing jobs, the inconveniences of public transit -- but Kotkin is more appalled by the steps urban planners take in hopes of reversing the decline.



``They think they can revive their cities if they make them `hip and cool,''' he says, referring to the street festivals, cafes, arts fairs, high-end boutiques and other yuppie delights that attract the young and single, the childless and rich.



``But that's not how cities last,'' he says. ``You can't build a long-term civic culture around transient populations.''



What any healthy city requires is a stable base of middle- class families. But the conditions necessary for attracting and keeping families are precisely what city planners ignore.



``They've forgotten the basics,'' Kotkin says. ``Are the schools good? Are the streets clean and safe? It's a lot easier to satisfy the yuppies with no kids than to fix the schools.''



And so city life, once the backbone of civilized social arrangements, devolves into just another ``niche lifestyle.''



Mixed Evidence



But can suburbs perform the essential functions of acculturation and community-building that cities once did? It's a question Kotkin explores in his latest book, ``The City: A Global History,'' and he says the evidence for now is mixed.

Kotkin calls most of suburbia ``slurbs,'' vast stretches of undistinguished space choked with traffic and lined with commercial strips lacking character, charm, or -- most important of all -- a sense of civic identity that can bind their residents together.



On the other hand, some suburbs now reflect the influence of the new urbanists, planners who favor suburbs with walkable downtowns, open space and accessible cultural institutions.



`Not in the Cities'



Even so, for many of us, the suburbs will require a lot of getting used to. What's to happen to those ``hip and cool'' city- lovers who, over the next generation, may be pulled to the suburbs by professional necessity, as the social and economic center of gravity continues to shift?



At Southern California Institute of Architecture where Kotkin teaches, he says, ``I hear my students talk about all the great projects they're going to do in cities after they graduate. And I have to tell them: Wait a minute. You're architects and designers and urban planners. Where do you think you're going to be working in the 21st century? Sorry, but it's not in the cities.''



He says they look at him, disbelieving and horrified. They have seen the future. And it's the suburbs.



As for Kotkin, he was born in New York City and now lives in a suburb of Los Angeles.

St. Louis Hills has swung away from the middle class? That neighborhood is almost entirely middle- to upper-middle class.



I do see your point though.

I couldn't afford to buy in St. Louis Hills and continue to pay tuition for private schools.

I don't know about that article. It has some points, but ignores other things too. Seems kind of slanted, like the point was to generate interst in the guys book.



But the point he is driving that middle class families are what matters is true. That's why it is so important to fix the public schools. While I would send my kids to Catholic School, because that's where I went, I know not everyone will.

I like how the artile points out that he used to live in NYC and now lives in a suburb of L.A. First, L.A. has no real "city" (not in the east coast sense) - it is more a collection of suburbs spread out as far as the eye can see. Perhaps if he lived in a more urban-type city, his perspective might be different.



Second, I don't think anyone disputes the fact that suburbs are growing faster than inner cities, nor do I see that trend changing. However, I do see a trend of a larger % of people staying in cities or moving to cities when they are younger or retired than over the last 30 years. Cities will generally cater to those who are young or retired. That's when you have the $$$ to go to neat restaurants, and the convenience to hop on a bus or train to get places (don't have to lug kids around).



Obviously, that story annoyed me.

That story is fine for western cities that don't have a real center, rather just a collection of people that randomly decided to live in a general area. Eastern cities are much different IMO, and StL is an eastern city. The Riverfront created a center location, and then a downtown was built.



You're never gonna attract St. Louis families to live downtown. You may get one here and there, but overall, they're gonna live in neighborhoods with their own house. The schools do need to be fixed, to keep those families in neighborhoods like Soulard, CWE, Tower Grove, St. Louis Hills and others.



I don't see trying to revive downtown as some sort of gimmick, as this author seems to think. You bring attractions to your downtown, and keep those younger/hipper people living downtown. Eventually they may get married and move to a burb or another neighborhood in the city, but you keep the interest in downtown generated so it's not just one generation that wants to live there. You replace that person leaving with another moving in. But you do that by building downtown as a viable living option. Complete with your usual ammenities that you have everywhere else.

That article was pure Joel Kotkin. That's been his thing for years. He's like the other side of the coin to Richard Florida. Neither are completely right, and neither are completely wrong. Like most things the truth lies somewhere in the middle.



SMS- In general in discussions of this ilk, I would reccomend you try and use a more descriptive term than 'middle-class'. That term is not very well defined and it lead to too many assumptions. I know it was used in the article and that is part of the problem I have with Kotkin.

Speaking of Joel Kotkin (or is it Kotin??...he was the one who stated that St. Louis' downtown sucked and is lifeless).......he will be on Charlie Brennan's show here in about 10 minutes or so on KMOX. I believe we are talking about the same person.



Right now, Brennan is talking about the flower planting that will be going on next weekend along Market Street.

When is growth not growth?



The suburbs may be growing but at a cost. Simply put, children cost money and don't pay taxes. Plus, people are shopping further from home, giving away their taxes to other communties.



All of these "booming" newer suburbs see any increases in property tax base immediately siphonned into schools. Meanwhile, sales taxes that pay for local government are the luck of the draw, depending on if your community is a major shopping destination or not.



Even the older suburbs are facing problems, with retirees and empty nesters being replaced by immigrant and minority families with children, while older strip malls and even indoor malls of these older suburbs become increasingly vacant.



Meanwhile, in the central cities, redevelopment of previously abandonned areas increases taxable households without displacing folks. Even in areas of gentrification, denser markets form to the benefit of both new and existing residents.



Ultimately, growth in household income and housing units is more important than simple population growth. After all, two households each with two wage earners without children is a more fiscally reliant scenario than one household of two struggling parents with two children. So, attracting gays, yuppies and emptynesters may seem like a "niche" market, but it's financially beneficial to our City, and thus our City can pay for more its social needs as well as added amenities.



Finally, households without children aren't a niche anyway, since less than the minority (1/3) of American households even have children, and few (1/4) are a nuclear family of a married husband and wife with children. The builders know this, and that's why almost all new St. Louis County residential construction comprises villas, townhomes or even assisted living centers. It also explains why loft and rowhouse construction and urban redevelopment are accelerating, while detached single-family home construction on the fringes lingers along.

Not sure if the May 20 issue of the St. Louis Business Journal is on the street yet, but Daniel Libeskind (winner of the contest to design a replacement for the World Trade Center) has agreed to be the lead designer of the Bottle District project north of the Edward Jones Dome. It is the front page headline. I can't link because it is not posted on the Business Journal website yet.



This is great news for the project and the city. It will bring national attention to the project and shows shows signifcant growth in the confidence in St. Louis and Downtown.

Wow. That is big news. I suppose they plan on altering the current design then?



Lets just hope this doesn't become another Richard Serra debacle (creator of the infamous "iron triangle" in the Gateway Mall).



I just confirmed the story of Libeskind's website. It does in fact mention the Bottle District as a future project.



wish the damn business journal would post their article ....

I agree with The Donald that Freedom Tower is skeletal, uninspiring. That said, I think Libeskind has done a lot of other great work.



It was really great to read that he is "enamored" with St. Louis-- ever since he first visited the Arch 30 years ago on his honeymoon.



On the general theme: "Likeskind's initial design has a swooping coliseum shape with multiple entry points." Also, at least 2 condo towers (between 8 and 32 stories), up to 50 commercial tenants and a plaza on more than 7 blocks.