The developer of the much anticipated St. Louis Centre renovation has announced plans for a broader $400 million hotel, condo and shopping district and tapped a prominent national company to help find retailers.
The district is an expansion of the $280 million St. Louis Centre renovation proposed last year by St. Louis-based Pyramid Cos. General Growth Properties, the nation’s second largest publicly-traded real estate investment company, will handle retail leasing for the project. The company owns and operates the Saint Louis Galleria in Richmond Heights and Water Tower Place in Chicago.
The district, called the Mercantile Exchange, will include several buildings, all but one of which is owned by Pyramid and its partner, Spinnaker Real Estate Partners LLC of Connecticut.
• St. Louis Centre and the office tower on top, One City Centre, at 6th Street and Washington Avenue. The two will be renamed the Concord.
• The Mercantile Library building at 6th and Locust streets.
• The Macy’s building, formerly known as Railway Exchange Building. The building is owned by Cincinnati-based May Department Stores.
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• The former Dillard’s building at Washington Avenue and 7th Street, will be renamed the Laurel.
The plan for Mercantile Exchange calls for 160,000 square feet of new retail, a 216-room hotel, 525,000 square feet of office space, as well as 175 condos and 120 luxury apartments.
The hotel, the apartments and 74 condos will be in the 580,000-square-foot Laurel building.
The district has about 1,200 parking spaces.
"We are starting now. Our goal is to have people moving in by end of next year," said John Steffen, chief executive of Pyramid. "In three years, we will see significant completion; in four years, a substantial portion will be completed, and in five years, it will be done."
This is the second major development announced this week for downtown St. Louis. Clayton-based Centene Corp. said Sunday it will moving its headquarters to Ballpark Village in downtown. Centene’s $250 million development will add up to 1.2 million square feet of office space, 50,000 to 75,000 square feet of retail space as well as a hotel Ballpark Village. That is in addition to the condos, 360,000 square feet of retail and 100,000 square feet of office already committed by Baltimore-based Cordish Co., developers of Ballpark Village.
Centene’s move will bring 1,200 new jobs to downtown.
The Laurel, will be the first portion of Steffen’s project to get underway with a grand opening scheduled for Thursday. The skybridge over Washington Avenue will be demolished in spring of 2008 with construction on the Concord building beginning in the summer. The skybridge linking the building to Macy’s on the other side will be demolished later in 2008.
Given the renaissance already underway in downtown, Steffen said, this is the perfect time for a retail district.
"Downtown is on an upswing and we can push the momentum up," Steffen said. "We are not working against the momentum as we were 20 years ago when downtown was going downward, this time we are working with the upward momentum."
Steffen said the time was right because downtown population has grown quickly in recent years. The population is estimated today at 10,000 to 13,000. Downtown, he said, has a overall healthy condo and loft market. Downtown also attracts a large number of business and leisure travelers.
The retail district will be anchored by the existing Macy’s, Steffen said, and added that Chicago-based General Growth would work to bring national retailers to downtown St. Louis.
General Growth owns, develops, operates and manages more than 200 regional malls in 44 states. The company is the largest third-party manager of regional malls. The company has 4,700 employees and its malls have 24,000 retail and department stores as well as theaters, restaurants and entertainment venues.
Being able to bring a company like General Growth to downtown St. Louis is a monumental accomplishment, said Mayor Francis Slay.
"It is a big company that does business in 44 states and they have recognized the potential and opportunity in St. Louis," Slay said.
At least 70 new restaurants and local businesses have opened in downtown in the last five years, Slay said, and what the city needs now is the kind of mainstream retailers that General Growth can bring to the market place.
"I am thrilled that one of the nation’s largest and most successful retail developers is coming to St. Louis," Slay said.
His goal for Mercantile Exchange is to have boutique-type stores on top of national retailers, Steffen said. Steffen also wants to have dining and entertainment venues in the district.
The development includes an extensive upgrade in streetscape. Steffen has secured $30 million in tax incentives under the state’s Downtown Economic Stimulus Act.
Those improvements will extend not only to Steffen’s project but will cover landscaping for about two-thirds of downtown streets, said Barbara Geisman, deputy mayor for development.
"That will allow people to visually tie the pedestrian areas together from the landscaping and bring all the projects together," she said.
The project also will receive $85 million in city tax breaks, Geisman said.
The Mercantile Exchange will complement other developments already planned for downtown, Steffen said, including Ballpark Village, Centene’s new development, and Pinnacle Entertainment Inc.’s new casino, Lumière Place, on Laclede’s Landing.
The hope is that all of them together will create greater density and draw more people to downtown, Steffen said.
"Let’s hope that someday we get to the point where tax incentives are no longer needed to get projects like this done in downtown," Steffen said.
