urbanSTL

as noted on Twitter, that's a crap ton of parking - almost $7M worth

^ Guess so. The Aventura project in FPSE has 1.03 parking spaces per bedroom and zero retail. City Walk will have ~311 bedrooms (using same ratio as Aventura - we're guessing here). Same parking ratio yields 320 spots for residents (insanely too many) and 138 parking spaces for Whole Foods. For comparison, the Whole Foods in Brentwood - which every customer drives to - has 138 parking spaces in the four rows of parking directly in front of the store. There are many more available if counting those in front of other stores in the strip mall. Still hard to see how the CWE location can justify either 320 spaces for 311 bedrooms and in addition, 138 dedicated spots for Whole Foods.

Anybody know if the garage will be free for the public or whether it will be a pay garage? The 9 North garage only just recently started getting substantially used thanks to valet parking. It had been practically empty before then.

^ huh - would have been crazy to do a parking study of the area, perhaps? There's the WU garage on Laclede that is a public garage as well (or at least was)

Frustrating, but from my reading, it seems the city (and likely most unions) are very much in support of the project. It will get done. If not, its very bad news for the city. It wouldn't make any sense to allow QuikTrips on every corner and Rally's and McDonalds across the city, but deny a Whole Foods.

^ This isn't frustrating at all -- its just part of a process -- and they haven't done anything to delay things. The bigger concern is whether Mills can get an actual lease signed.

This project seems to be turning into the Ballpark Village of the CWE.

So did I read it wrong? What is the cause for the delay?

The article points to the delay being that the Board of Aldermen must approve the $10M TIF before construction may begin, that everything in the funding is contingent on the tax relief support being there. And, I would assume, that includes Whole Foods.

If not for United Food & Commercial Workers Local 655, and the national organization, trying to compel their demands upon Whole Foods at this specific site, then I doubt it would be newsworthy until the Board of Aldermen approve the TIF and construction begins. Until then, however, we have this sideshow, where UFCW will try to get their favored Aldermen to delay TIF approval as they try to force Whole Foods to open up this one site in the City, out of 340+ nationwide, to unionization efforts.

If that happens, then this whole deal could fall to pieces. I bet the funding is contingent on both the TIF and the signage of a long-term lease by Whole Foods as primary tenant. If those two things don't materialize, I doubt the building will, either. At minimum, that would mean no jobs for Carpenters; Iron Workers; Plumbers & Pipefitters; Electrical Workers; and so forth.

More people delaying and highly risking the broader good for private, personal interests.

This is why we don't have nice things.

^^ That's true, but there's about zero evidence that we're headed towards stopping the project all together.

^Absolutely. Far as I know, there's no news until April unless something jumps from out of the clear blue sky. Project is still very much on, dependent upon the upcoming BofA TIF meeting.

Until then, however, we have a new and highly disruptive variable...

gone corporate wrote:^Absolutely. Far as I know, there's no news until April unless something jumps from out of the clear blue sky. Project is still very much on, dependent upon the upcoming BofA TIF meeting.

right. While probably not intentional, the article gave a false impression that somehow unions were delaying this project when it hasn't even gone to the BoA yet. If we read in April that the project is in jeopardy b/c of x, y or z, then we can get anxious. But it is hardly news that UFCW would want to do what it can. This reminds me of the Dogtown Apartment issue when there were citizen concerns raised at the public meeting.... some folks here thought the sky was falling and the critics were holding the city back. Its democracy, and sometimes things are messy. (But unlike the Dogtown issue, I highly doubt Whole Foods will make any accommodations.)

The story implies that the reason Whole Foods hasn't signed a lease is because of the UFCW's actions, but is that correct? I almost hope so. Mills had hoped to begin construction February...if there's another reason WFs hasn't signed the lease, it may be even worse news for the development.

Alex Ihnen wrote:The story implies that the reason Whole Foods hasn't signed a lease is because of the UFCW's actions, but is that correct? I almost hope so. Mills had hoped to begin construction February...if there's another reason WFs hasn't signed the lease, it may be even worse news for the development.

Good point.... things get delayed for a myriad of reasons and the story is far from clear on both the lease and whether the necessary TIF legislation has even been filed. My suspicion is that if the legislation hasn't even been filed yet, there is a bigger problem than the labor issues. Seems like Mills would want to get the process going even as he is working out the lease and labor issues. Anyway, the story as written seemed to want to say something but never actually said it.

^ Well, the city's TIF board approved it (along with the Mercedes dealership) in December. Perhaps February was unrealistic, or WF is waiting for the city to sign off. Maybe Mills didn't know the full timeline of approval and thought committee approval would get it moving. Who knows.

^ Thanks.... I forgot about that.