Software technology companies will be the driver for job growth in the downtown CBD. I think an additional 250 companies and 3,000 employees by 2020 is a given. With additional capital and support from the region we should be able to double or triple those numbers. Asynchrony, LockerDome, TopOpps, FoodEssentials/LabelInsights, Rovertown, Tunespeak, and Juristat will lead the pack with many of them moving to new buildings downtown within the next 12 to 18 months. Arch grants along with the 4 t-Rex based accelerators add 60 companies per year to the downtown ecosystem. Exciting times indeed for the startup scene.
^ I wonder what the long term benefits will be from all these start-ups. 60/yr is a lot of companies. Over a 10 year period that would be 600 companies started downtown, but obviously a high retention and success rate will be needed to see a real benefit. If a good percentage of these companies turn into nice midsize companies, there are no guarantees that they wont leave the region for lack of talent or access to capital. I'm still highly supportive of the plan and do believe that homegrown companies are the key to success for St. Louis. Who knows maybe in 20 years, some of these companies are building their own corporate campuses or towers downtown. It will be interesting to see, either way I think we are planting some great seeds throughout the central corridor now.
http://www.stltoday.com/business/local/ ... aadb4.html
Hotel revenue and occupied is up downtown and also talks about the Millennium developers are showing interest but age and shape of the building are a issue.
Hotel revenue and occupied is up downtown and also talks about the Millennium developers are showing interest but age and shape of the building are a issue.
^ That was a nice article as it gave a really good summary of a very positive aspect of what is going right for downtown and the CVC as of late. I wished the Gills would have commented on their plans but maybe too soon in their planning or financing process. But there was some more insight from LHM, ferris wheel and roller coaster if I recall correctly. I still think LHM would have scored big with an indoor water park under the shed.
Also, a good finish with the comment about downtown could support some more rooms, which leads to who, when and where?
Also, the other question that pop into my head is when will CVC go forward with ballroom expansion and parking garage RFP?. I understand that it was most likely put on the back burner for Rams stadium but the time to act is now. Bookings are up, visitors are up, Arch grounds and GRG improvements are happening, river cruises is incorporating a St. Louis stop, and so on. Heck, you finally might have TDD if done right that could bring much needed streetscape improvements.
Also, a good finish with the comment about downtown could support some more rooms, which leads to who, when and where?
Also, the other question that pop into my head is when will CVC go forward with ballroom expansion and parking garage RFP?. I understand that it was most likely put on the back burner for Rams stadium but the time to act is now. Bookings are up, visitors are up, Arch grounds and GRG improvements are happening, river cruises is incorporating a St. Louis stop, and so on. Heck, you finally might have TDD if done right that could bring much needed streetscape improvements.
^Ageeed about the Gills possible project. Also, I was hoping there would be a little more traction on the Crowne Plaza apartment conversions by now. The article sounds like they're still figuring out exactly what they want to do: i.e. "Apartments will start around the 17th or 18th floor" to paraphrase.
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I believe getting a new Downtown office/commercial high-rise is key to getting a stagnant downtown to growing again. I'm not saying something of the magnitude of 40 floors but something between 20-40 floors would be a significant upgrade to what we have now besides when was downtown's last major office/commercial building built? Last sunday i went down to meet a couple of friends under the Arch before they headed back home to Chicago & there was quite a crowd there i had many visitors asking me what where they doing as i explained to them the magnitude of the arch grounds project & they were excited which many of them said they will likely come back Saint.Louis to see the finish product. I honestly believe the biggest eyesores in downtown are the old ugly parking garages which i think many of them should get torn down & rebuilt as new parking residential components including those ugly keiner garages.
Many of the 60 companies a year that come to downtown St. Louis want to build their company downtown because it is easier to recruit young tech people to the urban core. This is partly due to the college debt that they have so the cannot or do not want to purchase a house or even a car so a live, work, play mentality is real and in many cases necessary. The other interesting aspect about the startups is that I have never heard one of these companies complain about the 1% city tax as a concern. Since they pay it from the beginning and it is in their business plan it is not seen as an added tax as someone coming outside the city would view it. It will take millions of more capital per year and it would help if we can get a big exit over the next few years in order to keep the community interested in investing within this asset class. As you can probably tell I believe growing from within is our best hope of climbing ourselves out of the hole we have created downtown.
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^ I agree building our tech and other industries up is key to downtown's growth but that is not mutually exclusive of attracting established companies to downtown.... the two should work together as is happening elsewhere; in fact, something downright unnatural is going on in ours where there are scant examples of established companies moving into downtown for the very reasons that new ones are starting up.
You'll know better than I, but even in the tech scene we've had few if any relocations of established firms into downtown; there may be something in the works with the Green Street project on Jefferson but it can't be said that we're successful in this area; meanwhile, examples like this announcement from earlier this week of a growing tech company moving into downtown Detroit are rather common elsewhere:
http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article/20 ... g-downtown
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That's 10,000 sq. ft. of office and 50 employees that will come online this fall and supplementing all the internal growth there. That's just one small example, but they all add up and there is no fundamental reason why we should not be positively absorbing 200,000+ sq. ft. a year in office space taken up by relocating firms of various size. The growing creative company Think Tank is relocating into the Raeder Building in the Landing and we need many more to follow.
You'll know better than I, but even in the tech scene we've had few if any relocations of established firms into downtown; there may be something in the works with the Green Street project on Jefferson but it can't be said that we're successful in this area; meanwhile, examples like this announcement from earlier this week of a growing tech company moving into downtown Detroit are rather common elsewhere:
http://www.crainsdetroit.com/article/20 ... g-downtown
That's 10,000 sq. ft. of office and 50 employees that will come online this fall and supplementing all the internal growth there. That's just one small example, but they all add up and there is no fundamental reason why we should not be positively absorbing 200,000+ sq. ft. a year in office space taken up by relocating firms of various size. The growing creative company Think Tank is relocating into the Raeder Building in the Landing and we need many more to follow.
At some point we will start to see larger companies open offices downtown for the purpose of recruiting younger employees. That is out of the control of the accelerator funds and venture fund people who are developing a tech startup ecosystem downtown. We would enjoy the company but are not waiting for them. We will continue to grow. I hope we can find the right match between large company and desire to move downtown. Bull moose moving to Grand center district caught me by surprise and WWT purchase of Asynchony are both positive signs.
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Saint.Louis has so much to offer sadly it severely lacks confidence compared to similar peer cities. Our corporate world is very dysfunctional including our leaders.
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Looks like downtown is hopping this weekend with thousands of HerbaLife conventioneers and that Slide the City thing.
It was very busy with both and a lot of locals on Friday all over too. RE; no rain! 
I'm sorry, but I have no love for Bill Dewitt and the Cardinals (as for this project).
It has been almost 10 years - there is PLENTY of upswing downtown IMO and the Cardinals have been sitting on this for ever. I think they could care less about this project because they sing and dance around it all the time when the media swoops in and that is it. The entire thing at this point is a joke. As long as the fans pack the stadium for every home game (which STL does) and will pay out the wing wang for tickets - they don't care.
I was just in Denver at Coors Field to see the Cards play in June. The stadium was less than 1/2 full - and about 1/3 were Cardinals fans - our seats were just behind 3rd base - lower/field and were 15.00 pp. The food was half the price as Busch.
On July 3rd - our seats at the TOP of Busch were 32.50 each and we paid 78.00 for 3 burgers/3 fries/1 Nacho Regular/1 bottle water and 2 sodas. Yep - no beer and nothing else. So all is all - with parking - about 200.00 bucks - 2 kids and 2 adults.
I have absolutely NO SYMPATHY or RESPECT for the Cards owners. If they wanted to "support and pay back" their city and fans - this would have been done A LONG time ago. A true sickening PITY!
It has been almost 10 years - there is PLENTY of upswing downtown IMO and the Cardinals have been sitting on this for ever. I think they could care less about this project because they sing and dance around it all the time when the media swoops in and that is it. The entire thing at this point is a joke. As long as the fans pack the stadium for every home game (which STL does) and will pay out the wing wang for tickets - they don't care.
I was just in Denver at Coors Field to see the Cards play in June. The stadium was less than 1/2 full - and about 1/3 were Cardinals fans - our seats were just behind 3rd base - lower/field and were 15.00 pp. The food was half the price as Busch.
On July 3rd - our seats at the TOP of Busch were 32.50 each and we paid 78.00 for 3 burgers/3 fries/1 Nacho Regular/1 bottle water and 2 sodas. Yep - no beer and nothing else. So all is all - with parking - about 200.00 bucks - 2 kids and 2 adults.
I have absolutely NO SYMPATHY or RESPECT for the Cards owners. If they wanted to "support and pay back" their city and fans - this would have been done A LONG time ago. A true sickening PITY!
Yiro Gyro has opened up a few weeks ago on the corner of Locust and 8th. Also, there's a somewhat new Middle Eastern restaurant on 14th and Washington called Medina that's really good.
Any word on what's going into the old Sauce on the Side space? The new space is awesome. Boy, do they do good business. Come to think of it, every lunch spot in downtown STL is packed to the point of ridiculousness. I've had like hour long waits just for carryout at Snarfs, SauceOTS, etc. But there still seems to be a lack of variety. No affordable/authentic Chinese at all (sorry, Bamboo Bistro is unjustifiably expensive), no real Mexican, etc. It would be nice to see some additional variety, like a Banh Mi place, a fried chicken place, or Korean. There's a lot of sandwich shops and like 6 sushi places, some Gyro places, and two good Indian places, and that's it. Also, a greasy spoon diner that doesn't close at 2 in the afternoon and is open on the weekends would be great.
With how busy every place that is open gets, you'd have to think that people are just leaving money on the table by not opening more cheaper lunch-crowd places.
Thanks in advance, STL developers.
Any word on what's going into the old Sauce on the Side space? The new space is awesome. Boy, do they do good business. Come to think of it, every lunch spot in downtown STL is packed to the point of ridiculousness. I've had like hour long waits just for carryout at Snarfs, SauceOTS, etc. But there still seems to be a lack of variety. No affordable/authentic Chinese at all (sorry, Bamboo Bistro is unjustifiably expensive), no real Mexican, etc. It would be nice to see some additional variety, like a Banh Mi place, a fried chicken place, or Korean. There's a lot of sandwich shops and like 6 sushi places, some Gyro places, and two good Indian places, and that's it. Also, a greasy spoon diner that doesn't close at 2 in the afternoon and is open on the weekends would be great.
With how busy every place that is open gets, you'd have to think that people are just leaving money on the table by not opening more cheaper lunch-crowd places.
Thanks in advance, STL developers.
Just an update on the Alverne...activity regarding this building seems to be gradually ramping up. Earlier in the spring/summer, they had one or two vans/pickup trucks worth of guys going in and out. But it's to the point where today I saw they put up a large wood-panel door on the side, and had those mini-Bobcats driving in and out.
I really had little hope for this building, so it's great to see movement. It will substantially improve what's mostly a bad stretch on Locust between 9th and Tucker.
Another large building I had little hope for, the Globe Drug, is also coming along. U-Haul just put up an awning on the Spruce Street side, and now the top three rows of windows have been replaced. Seems like a really great use for a building that would have been hard to turn into residential or retail. Also, it removes blight from the I-64 corridor. The way those windows are lit up at night really make it look nice.
I really had little hope for this building, so it's great to see movement. It will substantially improve what's mostly a bad stretch on Locust between 9th and Tucker.
Another large building I had little hope for, the Globe Drug, is also coming along. U-Haul just put up an awning on the Spruce Street side, and now the top three rows of windows have been replaced. Seems like a really great use for a building that would have been hard to turn into residential or retail. Also, it removes blight from the I-64 corridor. The way those windows are lit up at night really make it look nice.
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Question on the Alverne, are they putting parking in the ground floor retail spots?
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^ I believe so... his intentions appear to be to have parking in the basement as well as some of the first and second floors but with the commercial storefronts still activated, including an art gallery.
http://www.stltoday.com/business/column ... bb93a.html
Looking at that article again, it would seem that the 2 floor units would bring a level of luxury-living that would be a nice addition to the market. Unlike some downtowns where almost everything is market rate, I think we have a decent and growing supply of more affordable, subsidized units.
http://www.stltoday.com/business/column ... bb93a.html
Looking at that article again, it would seem that the 2 floor units would bring a level of luxury-living that would be a nice addition to the market. Unlike some downtowns where almost everything is market rate, I think we have a decent and growing supply of more affordable, subsidized units.
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It would really hamper activity if parking is on the ground floor instead of retail.
Just saw that over on Olive Hayden is having a grand opening for the Gallery 720 apartments.
^ now if any building needs a cladding job its this ugly ass building.
Imo consolidating and setting up shop downtown as per Post Dispatch. Sounds like a nice project
http://www.stltoday.com/business/local/ ... 9050e.html
The folks who turned square slices of pizza topped with Provel cheese into a local tradition are about to deliver a big investment to downtown St. Louis.
Imo’s Pizza is renovating two vacant buildings on Delmar Boulevard at 17th Street, where the company plans to move its corporate headquarters and open a distribution center.
The $5.2 million rehab also is designed to turn the four-acre site into a tourist destination, where visitors will be able to shop for Imo’s branded merchandise and pick up a frozen, St. Louis-style pizza as a souvenir.
http://www.stltoday.com/business/local/ ... 9050e.html
The folks who turned square slices of pizza topped with Provel cheese into a local tradition are about to deliver a big investment to downtown St. Louis.
Imo’s Pizza is renovating two vacant buildings on Delmar Boulevard at 17th Street, where the company plans to move its corporate headquarters and open a distribution center.
The $5.2 million rehab also is designed to turn the four-acre site into a tourist destination, where visitors will be able to shop for Imo’s branded merchandise and pick up a frozen, St. Louis-style pizza as a souvenir.