urbanSTL

^ thought about that last night. Well not all downtown you can certainly argue talk about a boom for central corridor

1) Centene phase tract 1 & 2 as part of a $770 million
2) Federal Mogul site starts phase 1 of now a $340 million plan
3) Cortex/Wexford next phase @ +$140 million believe. Still got East Cortex, US Metals primed next to new metrolink station and Armory in mix of all things
4) LHN looking at close to $100 million with hotel additions, aquarium, shed roof rebuild
4) BPV supposedly to be announcing +$100 million mixed use phase II

This on top of the mega NGIA facility at $1.6 billion which will help downtown immensely. I think you looking at $3 billion of legitimate development and construction for Central corridor over the next several years

DogtownBnR wrote:I would have to think the amazing momentum created by Cortex, the CWE, Union Station, MLS, The Armory and even Centene, will lead to some big development Downtown, at some point. When that is, who knows. My biggest concerns remain the soon to be empty SBC tower, the empty Millennium and a few other vacant buildings. The SBC tower will flood the market with Class A office space. It still feels like we are in the early stages of an epic boom from the Arch to Clayton.

Based on History from the past, our city fell in needed space then increased substantially. I look at history for building as well. The City had large building booms in the 60's and 80's that filled the city with offices and residential. The first decade of 2000 (2000-2010) would have been the every 20 years construction boom. NOTICE how all of the huge projects in Downtown (Ballpark Village, Lumiere Phase 2, Bottle District, Chouteaus Lake) were proposed and only the Stadium and The Tower at OPOP were built? The Market controls everything. Judging by how the future of the economy looks, the decade that houses the 2020's will be the decade that grows up Downtown and fills in the Vacant Buildings and brings with it new construction.
History is always destined to repeat it self, every 20 years, a building boom comes along, and I think that the 2020's will see Downtown Saint Louis build, build and build more. Tis will lead to surface lots being built on and under-used parking structures demolished and new building rise in their place.
The areas of Downtown that will possibly and for sure see development are the following...
1. The Area South of Market Street and Interstate 64, those Vacant lots with the easy connection to major highways is destined to be built on sooner or later. (FOR SURE)
2. Washington Avenue, There are Vacant lots all around Washington Avenue, I wouldn't be surprised if Hotels and Residential are built here, but it would fill in Washington Avenue. (FOR SURE)
3. The Riverfront, Both and South will see increased construction including Chouteau's landing. (POSSIBILITY)
4. the Bottle District (Its a long shot) but I could see a developer building ion the Bottle District site to make it look like the original plan before the Recession. (SMALL POSSIBILITY)

DogtownBnR wrote: My biggest concerns remain the soon to be empty SBC tower, the empty Millennium and a few other vacant buildings. The SBC tower will flood the market with Class A office space.

The SBC tower situation is kinda scary but also a great opportunity... I imagine there are some motivated people to to make a financial go of the building by luring an anchor tenant and hopefully a priority for the new mayor/economic development team as well. And as I don't think there are a whole lot of existing companies located downtown in need of 250,000 square feet or more, that likely would be someone coming from the outside. The danger is that if that doesn't transpire in a reasonable time, the building will be sitting there as a sad testament to our weak office sector.

This may have been mentioned in this thread in the past but what is the thinking behind why so many companies have moved out of the city/region? What keeps companies from moving to the city/region? On one hand I know the income tax gets blamed but that doesn't explain why they would move completely out of the region (unless it is to a no income tax state), just out of the city. This also could be overblown and maybe there aren't as many moving as it seems like their are, you just rarely hear of any moving here from somewhere else. I guess some of it has been becuase of buyouts (AB, Purina, etc)

That said, I know there is suppose to be an announcement of a business (One brand owned by a much larger company) moving here from Tennessee tomorrow. They will be moving to St. Charles though, not downtown.

There are many factors to ramble off in no specific order. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that it's easier to build exactly what your company needs when lot size isn't taken into account. Land out there is cheap. Companies have also been finding it more efficient to work on 2-3 massive floors opposed to dozens of smaller ones. Company executives in St. Louis at least are more likely to live in places like Town and Country than the city. City and county are divided which causes them to compete against each other. In a region where the vast majority of people commute via car, parking must be accounted for, which is far cheaper to build in a farm field than downtown.

Downtown has a lot of challenges to face, especially when it comes to attracting these huge companies. While we should still market to these big players, I believe the future of downtown hinges upon its startup culture. We have to foster these young companies in order to grow organically, not spend millions trying to entice the big boys to come home.

I also wonder how much telecommuting is coming into play. ATT seems to be going that route. My company although small (currently downtown, 30 employees) is looking at going 100% remote in the next 5 years or so besides admin people.

GoHarvOrGoHome wrote: Downtown has a lot of challenges to face, especially when it comes to attracting these huge companies. While we should still market to these big players, I believe the future of downtown hinges upon its startup culture. We have to foster these young companies in order to grow organically, not spend millions trying to entice the big boys to come home.

Obviously fiscal impacts have to be taken into consideration whether start-up or relocation, but I strongly believe we need to push for more established biz to set up shop downtown. Got to hustle hard on all aspects of biz attraction if we want to re-shape downtown's destiny. The key is to get downtown to the place where they want to be... once that happens, the positive change can be dramatic.

General discussion and brainstorming:

100,000 workers downtown, by the end of 2020. 67 new employees each week.



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I was just in Boston Seaport District which is booming. My brothers architecture firm is leasing near where GE is moving their HQ in some very old brick buildings and a big new one they are building. He expects his lease cost to double when it expires in 3 years. Imagine if a big corporation moved to say North riverfront to be near startup activity downtown? Or ATT building.


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^ that GE plan of rehab and new construction looked pretty cool... is work well underway? Since the talk of the near north riverfront plans started, I've thought that something like that would be great for the largest warehouse (Ashley and 2nd) with new construction on the adjacent vacant lot to the south. I have full confidence we'll be seeing some progress down there in the mid-term horizon.

addxb2 wrote:General discussion and brainstorming:

100,000 workers downtown, by the end of 2020. 67 new employees each week.
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not enough coffee to do the math yet, but what jobs count is your baseline?

STLrainbow wrote:^ that GE plan of rehab and new construction looked pretty cool... is work well underway? Since the talk of the near north riverfront plans started, I've thought that something like that would be great for the largest warehouse (Ashley and 2nd) with new construction on the adjacent vacant lot to the south. I have full confidence we'll be seeing some progress down there in the mid-term horizon.

addxb2 wrote:General discussion and brainstorming:

100,000 workers downtown, by the end of 2020. 67 new employees each week.
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not enough coffee to do the math yet, but what jobs count is your baseline?

I thought I've heard 85,000 to 88,000. That's how I came up with that number.


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missy says "about 80k"





http://www.stltoday.com/business/local/ ... f2ab8.html

Good comments in the article. Very impressed with her leadership thus far.


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"St. Louis has a lot of neighborhoods with charming historic business cores. That's a good thing, but does that also create a challenge for downtown to stand out?

I think one of the issues that stood in the way of progress in the past was everyone thinking about only their neck of the woods. What we should do is look at other neighborhoods and see where we can fill in gaps. Grand Center is a great destination for the arts, so does downtown need to compete with that? No. Instead we should make it easier to get from downtown to Grand Center. We should cross-promote. That's the way this city is going to put itself back on the map for things that are positive and that we already have. Rather than seeing the neighborhoods as opposing, we want to make them more contiguous and accessible."

now thats someone who doesn't have their head in their ass

^ contiguous is the key.

I agree cooperation, accessibility etc. are very important, but 'm not sure exactly what that comment about neighborhood competition/ opposition means though... would having another arts venue downtown "compete" with Grand Center? Does having SLU Law downtown compete with Midtown? Ethnic restaurants with South Grand? I sure hope downtown stakeholders are looking to support more arts and culture there.

Downtown seemed dead yesterday from 4-9pm I was around. Flannerys dead from 4-5 (happy hour). We were the only ones at wasabi from 5-6:30 and then went back to flannerys from 6:30-9 and there was more waitress's then people inside

^Labor Day Weekend. People leave work early and head out of town.

Was walking around downtown and the arch today, seemed pretty lively to me. Definitely would like more people walking around like other great downtowns


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Labor Day weekend is slow. A bartender in Clayton told me he's never seen it so dead. Washington Ave certainly needs some help. Did the city ever help with streetscape maintenance issues? The bars and retail seemed to suffer with rough crowds on weekends. Is this still the case? What can be done to fix this? Close bars earlier on this stretch? Normally, I'd be opposed to that, but this area needs help. Overall, I have a positive outlook for downtown. Few remaining vacant buildings exist and construction should be starting soon on LaSalle, 705 Olive, Railway (down the road), Jefferson and a few others.

What cities need to know about drones
https://techcrunch.com/2016/09/04/what- ... ut-drones/