urbanSTL

YES! A downtown Aldi's!

^^ I wonder how flexible Aldi is when it comes to their store requirements (https://corporate.aldi.us/en/real-estate/real-estate-opportunities/).

The only potential gripe I would have would be how they would structure the parking.  Hopefully they would go for something more along the lines of Culinaria or the CWE Whole Foods and have parking located within the building itself, as opposed to outside it or in a separate garage.

sc4mayor wrote: ↑

Nov 05, 2019

Metropolitan Square has picked up a couple new tenants bringing the occupancy on downtown's tallest building to 85%.  Just two years ago it was at risk of defaulting on a $124 million dollar loan.  In May of this year it reported occupancy of about 75%.  The two new tenants are Fox Corp (yes, that FOX) who will lease close to 2,400 square feet and Gordon Rees Scully Mansukhani, a law firm.

Other new tenants include FGM Architects, which occupies about 10,500 square feet; NGK Law Firm, with about 6,000 square feet; and ComPsych, a Chicago-based provider of workplace behavioral health and wellness services, that is leasing 4,094 square feet.

"In general, downtown is becoming more attractive to companies looking to expand or relocate, and as a result, we’re definitely starting to see a very positive pattern of redevelopment and new projects that will have a significant impact in the area," said David Steinbach of JLL, which handles the leasing for One Met Square.

https://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/new ... s_headline

ComPsych is Richard Chaifetz's company, the SLU benefactor.

 Who knows, maybe stories on Met Square success can help push financing to make 909 Chestnut sale happed but probably that is wishful thinking and will truly take a leap of faith of a major backer/investor or a decent tenant comittment.   Downtown really needs both towers at 85% leased for a turnaround. 

^Leased and lit and sparkly.

symphonicpoet wrote: ↑

Nov 06, 2019

^Leased and lit and sparkly.

Um, well good for you, but I thought we were talking about vacant downtown office towers... 
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^Was trying to agree with dredger's statement that we need the big towers 85% leased or more. And we all like sparkly towers. (A good lighting package honestly brings a lot of life to a place.)

What about moving a building? posted by Patrick Tanguay   Nov 06, 2019

In 1930, Indiana Bell, a subsidiary of AT&T, needed a larger building for their headquarter. The problem? The old building needed to stay in operations at all times, providing an essential service to the city. Instead of tearing it down or simply moving to a new building, they decided to move it to a different part of the lot and build on the existing location. Just that.

The massive undertaking began on October 1930. Over the next four weeks, the massive steel and brick building was shifted inch by inch 16 meters south, rotated 90 degrees, and then shifted again by 30 meters west. The work was done with such precision that the building continued to operate during the entire duration of the move. All utility cables and pipes serving the building, including thousand of telephone cables, electric cables, gas pipes, sewer and water pipes had to be lengthened and made flexible to provide continuous service during the move. A movable wooden sidewalk allowed employees and the public to enter and leave the building at any time while the move was in progress. The company did not lose a single day of work nor interrupt their service during the entire period.
Incredibly most of the power needed to move the building was provided by hand-operated jacks while a steam engine also some support. Each time the jacks were pumped, the house moved 3/8th of an inch. https://www.amusingplanet.com/2019/10/a ... -bell.html

3 main downtown zip-codes by taxable sales-  63101 in a decade + free-fall and 63103 exploding. 
2005 to 2019 growth for all 3 combined is only 2%
year to year 2018 to 2019 its up 6%
this is just for the first 6 months of each year.

2019 catches all of the Blues playoff run, we'll see what July to end of year shows once you factor is Cardinals summer season + playoffs 

^Interesting.

2% YoY growth seems rather disappointing. Although if the 2005 and 2012 totals for 63101 included significant sales taxes from the Rams and Macy’s (which I’m guessing are major contributors to its “free fall”), and the rest of DT has managed to basically replace all of those lost sales, that is to some extent encouraging.

wabash wrote: ↑

Nov 07, 2019

^Interesting.

2% YoY growth seems rather disappointing. Although if the 2005 and 2012 totals for 63101 included significant sales taxes from the Rams and Macy’s (which I’m guessing are major contributors to its “free fall”), and the rest of DT has managed to basically replace all of those lost sales, that is to some extent encouraging.

especially when you consider inflation has been 31% in total since 2005.
another example- in the first 6 months of 1990 there was $486,901,330 in taxable sales in 63101, that would have been equivalent of $956,513,378 in the first 6 months of 2019. 
First 6 months of 1990 vs 2019 if kept with inflation vs actual 2019 
63101- $486,901,330.....if it kept with inflation: $956,513,378 & actual  $329,607,324
63102- $116,232,533....if it kept with inflation: $228,337,788 & actual 295,981,866
63103- $111,495,000....if it kept with inflation: $219,030,946 & actual $277,681,133
so 63102 and 63103 have actually beaten inflation since 1990

all 3 combined are at about $905M for the first 6 months of 2019 vs $1.4B if it kept up with inflation since 1990. 

63101 use to be only a dozen + $1Billion zip codes in the state, last year it was $750M...doesn't look like it will get there this year. 
there are other indicators to look at, for example i would take a wild guess that total personal income earned in 63101 has skyrocketed as more of the buildings were turning into residences, which also explains the taxable sale fall since business' left those buildings. 

I misread what you wrote. I though you were saying 2% YoY for all of DT since 2005. 2% OVERALL growth is real bad.

Looking for a silver lining, maybe there’s some benefit to sales - and hopefully therefore foot traffic and activity - being more evenly distributed throughout Downtown? But still, that’s really disappointing.

Would be interesting to compare with 63108.

2% is for downtown but just from first 6 months of 2005 to first 6 months of 2019.

I’ll crush some numbers for whole 2005 vs 2018 for citywide and see what 63108 shows too

Interesting look, I assume 63102 will only get better as BPV and the area around it continues to develop and add tenants, fills out space and the same for  63103 with MLS and continue west downtown development from Union Station to Jeff Ave corridor/Connector development.   As Wabash noted, a fundamental shift on where dollars will be spent and how (more entertainment less stuff) in the immediate area.

Another thought, not sure if MO collects online sales tax but assume as the downtown area can add more residents and as more stuff is bought online it should be represented in the numbers.  Another way to put it, city lost out on the closing of Macy's but some of that sales tax might be clawed back with online purchases.  However, I have no clue if sales taxes are being applied and if so, how it is distributed or if the data is accounted for.

Regional look for Jan to June 2018 vs 2019

I think if you’re looking regionally, you need to include, at the very least, St. Clair county in Illinois as well.


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So the sales tax growth story - at least in the last year - is the City. I wonder how many times that’s been the case in the last 50 years.

stladvocate wrote: ↑

Nov 08, 2019

I think if you’re looking regionally, you need to include, at the very least, St. Clair county in Illinois as well.


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I would like to but no idea where to get the Illinois data or if it’s formatted the same as MO

MO you can get down to zip code and industry code like grocery stores, bars and restaurants, etc

dbInSouthCity wrote: ↑

Nov 08, 2019

stladvocate wrote: ↑

Nov 08, 2019

I think if you’re looking regionally, you need to include, at the very least, St. Clair county in Illinois as well.


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I would like to but no idea where to get the Illinois data or if it’s formatted the same as MO

MO you can get down to zip code and industry code like grocery stores, bars and restaurants, etc

Where do you get the sales tax data for MO?

^ https://dor.mo.gov/publicreports/

It seems the current downtown residential and worker population cannot support as many downtown restaurants that exist.  The downtown Bread Co. is closing.  So, until downtown has more residents/workers, I suspect we'll see more of this.

Sad to see the Bread Co close.  I have been there twice in the past few weeks and I noticed they did seem to have a lot of workers behind the linen for the amount of customers.  I feel like there are completing sandwich shops that I have been to that are much busier - Pickleman's Deli, Gioia's Deli, Snarf's all seem to do well.