urbanSTL

^ I agree that at the very least, RGA should be building in downtown Clayton. But Dooley and Slay would rather not suggest their downtowns. I think their "scared" of upsetting whatever large company.

RGA going where Montgomery is planning a residential tower would've been a huge win-win for Clayton and RGA. It would've produced more total jobs and more total tax revenue.

Every city has its ups and downs most cities in the country are now starting to see a spring in development including here in Saint.Louis.
With further development we'll see more cranes being erected throughout the city including downtown..

^ Here is the link to St. Louis downtown feel good article. Talks a little too much about Ballpark Live but gets the point across and think it has to with timing - Arcade/Webster U announcements not out yet. I'm convinced you will see the expected high rise residential tower for downtown and wouldn't be surprised if a wave of construction is Laclede's Landing/north riverfront. Just need an anchor tenant like Bunge NA or the likes to move downtown to add some jobs.

http://issuu.com/stlcnrmag/docs/mj14_is ... 25/8193094

By the way, McKee was talking the first round of Northside regeneration improvements were going to kick off in June. I believe he was quoted as stating that they would be coming to Cass and Jefferson. Anyonme aware of anything?

Many of the exciting projects for downtown such as Blues Museum and Arcade-Wright won't be finished for another year or two, but we still will have a decent year of project completions.

Here's what I have on completions/expected completions from the 2014 Downtown Projects thread:
http://urbanstl.com/forum/viewtopic.php ... ts#p230120

Completed 2014

Gallery 515 apartments - 515 Olive (102 units; Millennium Center 11 floor apartment conversion)
Lacassian Lofts -- renovation of 2200 Locust (27 units + ground floor commercial)
CitiParc at Pine - 1531 Pine (149 senior housing units; was vacant Plaza Square Building)
Tower OPOP - 411 N. 8th (128 units + ground floor restaurant)
Stan Span and N. Tucker
911 Washington (Lammert Building) new location for T-Rex incubator
Ball Park Village Phase One
1010 Locust commercial renovation (old Bride's House Building)
U-Haul retail and storage facility occupying vacant "Globe Drug" Buildings - 418 S. Tucker
Union Station Grand Hall & Hotel renovation (Phase One of larger project)

Expected Completions 2014

Partial Completion of Arch Project street work (new on/off ramps, Texas turn-around, replacement of Walnut St. Bridge, removal of Chestnut and Market bridges, completion of south portion of Central Riverfront Trail/LKSullivan, demo of Arch parking garage and closure of Washington)
Mayfair Hotel conversion and upgrade to Magnolia Hotel - 421 N. 8th
New Police HQ -1915 Olive (conversion of old AG Edwards building)
Old Cathedral renovation and museum expansion
Laclede's Landing Plaza & 3rd Street streetscape; cobblestone re-laying
Plaza Square improvements, including new garage (intended to create high occupancy rates)

So we should have around 400 new residential units, including the completion of the first new tower in decades, along with other significant projects such as a permanent home for T-Rex laying the groundwork for more downtown tech jobs, restoration of some of our glorious treasures like Union Station and Old Cathedral and a new entertainment complex. I also hope we can get some nice retail leasing by the end of the year.,,, lots of available space. M/X and Old Post Office area spaces (such as Old Post Office Lofts and old Hamilton jewelers) might be attractive spots.

http://www.stltoday.com/business/column ... 64365.html

Downtown Houston to lose 10,000 Exon mobile jobs. I am starting to think most large companies don't want to be downtown any were.

Heh heh..."4749 square foot bungalow..."

Redbrickcity wrote:http://www.stltoday.com/business/column ... 64365.html

Downtown Houston to lose 10,000 Exon mobile jobs. I am starting to think most large companies don't want to be downtown any were.

Why do you think that?

The Post-Distpach has a story about Houston being a Boomtown in the business section... Houston has a very nice skyline. I for one would love to see a bit more height added to our downtown but nothing extreme like Oklahoma City .. I would think a 650- 700 would be perfect for our skyline.. I think a good location would be the long parking garage along Keiner Plaza ... That would give our CBD some good density .. You have the At&t tower Met Square soon to be former Laclede gas building and then the new 650 footer... Downtown is doing some good things but in honesty i can't see them building a new tallest anytime soon maybe in 10 or so years but not this decade if so i would fart in my pants.. Oops already do but i would be complete shocked if that happened.. For Houston i think they could afford to lose 10,000 its still growing very rapidly with no signs of slowly as if this were here in STL it would be a financial ruin to our downtown..

roger wyoming II wrote:

Redbrickcity wrote:http://www.stltoday.com/business/column ... 64365.html

Downtown Houston to lose 10,000 Exon mobile jobs. I am starting to think most large companies don't want to be downtown any were.

Houston is one of those towns that just is on another planet than ours in terms of activity.... a 1 million sq. ft. spec office building goes up at the same time Exxon builds a suburban headquarters. Crazy.

Anyway, I do believe that the overall national trend leans towards more businesses coming back to downtowns than away from them but that we are an unfortunate exception. Even in more modest (boomlet?) cities like Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Milwaukee and Cincy, mainstay companies are building new towers in their downtowns. Cleveland is looking at its second new tower in recent years and has a discernable but uneven back-to-downtown business movement... I don't believe a new office tower has been built in Detroit yet, but it has had impressive office growth downtown.

I'm looking forward to seeing where GE puts its new global operations center in Cincy.... it will employ about 3,000 and GE is deciding upon new construction in the Banks development along the downtown riverfront or a suburban location making big overtures.

I can't even fathom why someone would live that far south. It's so hot out all the time there. That's why my friend moved away from Texas. Well that and the culture, anyway. Ah well, I guess there must be something about Houston people like for some reason. Some friends and I may move DT soon, though I am hesitant to do so until the Arcade is done. Is there a way to start pre-leasing yet?

My brother, born and raised in STL, hates hot weather, moved to Seattle years ago and loves it.

My sister, born and raised in STL, hates cold weather, moved to Houston years ago and loves it.

framer wrote:My brother, born and raised in STL, hates hot weather, moved to Seattle years ago and loves it.

My sister, born and raised in STL, hates cold weather, moved to Houston years ago and loves it.

I'd rather get shot in the face than live in either. You already know my feelings about WA, but at least I gave it a chance. TX, on the other hand, is just out of the question. I can't live somewhere that's 100 degrees all year. I can hardly deal with the 2 or 3 months of 80+ degree weather in STL to begin with. The weather is my main problem with any city. I think the only city who's weather I would like is Auckland, where it's 55-75 degrees all year.

Link from the girlfriend. She hates coming down here. I think shes trying to tell me something

Gotta wonder if crime is still the largest factor holding downtown back

http://www.kmov.com/news/crime/Police-R ... 53241.html

GE did choose downtown Cincy for its new Global Operations Center.... great news for Cincy but it makes us even further cellar dwellers with peer cities.

roger wyoming II wrote:^^ I don't want to diminish the robberies that did happen, but I think the actual numbers reinforce the fact that crime really isn't a big problem downtown. If there's only been 29 robberies in 5.5 months downtown, that's about 5 a month or a bit more than just 1 every week. And the number of robberies before late night probably could be counted on one hand.

I agree. And 5 of them were committed by the same group on the same night. Not too concerned. Local media reaching again.

Haha you guys must work for the Mayors office. Look they other way no real problem. But you are probably right the media does tend to inflate things

^Tends to? More like always do. Watch KMOV or KSDK news for a couple nights. It's nothing but bad stories. When they can't find anything locally, they'll have a horror story from somewhere else in the country that has nothing to do with St. Louis. It's all about shock value and ratings.

bigmclargehuge wrote:Haha you guys must work for the Mayors office. Look they other way no real problem. But you are probably right the media does tend to inflate things

There are 100k people downtown everyday. 29 people have been mugged. I will take my chances.

Our crime downtown is about average to other places just look up on Google news other cities downtowns have the same kind of crime about the same rates. What hurts downtown St. Louis compared to Portland and Chicago is in St. Louis people are too scared of crime. While in a lot of other cites people just look past it or turn a blind eye.

Kmov would make a big deal of any crime downtown because it gets them ratings. While just two weeks ago in downtown Portland had a shooting and there local media just glance over it. People in our region are too afraid of crime not sure it the local media over time made them scared or if the media just fallowed what the people are scared off. But kmov is the worst at using fear ratings and Kmov is also a conservative news outlet to.