urbanSTL

dbInSouthCity wrote: ↑

Nov 01, 2024

Latest data from Cushman Wakefield on Downtown office vacancy:

St. Louis: 22.6%
Kansas City: 26.3%
Denver: 32.0%
Atlanta: 29.6%
Indy: 24.4%
Nashville: 20.7%
Cincinnati : 24.2%
Minneapolis 33.5%
St.paul 31.5%
Columbus 22.5%

Cincy is #1 in the country with office to residential conversion per capita.

Spending in the Downtown STL zip codes in 2024 was $1,810,000,000 vs $1,787,000,000 in 2023,

1.3% increase despite Cardinals drawing 500,000 less fans.

Downtown kc: $604m vs 590

dbInSouthCity wrote: ↑

Mar 27, 2025

Spending in the Downtown STL zip codes in 2024 was $1,810,000,000 vs $1,787,000,000 in 2023,

1.3% increase despite Cardinals drawing 500,000 less fans.

Downtown kc: $604m vs 590

i see what you did there with zeros

you omitted zeros for KC

I have confidence in fellow posters that they know that $1.8b is 3 times as much as 606m

dbInSouthCity wrote:Katie’s pizza saw 3,200 guests yesterday and did over $100,000 in revenue

Thanks for sharing. I just closed on a retail place for my new business, “Katie’s Best Pizza” next door. Fingers crossed!

dbInSouthCity wrote: ↑

Mar 28, 2025

Katie’s pizza saw 3,200 guests yesterday and did over $100,000 in revenue

Thanks. I just closed on a retail space a few doors down called "Katie's Yoga and Tacos and Best Taphouse". Fingers crossed.

In Q4 2024, spending in Downtown was $539M vs $453M in Q4 2023, a 19% increase. During the same 3 months, crime was down 10% in Downtown.

The $539m was 89% of what was spent in the entire 2024 in downtown KC.

dbInSouthCity wrote: ↑

Mar 29, 2025

In Q4 2024, spending in Downtown was $539M vs $453M in Q4 2023, a 19% increase. During the same 3 months, crime was down 10% in Downtown.

The $539m was 89% of what was spent in the entire 2024 in downtown KC.

The 19% increase is so interesting because it can't be put on the Blues since their attendance YOY is not significantly different. Pretty much always ~18k.

^ back to office requirements playing a role?   Maybe not as evident in the heyday of downtown office employment but none the less it should be an impact.

Not hard data but believe ATT required most of there employees to be in office by now and all of them by next month.  My much smaller employer has a one day flex to work from home but a policy directed to be in office.   We see were Feds are going.  

Back to office impacts will be seen in Q1 a bit, a lot of places like US Bank, and it’s CDC required back to office Feb 24th.

dbInSouthCity wrote: ↑

Mar 29, 2025

Back to office impacts will be seen in Q1 a bit, a lot of places like US Bank, and it’s CDC required back to office Feb 24th.

Back to office is not going to go well. Personally, my thoughts are "if you can't hack it, we'll find someone who will" but to destroy peoples lives and basically destroy society and then be like "hey, let's go back to normal now" is going to result in some fallout. The entire Biden presidency was a work from home gravy train societal ***** collapse. Nothing will ever be the same again.

Projecting much?

Haha, maybe a little. But ultimately I view it as an opportunity. I'm willing to whistle past the graveyard of destroying society if you are.

…he said following the Cholera epidemic of 1849…

DB what are the boundaries that you are using to measure downtown KC? Google shows it bounded by 31st, Woodland, the State line, and the Missouri River which seems huge

GoHarvOrGoHome wrote: ↑

Apr 01, 2025

DB what are the boundaries that you are using to measure downtown KC? Google shows it bounded by 31st, Woodland, the State line, and the Missouri River which seems huge

I think a fair boundary for Downtown KC is the River, US-71, 22nd-Pershing, I-35.

Was in Louisville this past week. DB gave us a KC breakdown. Sometimes comparisons are unhelpful but just to give some things I noticed that would be relevant to our vision of StL downtown. Louisville is obviously a smaller metro at 1.2 million.

1. Similar to StL, an interstate separates downtown from the riverfront and split the downtown area in 2, leaving some unsightly dead space right on top of downtown. They have their version of the 44/55 interchange right by downtown and a wider dividing interstate but no railroad. They are developing a neighborhood that does seem to be working well just on the other side of the interstate nearest to downtown (would be analogous to having new apartments everywhere between Chouteau and Hwy 40). So that is really helping the connections east of downtown. There’s some decent connection to the south, though a little sparse in development in parts, to Old Louisville and the university.

2. Riverfront is a mixed bag, much like us, though more cleaned up and beautified for a longer stretch but without a big attraction like the Arch. They have done a lot of work since the last time I visited. They have a massive sprawling playground on their west riverfront that looked very popular, a few other nice amenities and often do pretty big concerts on the lawns there. There are a few marinas close to downtown also. The riverfront is mainly made by their “Big Four Bridge” which is a pedestrian only bridge - it was very popular and even had a couple street performers and music. Takes you over to a pretty decent downtown with bars and restaurants on the Indiana side. This is always my inspiration for the Eads (at least half of it) but admittedly our east side is nowhere near the activity center as their middle class suburban Indiana side of New Albany and Jeffersonville which have healthy downtowns close to the river.

2. Louisville Slugger museum and big bat only made me more disappointed that Rawlings is in Westport Plaza. There were people taking pictures with the bat and it attractee activity consistently. Rawlings would have killed it considering the MLB traffic downtown. Big miss

3. Louisville is doing really well promoting the bourbon brand. I see their national advertising everywhere, have monikered their old barrel making area “whiskey alley”, some distilleries right downtown, inviting spaces and attractions for those type experiences. This is something we could learn from as a big brew capital by attracting something to the downtown core related to our brewing. Lots of people come for AB and stay downtown, so it would be nice to capitalize on that.

4. Louisville has one of the worst surface lot infested downtowns I’ve been to. Makes us look not as bad

5. Louisville has a more noticeable number unhoused people and panhandlers around downtown. There’s people sleeping outside of buildings every block. I plead St. Louis people to get out a little more - we have it pretty good in the region as a whole (though our downtown itself is a stark contrast in the problem to every other area in the region).

6. Omni and Moxy look great - both even add to significantly to their skyline. I know Moxi has been floated for St. Louis. It would be awesome to see these come here

7. Their office worker activity is almost nonexistent.

8. The evening activity was a little stronger than ours without a big event. They appear to have more restaurant and bar traffic. For nightlife, 4th street live (their BPV) was probably similar in activity but they have more casual places and bourbon bars that stayed pretty busy

Overall, probably could not call Downtown Louisville healthy. Tourism seems to be doing pretty well there but it is facing similar discourse and treatment within the region (though with less direct competition) and has very little office activity and residential in its core. Getting out a bit, it is obvious all their development is happening mostly in sprawl, similar to us.

Cool place to check out if you’re into bourbon like myself

GoHarvOrGoHome wrote: ↑

Apr 01, 2025

DB what are the boundaries that you are using to measure downtown KC? Google shows it bounded by 31st, Woodland, the State line, and the Missouri River which seems huge

64105 and 64106

This is old news, and likely mentioned elsewhere on the forum, but I'm bummed that the library closed their location in the Old Post Office. It was a great resource and nice space, but I guess too cost prohibitive, sadly.

https://www.ksdk.com/article/news/local ... a93e2eed58

delmar2debaliviere2downtown wrote: ↑

Apr 01, 2025

Was in Louisville this past week. DB gave us a KC breakdown. Sometimes comparisons are unhelpful but just to give some things I noticed that would be relevant to our vision of StL downtown. Louisville is obviously a smaller metro at 1.2 million.

1. Similar to StL, an interstate separates downtown from the riverfront and split the downtown area in 2, leaving some unsightly dead space right on top of downtown. They have their version of the 44/55 interchange right by downtown and a wider dividing interstate but no railroad. They are developing a neighborhood that does seem to be working well just on the other side of the interstate nearest to downtown (would be analogous to having new apartments everywhere between Chouteau and Hwy 40). So that is really helping the connections east of downtown. There’s some decent connection to the south, though a little sparse in development in parts, to Old Louisville and the university.

2. Riverfront is a mixed bag, much like us, though more cleaned up and beautified for a longer stretch but without a big attraction like the Arch. They have done a lot of work since the last time I visited. They have a massive sprawling playground on their west riverfront that looked very popular, a few other nice amenities and often do pretty big concerts on the lawns there. There are a few marinas close to downtown also. The riverfront is mainly made by their “Big Four Bridge” which is a pedestrian only bridge - it was very popular and even had a couple street performers and music. Takes you over to a pretty decent downtown with bars and restaurants on the Indiana side. This is always my inspiration for the Eads (at least half of it) but admittedly our east side is nowhere near the activity center as their middle class suburban Indiana side of New Albany and Jeffersonville which have healthy downtowns close to the river.

2. Louisville Slugger museum and big bat only made me more disappointed that Rawlings is in Westport Plaza. There were people taking pictures with the bat and it attractee activity consistently. Rawlings would have killed it considering the MLB traffic downtown. Big miss

3. Louisville is doing really well promoting the bourbon brand. I see their national advertising everywhere, have monikered their old barrel making area “whiskey alley”, some distilleries right downtown, inviting spaces and attractions for those type experiences. This is something we could learn from as a big brew capital by attracting something to the downtown core related to our brewing. Lots of people come for AB and stay downtown, so it would be nice to capitalize on that.

4. Louisville has one of the worst surface lot infested downtowns I’ve been to. Makes us look not as bad

5. Louisville has a more noticeable number unhoused people and panhandlers around downtown. There’s people sleeping outside of buildings every block. I plead St. Louis people to get out a little more - we have it pretty good in the region as a whole (though our downtown itself is a stark contrast in the problem to every other area in the region).

6. Omni and Moxy look great - both even add to significantly to their skyline. I know Moxi has been floated for St. Louis. It would be awesome to see these come here

7. Their office worker activity is almost nonexistent.

8. The evening activity was a little stronger than ours without a big event. They appear to have more restaurant and bar traffic. For nightlife, 4th street live (their BPV) was probably similar in activity but they have more casual places and bourbon bars that stayed pretty busy

Overall, probably could not call Downtown Louisville healthy. Tourism seems to be doing pretty well there but it is facing similar discourse and treatment within the region (though with less direct competition) and has very little office activity and residential in its core. Getting out a bit, it is obvious all their development is happening mostly in sprawl, similar to us.

Cool place to check out if you’re into bourbon like myself

COMPLETELY agree with the unhoused issues there.  Every exit off I-65 has a large number at the end of the ramp.  I am seeing signs here that we are getting worse.  I see small tent cities from the highways (44 especially and from like Jefferson until the merge with 55.  

"Reversing an ‘urban doom loop’ in St. Louis through office-to-residential conversion", from Brookings. 

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/reve ... onversion/

Sorry if this has been posted before.