urbanSTL

If those areas are going great, better than anytime in the last 50 years, how can you say at the same time that downtown is holding them back?

To everyone that thinks downtown isn't better now than in the 90's. Neil Pierce a well known professional in Urban Studies came here in late 90's early 00's and said "downtown STL is the most uninteresting depressed downtown in America". He went on to say it had no shot at coming back. Never!!!

Fast forward to the late 2000's when he revisited downtown STL only to declare his statements as false and downtown is in the midst if a remarkable turnaround.

Downtown currently us more diverse, more active around the clock, and a much cleaner safer place than ever before.

http://www.livable.org/livability-resou ... wn-revival

downtown2007 wrote:Downtown currently us more diverse, more active around the clock, and a much cleaner safer place than ever before.

^Fixing your typos:
Downtown currently is more diverse, more active around the clock, and a much cleaner safer place since the mid 1970s.

downtown2007 wrote:http://www.livable.org/livability-resou ... wn-revival

Good lord that link is 10 years old. Im commenting about the current state not how we hoped downtown would be 10 years ago. I was super bullish back then too.

This just in....dt is getting another sports bar... yawn. .. Bring some jobs. Legalize pot and turn the landing into little Amsterdam.

Also did anyone know the mercantile exchange is being quietly turned into apts? 3 floors are renovated..

prophett wrote:Legalize pot and turn the landing into little Amsterdam.

bigmclargehuge wrote:

prophett wrote:Legalize pot and turn the landing into little Amsterdam.

I like that idea. I like that idea a lot. Think of how many amazing restaurants would open as a result of all those stoners getting the munchies. Stores could follow.

The Landing would actually become popular again. Not that weed would be re-illegalized in other places, but the Landing could be specifically designed to cater to that demographic more so than other areas. It should have the highest concentration of those businesses. Maybe people would start hanging out there. The 24/7 liquor sales would be great, too. Wasn't there a brothel bill proposed in the City last year? I wouldn't mind seeing it done the way Japan does it (very safe, insurance, background checks, etc.) on the Landing.

It could become our own Vegas-Amsterdam.

And you know how much tourism those places get.

A lot.

prophett wrote:This just in....dt is getting another sports bar... yawn. .. Bring some jobs. Legalize pot and turn the landing into little Amsterdam.

Also did anyone know the mercantile exchange is being quietly turned into apts? 3 floors are renovated..

Are you talking about the old St. Louis Center/current parking garage? Or the old Mercantile Library buildings?

Mercantile library.

I'd like to see if the city could figure out a way to get rid of the earnings tax. It's used as an excuse for businesses to either leave or stay in the county. Downtowns office absorption rate has been negative for ten years. It's great to see a few positives here and there but more needs to be done to attract businesses downtown. I've never seen anything being done about it. Has slay even talked about it?

roger wyoming II wrote:Downtown West is losing another 80 jobs with layoffs from Bank of America's mortgage servicing operations across from Union Station. Frustrating as heck that Saint Louis City has one of the worst downtown job performances in the nation... even Detroit has some jobs momentum.

Which building houses the BOA mortgage servicing operation?

I'd like to see if the city could figure out a way to get rid of the earnings tax. It's used as an excuse for businesses to either leave or stay in the county. Downtowns office absorption rate has been negative for ten years. It's great to see a few positives here and there but more needs to be done to attract businesses downtown. I've never seen anything being done about it. Has slay even talked about it?

Better together.

Otherwise, forget it.

The earnings tax is about a 1/3 of the city budget.

prophett wrote:This just in....dt is getting another sports bar... yawn. .. Bring some jobs. Legalize pot and turn the landing into little Amsterdam.

Also did anyone know the mercantile exchange is being quietly turned into apts? 3 floors are renovated..

Do you have any info on the new sports bar?

Also, I haven't heard about the mercantile exchange being renovated. How do you know?

jcity wrote:I'd like to see if the city could figure out a way to get rid of the earnings tax. It's used as an excuse for businesses to either leave or stay in the county. Downtowns office absorption rate has been negative for ten years. It's great to see a few positives here and there but more needs to be done to attract businesses downtown. I've never seen anything being done about it. Has slay even talked about it?

It's part of Rex Sinquefield's plan which involves Better Together.

So here's the scoop.

A buddy and myself went to check out the Millenuium Center Apts the other day. He's a DT resident and wanted to check out what units they had on offer for his daughter. We went to the buidling and toured the Apts with the maintanice manger of the building. The Millenuium Center is attached to the Mercenantile Libray building. He mentioned nemrous times during the tour that the developer has not received any tax credits from the city and that the developer had completed renovations of three floors of the Mercentaile. I was surprised. So I responded do you mean the developer has completed 3 floors of contstruction on the 1014 Locust building? He replied were also working on the Mercantile exchange buidling. Walking by the building after the tour it did appear that work was indeed going on..

Strange!!!

How were the Millenuium Center Apts? Did they mention how many were rented vs what was avaialble?

prophett wrote:So here's the scoop.

A buddy and myself went to check out the Millenuium Center Apts the other day. He's a DT resident and wanted to check out what units they had on offer for his daughter. We went to the buidling and toured the Apts with the maintanice manger of the building. The Millenuium Center is attached to the Mercenantile Libray building. He mentioned nemrous times during the tour that the developer has not received any tax credits from the city and that the developer had completed renovations of three floors of the Mercentaile. I was surprised. So I responded do you mean the developer has completed 3 floors of contstruction on the 1014 Locust building? He replied were also working on the Mercantile exchange buidling. Walking by the building after the tour it did appear that work was indeed going on..

Strange!!!

Doesn't this building have some kind of exterior cladding? Do you know if there are plans to re-do the exterior? I would like to see the historic building restored, but considering this developer is ideologically opposed to subsidies I'll assume that will not happen (since that would likely require HTC).

I walk around downtown for about 90 min today around lunch time and downtown is not dead. It could use more people but the restaurants on Washington had good size crowds and Olive street had good amount of foot traffic. Can't wait for the arcade and chem buildings to come alive again that would make olive one of the best streets in the city. I was in Culinaria and all the cash registers were open and the line was still long. I feel downtown is doing ok but does need more workers and students. Lets wait till 2016 to judge downtown.

I beg to differ. In fact, I logged into this very thread to relay a story from lunchtime today.

I mentioned a few pages back (or maybe it was another thread) about how lunch crowds seemed to be way, way down. That was my perception. I still eat out every day as I have for over 15 years in my various jobs downtown, and unless there's a big convention in town - and most of the time even then - you can now walk right into any restaurant between 11am and 1pm and it will be at most...to be optimistic..."half full."

I went to a restaurant today. I am not going to say which one because I don't think it's my business to divulge. But suffice to say it has been downtown for over 10 years and is of consistent high quality. Five years ago, at noon on any given day, the place would have had a line out the front door. Today, at noon, they were less than 1/3 full. A staff member said they were embarking on some social media advertising to try to bring in more people, and that several other restaurants in the vicinity were using the same agency for the same reason.

Now, those who live downtown might be able to say that business in the evening is as good as ever, and can make up for this dramatic loss during the day. But it was alarming to me to hear that such a mainstay is going through this kind of trouble. But I have a very, very hard time believing that there is true residential growth downtown. Something is not adding up.