urbanSTL

I'd love to see Enterprise buy the building and consolidate their offices there. It's not that far-fetched, I think. The company is now being run by a younger generation, and they seem to be supportive of Downtown. 

framer wrote: ↑

Mar 03, 2020

I'd love to see Enterprise buy the building and consolidate their offices there. It's not that far-fetched, I think. The company is now being run by a younger generation, and they seem to be supportive of Downtown. 

I don't get why people think they have any intention of moving out of Clayton. If you say all their outer offices then I get it but I can't see any way they move their headquarters out of where they are now. Don't they want to buy the building next door and expand in Clayton

^I don't think they any intention of doing so, I'm saying it's plausible.  It's just wishful thinking on my part. We do that a lot around here. 

One major obstacle that I could see with Enterprise moving Downtown to 909 is the lack of parking available. I mean, have you seen the size of the lot at their Clayton campus? I imagine there's ways around that with other lots, but I know 909 has limited parking.

^A very quick estimate based on counting spaces on Google photos suggests Enterprise's garage is probably between 800 and 1000 spaces, maybe as much as 1200 or even 1400 if there's a level or so below ground. The AT&T garage is probably even more spaces than that, by a fair margin. But . . . 909 Chestnut no longer has access. And I don't see putting a thousand spaces below Twain. You'd probably have to go four to maybe five levels straight down and that would be prohibitively expensive. An eight story garage on the 10th and Pine lot might do it: one down and seven up. But again, that adds to the cost. Might be what it takes, but . . . 

It's sad to think that walking one city block from your parking space to your office is seen as a deterrent to development. 

symphonicpoet wrote: ↑

Mar 04, 2020

^A very quick estimate based on counting spaces on Google photos suggests Enterprise's garage is probably between 800 and 1000 spaces, maybe as much as 1200 or even 1400 if there's a level or so below ground. The AT&T garage is probably even more spaces than that, by a fair margin. But . . . 909 Chestnut no longer has access. And I don't see putting a thousand spaces below Twain. You'd probably have to go four to maybe five levels straight down and that would be prohibitively expensive. An eight story garage on the 10th and Pine lot might do it: one down and seven up. But again, that adds to the cost. Might be what it takes, but . . . 

I would think that, for a 1.4 million sqft structure in STL, one would need somewhere around 4-6K parking spaces. This is based off the parking ratios of the new towers in KC. It seems to me like one would never be able to build enough spaces for this tower. Instead, I think you will have reposition the property to support mixed uses that demand parking at different hours. One idea would be a vertical start up village (young residents who take transit), traditional offices that need only a few hundred or thousand spaces (maybe for startups that do well), and then residential that uses the garage at night.

Another issue that I have heard from workers in these legacy office towers is that, since open work spaces now cram alot more workers into smaller spaces, the elevators and restrooms get over crowded. 909 probably cant fix the elevator issue but upsizing the bathrooms and other spaces could be doable with enough funding.

ldai_phs wrote: ↑

Mar 04, 2020

symphonicpoet wrote: ↑

Mar 04, 2020

^A very quick estimate based on counting spaces on Google photos suggests Enterprise's garage is probably between 800 and 1000 spaces, maybe as much as 1200 or even 1400 if there's a level or so below ground. The AT&T garage is probably even more spaces than that, by a fair margin. But . . . 909 Chestnut no longer has access. And I don't see putting a thousand spaces below Twain. You'd probably have to go four to maybe five levels straight down and that would be prohibitively expensive. An eight story garage on the 10th and Pine lot might do it: one down and seven up. But again, that adds to the cost. Might be what it takes, but . . . 

I would think that, for a 1.4 million sqft structure in STL, one would need somewhere around 4-6K parking spaces. This is based off the parking ratios of the new towers in KC. It seems to me like one would never be able to build enough spaces for this tower. Instead, I think you will have reposition the property to support mixed uses that demand parking at different hours. One idea would be a vertical start up village (young residents who take transit), traditional offices that need only a few hundred or thousand spaces (maybe for startups that do well), and then residential that uses the garage at night.

Another issue that I have heard from workers in these legacy office towers is that, since open work spaces now cram alot more workers into smaller spaces, the elevators and restrooms get over crowded. 909 probably cant fix the elevator issue but upsizing the bathrooms and other spaces could be doable with enough funding.

even if we use 150GSF per employee, thats nearly 10,000  but this building was fully occupied before and parking wasnt an issue 

dbInSouthCity wrote: ↑

Mar 04, 2020

even if we use 150GSF per employee, thats nearly 10,000  but this building was fully occupied before and parking wasnt an issue 

Oh trust me it was.  Back in the early 2000s, SBC moved a number of Yellow Pages employees from near Manchester & I-270 into the AT&T Tower.

You heard talk on the elevators for weeks about how terrible it was that they had to walk several blocks and PAY to park.

Underground garages are $25,000-35,000 per spot and that's without consideration this is in a downtown thats been around for over a 100 years with all kinds of stuff under it that would need to be relocated. 

sc4mayor wrote: ↑

Mar 04, 2020

^^ You could probably squeeze a garage in at 10th and Pine without any demo.  I’m on my phone so I can’t measure any distances right now but see the garages at 4th and Olive and Broadway and Locust as a template.  Those are both similarly sized to this lot.

50 cars per floor at best, so to get to 800 its ~16 floors.  Also would probably have to vacate the alley and the ramps would be ridiculously steep.

STLEnginerd wrote: ↑

Mar 04, 2020

I wish they had built one under Kiener Plaza before the redo there.  It would have opened an opportunity to redevelop the hated Kiener garages. The business case to publicly fund that one would have been even better since you could have assumed a fair amount of Arch visitor traffic.

Amen to that buddy. I'd love it if we had taken the Gateway Mall and rebuilt it so parking was underground. Looking at what Wash U was able to do makes me wish it would've been even remotely economically viable. But, as noted, underground parking gets damn expensive, and fast, and especially when one has to reroute a multitude of underground infrastructure. That all said, I'd be overjoyed to see parking under the Serra Sculpture; I wouldn't mind if the Mark Twain Hotel halfway house / pederast sanctuary was turned into a garage, so long as ground-level retail was incorporated. 

Parking remains a significant issue for Downtown, and despite how much car parking is (understandably) loathed on this Forum, it is something that must be fixed in the near term if we are to see Downtown buildings repopulated with workers. Now, I don't want to go off-topic and talk too much on parking, but I think that it is the #1 reason for the vacancies of both 909 Chestnut and the Railroad Exchange. Perhaps the best solution would be new construction of a massive new parking garage between these properties. I'd strongly recommend a joint solution would be to build a new garage on the entire block between 6th, 7th, Olive, and Pine. The site currently has about half the site covered with the old garage for the RX & Famous-Barr/Macy's retail customers. I'd recommend a full redevelopment of that garage & block, putting restaurant retail on the ground floor, and building a massive garage that'd cover the entire block's footprint, a garage similar to that for the Enterprise Center, or what you'd find near BJC for their employees. Make it at least 10 stories tall; hell, make it 15. Three of the streets facing the site are already garages (Met Square, Kiener Garage, and the garage above the FedEx office), and the site's already mostly a garage plus a parking lot, so it's not like the view would change too much. 

Get this built, and you have thousands of ready spots in a modern facility to house new workers going into both the Railroad Exchange and 909 Chestnut. 

Meanwhile, having this potentially excess parking capacity could also be a harbinger to the redevelopment of the Kiener Garages. I see the need for parking garages to remain there going forward, as we are a car culture, but they need office buildings on top of them, not just being garages. So, build the garage I mentioned above, then tear down and redevelop the Kiener Garages into office buildings with parking underneath. Maybe they could be built in a way that is interactive to Kiener Plaza visitors, or at least wouldn't be as dog ugly to look at in their current iteration today. 

If this building is ever going to be brought back to life a very extensive rehab is needed I will likely say 100% of it. There’s no point in chasing a company or companies if the building is still outdated for current times. I think this building and TRX building are out of the running for the USDA jobs. This building will remain a black eye on our beleaguered office market.


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STLEnginerd wrote: ↑

Mar 04, 2020

Also worth noting the old AT&T garage supported 3 buildings worth of people so i don't think you would have necessarily have to replace 100% of the parking in that structure. 

Not saying there isn't a ton of room in the garage as it is now, but it didn't support the three buildings of people.  Of the employees who parked downtown in 2000 or so, there was a long waiting list to have a space in that garage.  The rest parked in Stadium and, later, some got put in Cupples.

sc4mayor wrote: ↑

Mar 03, 2020

Why landing USDA may not be enough for troubled downtown tower
https://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/new ... s_headline
Some highlights:

Wooing a major U.S. Department of Agriculture office to the former AT&T tower in downtown St. Louis will do little to turn around one of the region's largest vacant buildings, according to those in the commercial real estate community.

While many real estate experts believe that would offer some benefit, others have questioned what revenue, if any, a tenant of that size would bring and whether it would even be financially feasible to "re-open" the building. The lease would represent about 12.5% of the building's 1.4 million square feet, meaning it would have a more than 80% vacancy rate. 

USDA's timeline of when it wants to occupy that space is likely "too aggressive of a timeline to work for the AT&T building," Steinbach added.  Another unknown for the building is the amount of money ownership would need to invest in the building to get it ready for occupancy, let alone remain competitive. The building has been vacant since the summer of 2017, when employees of the previous tenant, AT&T, moved to nearby 1010 Pine St.

"The building is in limbo," said John Warren, director at Cushman & Wakefield. "If you put money into the building, like the lobby, elevators and amenities, the market may respond."  Warren has seen how the market responds when ownership invests millions of dollars. He saw a noticeable difference in activity for his listing at 200 N. Broadway in downtown St. Louis when Balfour Pacific invested around $1.4 million to add a private "amenities floor" that includes a fitness center, locker rooms, patio terrace and bar, and a WiFi conference area. Nitrous Effect, a collective of several different creative marketing agencies, signed a lease to occupy two floors there.

JLL's Steinbach, too, has seen a major difference among his listings. One Metropolitan Square, also in downtown, was near default when owner The 601W Cos. was able to refinance and spend millions of dollars in tenant improvements, from a ground-floor food hall to an amenities floor. "With One Met Square, the ownership was completely was on board," Steinbach said.  It's what helped JLL, whose St. Louis office is also based there, secure WeWork and boost the building's occupancy 12% since the owner's efforts began.

"It will happen with AT&T. It's just a matter of time," said Steinbach.

In terms of USDA, I think RX is a perfect fit.

Strange article.  Has anyone, anywhere suggested that the USDA or GSA is actually interested in space in this building?

sc4mayor wrote: ↑

Mar 05, 2020

^ That was a follow up to this previous article in the BJ:
https://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/new ... awing.html

The agency's search for space was disclosed in financial filings made to the bond investors who own the former AT&T tower, a 1.4 million-square-foot building that's the largest office building in Missouri by square footage. Those filings also revealed that bondholders are still interested in selling the building after a previous deal fell through in November, stating in documents that the lease "should significantly improve the marketability of the property."

A spokesman for the bondholders did not respond to a request for comment.

The government has not said they are interested in this building just that they are interested in space in the City and according to an RFP issued late last year particularly downtown.  Financial filings related to the AT&T building revealed that it's owners considered pitching space there to the government.  Not sure if they followed through or not though.

Well, if that is all it was based upon, I will stick with my previous comment.  

It's strange to write an article about various folks' opinions on how something won't work, when that something seems to be entirely speculative.  It seems like a hit piece.

The other common sense thing (to me at least) would be to devote a good chunk of the existing building to parking. You at least then don't need to acquire additional property, but I'm aware this comes will it's own set of unique engineering challenges, especially since about 1/3 of each floor is taken up by elevator banks, mechanical, etc. Still, if you can convert 10+ floors to parking, suddenly the building is not only much more desirable, but you've also utilized 1/4 of the building's available space. 

Secondly, the podium/base of the building (which is larger) could be incorporated or built out in a way to provide a larger parking footprint as well - for instance, imagine adding something kind of in line with HOK's concept, but having it utilized more as an extension of the parking within the building. So, floors 3-6 would have a larger parking footprint/podium, and floors 7-12 would be just within the tower portion. Just a couple of thoughts - but clearly there don't appear to be any "cheap" options.