urbanSTL

ldai_phs wrote:

brianadler6545 wrote:

chriss752 wrote:I find 909/AT&T to be an eyesore on the skyline more than anything else Downtown. It's ugly no matter which way I view it. But I would love to see it renovated and put back into use than just sitting there. Several avenues can be taken to get this redeveloped in some form, but I would think we're looking at least a decade on this.

As for Millennium, which is not on topic here, I could see that coming down 90%. 

Agreed. I know 909 needs significant interior work, but it sounds like Millennium needs significant work all around, perhaps structurally too.

I would love to see a luxury hotel concept work here. Many large metros have a tall Ritz, Mandarin Oriental, or something of the sort atop the skyline. Maybe half residential and have luxury hotel component, and I'm talking like top of the luxury hotel scale.

We literally have a national park downtown, it's about time we cater to travelers in every style to capitalize on it.

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STL feels over weighted on the high end luxury side of things. I can’t see a third hotel doing well in STL and I don’t see the Ritz leaving Clayton anytime soon.

The hotel market was booming here just prior to COVID, so it seems like the market has room to support some growth here. Also, looking downtown, it seems the focus is primarily on value, save the Four Seasons.

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ldai_phs wrote: ↑

Jan 30, 2021

brianadler6545 wrote:

chriss752 wrote:I find 909/AT&T to be an eyesore on the skyline more than anything else Downtown. It's ugly no matter which way I view it. But I would love to see it renovated and put back into use than just sitting there. Several avenues can be taken to get this redeveloped in some form, but I would think we're looking at least a decade on this.

As for Millennium, which is not on topic here, I could see that coming down 90%. 

Agreed. I know 909 needs significant interior work, but it sounds like Millennium needs significant work all around, perhaps structurally too.

I would love to see a luxury hotel concept work here. Many large metros have a tall Ritz, Mandarin Oriental, or something of the sort atop the skyline. Maybe half residential and have luxury hotel component, and I'm talking like top of the luxury hotel scale.

We literally have a national park downtown, it's about time we cater to travelers in every style to capitalize on it.

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STL feels over weighted on the high end luxury side of things. I can’t see a third hotel doing well in STL and I don’t see the Ritz leaving Clayton anytime soon.

Yea. We don't need a third 5-star luxury hotel. The Four Seasons is plenty fine for Downtown. Plus, all the boutique style hotels that have opened up recently are pretty nice and fill in the "luxury" hotel category in Downtown. 

chriss752 wrote:

ldai_phs wrote: ↑

Jan 30, 2021

brianadler6545 wrote: Agreed. I know 909 needs significant interior work, but it sounds like Millennium needs significant work all around, perhaps structurally too.

I would love to see a luxury hotel concept work here. Many large metros have a tall Ritz, Mandarin Oriental, or something of the sort atop the skyline. Maybe half residential and have luxury hotel component, and I'm talking like top of the luxury hotel scale.

We literally have a national park downtown, it's about time we cater to travelers in every style to capitalize on it.

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STL feels over weighted on the high end luxury side of things. I can’t see a third hotel doing well in STL and I don’t see the Ritz leaving Clayton anytime soon.

Yea. We don't need a third 5-star luxury hotel. The Four Seasons is plenty fine for Downtown. Plus, all the boutique style hotels that have opened up recently are pretty nice and fill in the "luxury" hotel category in Downtown. 

I don't know...it just feels like we're missing something a little special on that end compared to other top 20 metros and other great cities.

Even the Four Seasons, while nice, is fairly separate from the core of Downtown. I think we could use a better flagship for the region. Boutiques also don't carry the same brand cachet as a big name, though I will say I was pretty impressed with The Last Hotel.

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ldai_phs wrote: ↑

Jan 30, 2021

KansasCitian wrote:So what do you think is going to become of this building? If it's functionally obsolete and the numbers don't justify renovation, what happens?

Will it be an eyesore for downtown St. Louis for decades, until the city has to demo it for safety reasons?

It's the same fate a solid number of other St. Louis buildings have faced. 

Millennium Hotel is in the same boat. 

Millennium should be bulldozed. This should be converted to other uses. There is alot of space that could be used for apartments, hotels, micro affordable units, small office spaces for start ups, etc.

I agree. I think the amount of space provided by the Millennium property will result in it being redeveloped long before 909. You could nearly fit another BPV Phase I & II there, with all of the parking and modern amenities that new office, hotel, residential, retail, etc.... tenants desire. 909 just seems harder to modernize as you're no going from the ground up. 

St. Louis should absolutely have a class-of-the-city style hotel tower at the edge of the national park in our downtown.

I've given my rants about how St. Louis needs to take its relationship with the national park and gateway mall more seriously.

We have inherent advantages that other cities in the Midwest simply cannot offer. It's time we put it to use.

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KansasCitian wrote: ↑

Jan 30, 2021

So what do you think is going to become of this building? If it's functionally obsolete and the numbers don't justify renovation, what happens?

Will it be an eyesore for downtown St. Louis for decades, until the city has to demo it for safety reasons?

It's the same fate a solid number of other St. Louis buildings have faced. 

Millennium Hotel is in the same boat. 

It's not out of the realm of possibility that some of those Federal employees up at the Goodfellow complex will end up here. But that would require a significant financial investment and/or backing by the city and Feds. It would also require a parking solution, and possibly a street closure, which isn't going to be popular around here.

First if this building is over purchased I would love to see it get a complete makeover/overhaul I wouldn’t mind seeing this as one of the top green buildings in the world. Then market it to a up and coming growing company or companies also create some exceptional co working space. As for hotel the old regal building would be a perfect location for a new hotel/residential/condos near the ballpark yet right on the doorsteps of the beautiful national park. Anyways I think this building is isn’t bad it’s just can anyone who purchase’s this building have the financial means/stability to pour an extra 2-350 million if not more too turn this building into something world class.


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^ i would guess the water runs up the middle, actually. i think that's where the restrooms, shared kitchenettes, water fountains, etc. are probably located. somebody here knows.

pattimagee wrote: ↑

Feb 01, 2021

I feel like we've talked about this in the past, but is there no market for lofts/condos downtown? 

I feel like this setup could have a walkway around the elevators to enter into some loft condos... I'm sure all of the water is on the inside too so you could figure out how to install kitchen/bath relatively cheap? Seems like the location is great and the view would be pretty great on all sides. image (2).png

There is no market for owned lofts/condos,  ive seen a lot that are on the market 200-600 days.   the rental market is wheres its at. 
i've lived down here since 2017 and there is no chance i would ever consider buying a condo,  only place in STL where i would is CWE and even that is a risky bet. 

pattimagee wrote: ↑

Feb 01, 2021

Yeah by inside, I meant middle as well. Seeing those bathrooms backing up to the elevators in the drawing - I'm assuming those could be tapped into pretty easily? 

oh, good lord, i'm sorry. my old eyes and brain... for some reason i read "outside".

pattimagee wrote: ↑

Feb 01, 2021

I feel like we've talked about this in the past, but is there no market for lofts/condos downtown? 

I feel like this setup could have a walkway around the elevators to enter into some loft condos... I'm sure all of the water is on the inside too so you could figure out how to install kitchen/bath relatively cheap? Seems like the location is great and the view would be pretty great on all sides. image (2).png

Two Light in KC is about 250,000 sqft for the residential portion. So 909 Chestnut would fit about 1800 apartments assuming 100% efficiency.

pattimagee wrote: ↑

Feb 01, 2021

Yeah by inside, I meant middle as well. Seeing those bathrooms backing up to the elevators in the drawing - I'm assuming those could be tapped into pretty easily? 

If bathrooms and kitchens could be put into apartments in the 31 story Laclede Gas Tower cheaply enough to not require any tax incentives, I'd think it could be done easily enough in 909. 

I keep hearing you can’t break this building up for multiple tennets. Every time is see a floor plan I can’t figure out why that is.

Build a hallway around the bathrooms/elevators and then have entrances to offices off of that.
Or if business wants any entire floor/floors then even better.

I must be missing something but I haven’t figured it out yet.

It would be nice if developers could take a piecemeal approach on this. If the cost for the whole tower is prohibitive, try half first. Or have two devs split projects down the middle.

That's obviously way oversimplified, but there is no doubt plenty of potential here. Unlike some other folks, I truly don't mind the demand either. Hit it up with some accent colors or lighting and I'm happy.

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jshank83 wrote: ↑

Feb 01, 2021

I keep hearing you can’t break this building up for multiple tennets. Every time is see a floor plan I can’t figure out why that is.

Build a hallway around the bathrooms/elevators and then have entrances to offices off of that.
Or if business wants any entire floor/floors then even better.

I must be missing something but I haven’t figured it out yet.

I believe elevators. There are transfer floors (so to get to floor 19 you have to transfer to a different set of elevators) which means that either the entire elevator system would need to be re-engineered or there would need to be a perfect plan in place to break out different tenants across multiple floors.

Laife Fulk wrote: ↑

Feb 02, 2021

jshank83 wrote: ↑

Feb 01, 2021

I keep hearing you can’t break this building up for multiple tennets. Every time is see a floor plan I can’t figure out why that is.

Build a hallway around the bathrooms/elevators and then have entrances to offices off of that.
Or if business wants any entire floor/floors then even better.

I must be missing something but I haven’t figured it out yet.

I believe elevators. There are transfer floors (so to get to floor 19 you have to transfer to a different set of elevators) which means that either the entire elevator system would need to be re-engineered or there would need to be a perfect plan in place to break out different tenants across multiple floors.

I guess I don’t see how having transfer floors makes it harder on breaking it up for companies (unless I am mis interpreting). Companies that need one or partial floors won’t have to worry about movies between floors. Anyone who needs a couple you just put them all on the same elevator related floors.

But I could still be missing something.

I think the floor plates are too big for residential. You'd have to divide it up into long, skinny units with minimal window exposure. Not very appealing.

Another quirk with the elevators is that they have stacked cabs. You used to have to access odd number floors from the lobby level, and even floors from the mezzanine. I see no reason the elevators couldn't be re-worked, though. Just takes money.

The model I can think of off the top of my head is the Hancock building in Chicago, which is a mixed use structure with quite a bit of residential and even larger floor plates. Accepting that we're not Chicago level sexy, I think it's still a demonstration that a mixed use structure the size of 909 Chestnut could work. (It is a tiny fraction of the size, after all. About a third of the floors. Smaller floor plates. Reduced complexity. And hey, it's already built. Kind of a bonus, that.) A mixed use conversion might be less of a heavy lift, since you could do it in sections. I can't imagine circulation would be as much of a problem with residential as with office, as you wouldn't have quite the rush hour load of nearly everyone arriving or leaving at once. You also wouldn't have anything close to the same density of people. So your elevator load will be both much smaller and at least slightly more spread out. I also can't really imagine the windows would be that big an issue. The floor plates are only 33' deep between the skin of the building and the utility core. Should be plenty of natural light, particularly with open plan lofts.

I mocked up a really quick and dirty concept of a half a floor in GIMP. The apartments sizes are just eyeballed, but given that they add up to 7800 square feet in an area of a shade north of 12,000 it should be more than feasible. I'm including a good bit of extra circulation to allow for all the subdivisions and maybe fire code. (I am no architect, so I won't pretend it's at all close to what would be necessary. It's . . . a very rough guess. Some of them probably wouldn't fly, which might mean combining things into fewer larger units.) Still, I'd guess you could get between ten and fourteen units to a floor using that plate. All the extra framing and plaster will be a lot of additional load. Especially when I fully expect every one of those walls would need to be a firewall. And how that's going to work in a more or less tubular building under changing wind loads I couldn't say. (Might be every once of those walls would end up cracked before you could say boo. Or maybe the floor pans won't even support that much weight. Or maybe the structure won't like the additional stiffness all the additional firebreaks will cause. Lots of traps to walk into. But hopefully not insurmountable if someone knows what they're doing.)

Empty office buildings are still devouring energy. Why?
https://www.fastcompany.com/90595577/em ... energy-why

symphonicpoet wrote: ↑

Feb 02, 2021

Yeah, that's not bad at all (dibs on unit 1905). 

^ i'd need to combine 1905 and 1906, i need more than 1500 SF
that what someone had done at 4101 Laclede and now they're trying to sell it for over $1M and 7months later no takes 
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/4101 ... 7477_zpid/