Unfortunately, I guess this has nothing to do with 4343 Duncan. It looks like this is the future McCarthy construction trailer, so they can clear out their current staging area to begin erecting the Neuroscience center parking garage.
And btw, who knew that you don't need a permit to park a double-wide on your property?
The university last summer completed renovations to the McDonnell Genome Institute and Genome Technology Access Center, both at 4444 Forest Park Ave. And more work, including to a genome engineering center and mass spectrometer laboratory in the building, is to be done by summer 2021.
Five renovations totaling $15 million included consolidating and repurposing former production labs, and rebalancing a mix of wet and dry lab space, the university said.
The university last summer completed renovations to the McDonnell Genome Institute and Genome Technology Access Center, both at 4444 Forest Park Ave. And more work, including to a genome engineering center and mass spectrometer laboratory in the building, is to be done by summer 2021.
Five renovations totaling $15 million included consolidating and repurposing former production labs, and rebalancing a mix of wet and dry lab space, the university said.
"It's to include an 1,839-space parking garage, a pedestrian link connecting the St. Louis Children's Hospital garage and a separate utility plant, the school said. But there are also plans to connect the neuroscience building with 4444 Forest Park, Rockwell-Hopkins said. That's part of a 10-year capital plan but hasn't yet been funded, she said. The pedestrian link could come in 2027."
Oh ffs...enough with the skywalk to infinity (and beyond).
^Indeed. It validates the entire BioSTL and Cortex premise. It's an ideal Case Study for company recruitment and attracting venture capital to the area.
Plus, should that drug pass FDA Phase 3, BioSTL will get a few semi trucks filled with money pulling up to their door to reinvest in their facilities. Knock wood.
It looks like the 4343 Duncan Ave. mixed-use apartment project is still alive. There's an application for an addendum to the building permit on the city website - applied on 2/24/21, and cancelled the next day, which was probably just a filing error.
Either way, something appears to be happening with it.
4343 Duncan is now being rebid, presumably, as it's been posted on SLDC Planroom again. I haven't looked through the CDs, but it doesn't look like they have reduced the scope or made any major changes. According to the project schedule, site preparation will begin in August, with a completion date of 6/30/2023.
The cover rendering is the same as the one from a year ago, on page 73 of this thread:
"4343 Duncan Avenue Apartments This mixed use project of 239,855 sf which includes a total of 262 apartment units, 4 Retail bays along Boyle Ave, and a 515 stall precast parking garage with an amenity space and roof top pool"
I contacted the developer and will post when I hear back (if I heard back).
Anyone hear any rumblings as of late if crawler will move forward this coming year. Be a nice permit add for 2021
I go back to the Stl PD article on the globe building and the reference to vacancy and lease rates. Seems like this is good news for one of the Cortex office/commercial projects to move forward say the crawler, Foundry phase II office and or even what was Cortex K. pulled out the reference from the article as per below
"Cortex and Midtown, on the other hand, were among the St. Louis region’s strongest submarket, according to Gershman, with 6% vacancy rates, lower than even Clayton. Average rental rates of over $27 per square foot fetch more than West St. Louis County and rival Clayton’s premium $30 per square foot rents."
^I'm not sure what they are including in the Midtown office market. Does that include all the SLU off-campus offices, and all the other institutional office space around there? That would lower vacancy rates a lot.
And there's obviously a lot of specialized tech and lab space in Cortex (as much of the Sandcrawler will be), with very high build-out costs. And because it is specialized space, build-to-suit rather than speculative, hence lower vacancy rates. So, a comparison with West County or Clayton cube-farms isn't very instructive.
As to when they will resume construction, there just aren't that many companies that need 150,000+ sf of that kind of specialized research space, and Ventas will need commitments for at least that much before they can proceed. Apparently they had one signed, but they backed out for some reason - maybe the pandemic, maybe something else. Whoever that was, they may get interested again if their situation improves. Or maybe Ventas scales the project cost down to fit a smaller anchor tenant and reduce their risk. Or they just could just sell it off to another developer.
They already spent several million on foundations for an 8-story office building though, so it's hard to imagine that something won't happen with it in the next year or so, one way or the other.
Ventas had issues before the pandemic, reportedly something to do with overexposure in the long-term care residential market. Their stock price is recovering though, FWIW:
^Nice. STL Biz Journal is also reporting on this: $99M mixed-use project proposed at Cortex. They say the 7-story apartments come first, perhaps by 1Q2023. The office building will have to have 50,000 sq.ft. preleased before they start building, which could come at the earliest 3Q2023.
^ & ^^, Would be a really good year for CORTEX if KDG breaks ground on apartments as it sounds like it will happen from the articles (KDG must have the financing in line if anyone has some insight, inside knowlege?), Sandcrawler comes out of its sleep (think CORTEX is a great place for Microsoft to expand its presence & maybe decentralize a little bit from west coast - think geospatial or maybe telemedicine), the other developer breaks ground on the proposed mixed use building within CORTEX (next to Cortex I believe), and for good measure Foundry phase II residential tower/platform breaks ground as it sounds as it will this year as well. That would four projects under construction by end of year and add around 600ish residential units if not mistaken.
I know razing the houses along Forest Parkway is a touchy subject but does anyone have any insight on what would be planned there outside of any massing studies/generic long term plan? Something that would pop up this year? Seems like lab space build out would be a real possibility with a matching building to the one next door (Cortex I??) considering how quick Crescent building lab space was occupied after rehab. Of course the demo is tough to stomach considering that their is still plenty of surface lots to fill and hard to believe they need for even more parking in new normal of hybrid work patterns. I'm just going to be careful of staying clear of any flying tridents around here when in St Louis in a couple months
^As the justification for the demolition and creation of yet another surface parking lot is the loss of existing striped asphalt due to construction, as well as the increase in demand from hundreds of construction workers and their supersized trucks, don't expect anything to happen with that lot until all of the Cortex construction is complete.
That would four projects under construction by end of year and add around 600ish residential units if not mistaken.
Add the 111 units at Hue and the 235 units at Chroma (both of which are closer to Cortex than the planned Foundry apartments - although the planned Greenway extension could mitigate that), and you're knocking on 1,000 new units in the immediate vicinity.
^Nice. STL Biz Journal is also reporting on this: $99M mixed-use project proposed at Cortex. They say the 7-story apartments come first, perhaps by 1Q2023. The office building will have to have 50,000 sq.ft. preleased before they start building, which could come at the earliest 3Q2023.
Rendering from the TIF application. Think the mixed-use building is a bit different than previous renderings. It looks more like the most recent Verve rendering:
Looks like they've mixed together 6 and 7 story apartment building renderings, with everything else pretty much the same. The 6 story rendering basically being the same as what chaifetz10 posted back on p.76 at this time last year.
Koman and Keeley Development Group have merged. The new entity, KDG, will pick up on Koman's and Keeley's projects. Cortex K is planned to be picked back up. Some new renderings are also available, but not many.
- 150,000SF of office.
- 161 apartments.
KDGCortexK.jpgKDGCortexK2.jpg
The newest plans show a scaled-down residential building. The images below were shared earlier on in the thread.
IMG-2678.JPGIMG-2675.JPG
We should hear more regarding the updates plans later this year or early next.
KDG has some additional renderings on their website, now showing a parking garage behind the proposed two buildings, but with a decent screen. Also, looks like the plan will include retail on the first floor, which will help connect Cortex to the Grove a bit more.
Here's what I posted previously, for those who don't want to try searching through the thread history.
Looks like they've mixed together 6 and 7 story apartment building renderings, with everything else pretty much the same. The 6 story rendering basically being the same as what chaifetz10 posted back on p.76 at this time last year.
But what's interesting is the extra story was added to the podium, while the apartment levels are basically the same. So, now there's a full 2-story streetscape built up to the sidewalk along Clayton Ave., the whole length of the building between Sarah and the garage. That's a big improvement, if it is actually built that way.
It's probably a long shot, but maybe the parking garage will get a decent screen and some retail space along Clayton as well, to continue the streetscape.
I suppose the additional podium level is a result of adding the 18,500sf of office space (assuming that wasn't in the previous plans). Or, maybe they felt they needed to get ahead of the curve and added some more of those hot, next-level amenities like:
