urbanSTL

My sarcasm meter may need calibration but I read Dweebe's post as pure satire.

I am excited about this project for the reasons already discussed, we would be adding a destination spot in an area that has been low, ugly and industrial for a long, long time.

I'll bet Steelcote developers are high-fiving each other over this. They took a chance by creating residential in this area with the hope that the neighborhood would be transformed over time and this very well may help to ramp up other developments. 

Top Golf is true destination entertainment that can't be replicated by anything but a Top Golf itself.  Right now, there is nothing in the city (and regional core, inclusive of the metro east) similar to this, so in this instance, there's little (if any) musical chair BS we see so often. 

Top Golf will truly bring more people into the city.

Now, I don't think it'll be as popular as the Chesterfield location, but it'll do well enough.

I'm on board and maybe (bite my tongue) would even be ok with a little tax subsidy.  a little.  

^It's a hotel.  But there are plenty of new apartments going up across the highway along Wildhorse.

TheWayoftheArch_V2.0 wrote: ↑

Aug 04, 2021

TopGolf is a cash cow.  It is always ringing up the register, which means a huge amount of sales tax dollars for the city.  If you want to reserve a bay on the weekend you have to do so 5-7 days out at Chesterfield.   For anyone to say they don't want an attraction/amenity that draws like this in the city either bowls or doesn't understand how to make an urban district thrive.  Vast numbers of people will visit the area.  This will be a great bridge attraction between downtown and CWE / Forest Park.  Richmond, VA has their Top Golf in a very similar industrial area - but without the views - within a stone's throw of the Fan and Scott's addition which is booming with new breweries and restaurants very much in line with the Grove-FPSE.  This can only be a positive given the location and that is replacing unutilized athletic field(s).

And how much better would it be if it was within "a stone's throw" of the entertainment district that already exists in Midtown, with a multitude of buildings waiting to be renovated.  

But no, we should use tax incentives to build up a whole new entertainment district with new buildings and new infrastructure, which will then fight for tenants and customers with the struggling entertainment districts we already have...just because SLU wants to sell some land?

urbanitas wrote: ↑

Aug 04, 2021

TheWayoftheArch_V2.0 wrote: ↑

Aug 04, 2021

TopGolf is a cash cow.  It is always ringing up the register, which means a huge amount of sales tax dollars for the city.  If you want to reserve a bay on the weekend you have to do so 5-7 days out at Chesterfield.   For anyone to say they don't want an attraction/amenity that draws like this in the city either bowls or doesn't understand how to make an urban district thrive.  Vast numbers of people will visit the area.  This will be a great bridge attraction between downtown and CWE / Forest Park.  Richmond, VA has their Top Golf in a very similar industrial area - but without the views - within a stone's throw of the Fan and Scott's addition which is booming with new breweries and restaurants very much in line with the Grove-FPSE.  This can only be a positive given the location and that is replacing unutilized athletic field(s).

And how much better would it be if it was within "a stone's throw" of the entertainment district that already exists in Midtown, with a multitude of buildings waiting to be renovated.  

But no, we should use tax incentives to build up a whole new entertainment district with new buildings and new infrastructure, which will then fight for tenants and customers with the struggling entertainment districts we already have...just because SLU wants to sell some land?

What site are you speaking of?

Laife Fulk wrote: ↑

Aug 05, 2021

urbanitas wrote: ↑

Aug 04, 2021

TheWayoftheArch_V2.0 wrote: ↑

Aug 04, 2021

TopGolf is a cash cow.  It is always ringing up the register, which means a huge amount of sales tax dollars for the city.  If you want to reserve a bay on the weekend you have to do so 5-7 days out at Chesterfield.   For anyone to say they don't want an attraction/amenity that draws like this in the city either bowls or doesn't understand how to make an urban district thrive.  Vast numbers of people will visit the area.  This will be a great bridge attraction between downtown and CWE / Forest Park.  Richmond, VA has their Top Golf in a very similar industrial area - but without the views - within a stone's throw of the Fan and Scott's addition which is booming with new breweries and restaurants very much in line with the Grove-FPSE.  This can only be a positive given the location and that is replacing unutilized athletic field(s).

And how much better would it be if it was within "a stone's throw" of the entertainment district that already exists in Midtown, with a multitude of buildings waiting to be renovated.  

But no, we should use tax incentives to build up a whole new entertainment district with new buildings and new infrastructure, which will then fight for tenants and customers with the struggling entertainment districts we already have...just because SLU wants to sell some land?

What site are you speaking of?

The sites along McRee, next to Bar-K, which I posted in that thread, are two of my favorites:




I think they could even squeeze it in along Vandeventer if they could rotate the axis about 30° counterclockwise...

But there are several large, mostly empty sites near Vandeventer where Topgolf would fit, within easy walking distance of The Grove and/or the Armory/Foundry area...such as here, just north of the former Iron Hill site:


Plenty of room just east of Vandeventer and south of the Metro tracks too...

I think it becomes cleaner when SLU owns the development rights, and a lot of the land.  Trying to assemble all of those pieces sounds like a nightmare.

Got it.  Yeah, my pipedream would have been for it to go where the rail access is to the east of vandeventer, just south of the Metrolink tracks, behind where the former Taxi business was that was recently torn down.  There's that perfect "wedge" where the rail lines meet that would have been a great way to tear up some old concrete and gain even more visibility from the interstate for people who typically just drive through downtown.

bwcrow1s wrote: ↑

Aug 05, 2021

I think it becomes cleaner when SLU owns the development rights, and a lot of the land.  Trying to assemble all of those pieces sounds like a nightmare.

Exactly.  

By only ever being reactive to development proposals, and by ceding development powers to self-interested entities such as SLU, the city ends up with a hodgepodge of disjointed, isolated "mixed-use" developments and "districts".  

Then everyone ends up driving between them because there isn't enough entertainment density in any given area to capture their attention for a whole evening.  And so, in order to compete, each one of these attractions believes they must provide free on-site parking.

Same as it ever was...

With sourcing like “the people” and “they said” this story is a slam dunk

urbanitas wrote:Happened to notice this on the FAA Obstruction Evaluation records site (h/t chriss), so clearly they are, or at least were, pretty serious about this location:

2020-ACE-1707-OE

Received Date: 03/09/2020
Entered Date: 03/09/2020
Completion Date: 07/31/2020
Expiration Date: 01/31/2022
Description of Location: 3311 Chouteau Avenue, Saint Louis, Missouri 63103-2911 United States
Description of Proposal: Proposed Topgolf Building and Net Poles

I see 29 determination records for the Top Golf site, with 25 net poles ranging from 90' to 170' tall - 17 of those at the maximum height.

And to Urbanitas who was the crafty researcher who first discovered the clues in the FAA filings.


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gone corporate wrote: ↑

Aug 12, 2021

Well, it looks like the Business Journal has finally caught up to chriss752 and Cityscene-STL's June 15th posting on the FAA applications for pole heights... 

STL Biz Journal: Topgolf got key regulatory approval for second St. Louis location

Bravo, Chris. Credit where it's due. Keep up the work on Cityscene; it's certainly appreciated and damn well necessary.

CityScene has been closed and turned into an archive. After 6 years and spending $6000 to keep it going, I decided to back away from it. Plus, with some things I am going into now, it would be a huge conflict of interest.

I'll keep up sharing things on my Facebook Group and Twitter as I discover things, but CityScene is dead.

And on the Business Journal, because I know they look around on this Forum. LOL. Go look harder and maybe you'll formulate some true exclusives for your subscribers for once, who pay a premium to read stuff like this. NextSTL, CityScene and others beat y'all to the party on multiple stories going back years. Same goes for the Post Dispatch. Why even report on things a few days, or weeks, after someone else does it and act like it's new news? This applies to blog posts, tweets, Facebook posts, and forum posts.

chriss752 wrote: ↑

Aug 12, 2021

. Why even report on things a few days, or weeks, after someone else does it and act like it's new news? This applies to blog posts, tweets, Facebook posts, and forum posts.

My favorite are the Twitter posts of 10 month old articles like it’s a new article.

Biz Journal is the worst offender of that but it’s algorithm based posting that picks up on what’s being talked about

moorlander wrote: ↑

Aug 12, 2021

urbanitas wrote:Happened to notice this on the FAA Obstruction Evaluation records site (h/t chriss), so clearly they are, or at least were, pretty serious about this location:

2020-ACE-1707-OE

Received Date: 03/09/2020
Entered Date: 03/09/2020
Completion Date: 07/31/2020
Expiration Date: 01/31/2022
Description of Location: 3311 Chouteau Avenue, Saint Louis, Missouri 63103-2911 United States
Description of Proposal: Proposed Topgolf Building and Net Poles

I see 29 determination records for the Top Golf site, with 25 net poles ranging from 90' to 170' tall - 17 of those at the maximum height.

And to Urbanitas who was the crafty researcher who first discovered the clues in the FAA filings.

Ha, I appreciate that, but the only reason I started looking through all the local FAA Obstruction Evaluation applications was due to Chris's comment about the application for a 530' tower crane for the Queeny Tower replacement...