urbanSTL

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, it’s great that some who currently live downtown think it’s better than what most perceive it to be. But unless some major changes happen, growth will remain somewhat slow compared to the burbs and other neighborhoods in the city.

Laife Fulk wrote: ↑

Nov 18, 2021

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, it’s great that some who currently live downtown think it’s better than what most perceive it to be. But unless some major changes happen, growth will remain somewhat slow compared to the burbs and other neighborhoods in the city.

did you miss the multiple times in this thread that downtown + west has the highest growth of any neighborhood in the city from 2010-2020. Like 38-40% combined and the highest raw total of new residence.

I found this little article:

All communities have the best intentions when it comes to their downtowns. In most cases, a great downtown offers residents and visitors a popular gathering space to socialize, places to shop and eat, and a venue for entertainment- fundamentally creating a place where people want to be. Our vision is to create a downtown that is vibrant, vital, and resilient.
In order to achieve this, there are 10 key elements that a downtown should include.

Pedestrian and Bicycle Friendly:

Mix of Uses:

Downtown Housing Options:

Not enough, no push from city and private sector to redevelop at a faster pace). (Build and they’ll come best example is the One Cardinal Way).

Quality Outdoor Spaces and Design:

Municipal and Economic Anchors:

Culture and Entertainment :

Entertainment only two options Union Station and BPV. City museum is more of an attraction like the Arch and old court house. For Culture downtown is lacking big time. If we’re going to have a Downtown with a small town feel as major retail won’t come for a while we need independent art exhibitions, cultural night playing different cultural music, poetry nights, etc).

Public-Private Partnerships: (Almost non existent)

Well Defined and Branded :

Historic Preservation :

Clean and Safe Environment : Homelessness is out of control and their services are not well planned. Poelker Park can’t be visited as there’s dozens of homeless hanging there.

A vibrant downtown is pulsating with life, vigor and activity. Downtown should be filled with people, businesses, food and retailers. The vibrancy of downtown depends on its beauty, walkability, daytime activities, art and innovation.

The success of Downtown is vital to the overall economic success of a town. Each one of the key elements above is critical in making downtown a place where people want to live, visit, and work. Ensuring the vitality of downtown entails capitalizing on current assets while providing additional features. The Mainstreet Master Plan(External link) is a policy document that will help guide the future development and revitalization along Mainstreet.

Resilience is the ability of a downtown to withstand the shocks and stresses of an economic downturn. A mix of uses in downtown including places to live, offices to work, and places to shop and eat are needed to create economically resilient communities. The implementation of the My Mainstreet project will aid in providing these essential uses.


Link: https://www.letstalkparker.org/mymainst ... t-downtown


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dbInSouthCity wrote: ↑

Nov 18, 2021

Laife Fulk wrote: ↑

Nov 18, 2021

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, it’s great that some who currently live downtown think it’s better than what most perceive it to be. But unless some major changes happen, growth will remain somewhat slow compared to the burbs and other neighborhoods in the city.

did you miss the multiple times in this thread that downtown + west has the highest growth of any neighborhood in the city from 2010-2020.  Like 38-40% combined and the highest raw total of new residence.

No, I saw your post about the % and raw number being among the best in the city but I'm saying that whatever the numbers are, there's still a TON of room for improvement.  St. Louis' growth was just 1.2% over the last decade, ranking 47th out of the 50th largest regions (https://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/new ... of-50.html).  So even if downtown + west had the highest % jump compared to other city neighborhoods, that's like saying that placing 1st in one race heat is good enough, even though your time is still near the very bottom of the entire race field. 

What needs to change to get even more people to chose downtown + west?  The answer isn't telling people that they're wrong about their perceptions about downtown .

JJ Taino wrote: ↑

Nov 18, 2021

I found this little article:

All communities have the best intentions when it comes to their downtowns. In most cases, a great downtown offers residents and visitors a popular gathering space to socialize, places to shop and eat, and a venue for entertainment- fundamentally creating a place where people want to be.  Our vision is to create a downtown that is vibrant, vital, and resilient.
In order to achieve this, there are 10 key elements that a downtown should include.

Pedestrian and Bicycle Friendly:

Mix of Uses:

Downtown Housing Options:

Not enough, no push from city and private sector to redevelop at a faster pace). (Build and they’ll come best example is the One Cardinal Way).

Quality Outdoor Spaces and Design:

Municipal and Economic Anchors:

Culture and  Entertainment :

Entertainment only two options Union Station and BPV. City museum is more of an attraction like the Arch and old court house. For Culture downtown is lacking big time. If we’re going to have a Downtown with a small town feel as major retail won’t come for a while we need independent art exhibitions, cultural night playing different cultural music, poetry nights, etc).

Public-Private Partnerships: (Almost non existent)

Well Defined and Branded :

Historic Preservation :

Clean and Safe Environment : Homelessness is out of control and their services are not well planned. Poelker Park can’t be visited as there’s dozens of homeless hanging there.

A vibrant downtown is pulsating with life, vigor and activity. Downtown should be filled with people, businesses, food and retailers. The vibrancy of downtown depends on its beauty, walkability, daytime activities, art and innovation.

The success of Downtown is vital to the overall economic success of a town. Each one of the key elements above is critical in making downtown a place where people want to live, visit, and work. Ensuring the vitality of downtown entails capitalizing on current assets while providing additional features. The Mainstreet Master Plan(External link)  is a policy document that will help guide the future development and revitalization along Mainstreet.

Resilience is the ability of a downtown to withstand the shocks and stresses of an economic downturn. A mix of uses in downtown including places to live, offices to work, and places to shop and eat are needed to create economically resilient communities. The implementation of the My Mainstreet project will aid in providing these essential uses.


Link: https://www.letstalkparker.org/mymainst ... t-downtown


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You make a lot of good points here, and Downtown has many areas to improve in, but I'd have to disagree with Downtown not having Entertainment and Culture options.

For Entertainment: You've got Cardinals Baseball, Blues hockey, soon MLS Soccer for a combined 139/365 nights with major sporting events, playoffs not included.  There are concerts at Enterprise and Chafitz, major conventions at The Dome, food festivals at Kiener Plaza, live plays and more music at Stifel Theater, The Fox, Powell Hall.  Those last 3 fit into the culture category as well.  Then you have Union Station and BPV, both entertainment hubs, and Union Station is an amazing event space as shown when we hosted the NHL All-Star Game.  

For Culture you can't discount having a real national park at the Arch Grounds, not something many cities can boast.  Museums like the National Blues Museum, Soldier's Memorial, Museum of Westward Expansion, City Museum, the abundance of amazing architecture,  Stifel Theater, The Fox, Powell Hall. 

I'd venture to say that for all it's faults, Entertainment and Culture is one of the spots Downtown doesn't need to drastically improve on.  Continue to add more residential units like One Cardinal Way and 300 S Broadway and Downtown will look less dead when there isn't a major event bringing people in.  With more residents comes more businesses to serve them and we continue working towards a Downtown that feels active outside of gamedays/concerts.

The region growing at 1.2% and downtown + west at 40 % (all while the city is losing population) makes that growth all that more impressive and and you don’t need me telling you that the perception is wrong when the data is telling you that.


So it’s kinda bizarre to be saying hey is anyone doing a survey to find out why people don’t move downtown when it’s literally at first place alone in growth and a constant year round under construction of new units coming online
Almost a 1000 under construction or soon to start

Downtown residential growth is great but needs to continue accelerating in raw numbers just to catch back up when considering the losses in things like office vacancy, overall tourism numbers, loss of high level retail, and convention traffic. It will happen eventually but downtown is in a state of transition, and that takes time.

More entertainment downtown:
BB’s (live music)
Broadway Oyster Bar (live music)
MX Movie theatre
Escape room
Start Bar (video games)
City Garden (Sculpture Park)
The Lot (live music)

dbInSouthCity wrote: ↑

Nov 18, 2021

So it’s kinda bizarre to be saying hey is anyone doing a survey to find out why people don’t move downtown when it’s literally at first place alone in growth and a constant year round under construction of new units coming online
Almost a 1000 under construction or soon to start

Totally disagree on this - yes, there are people moving downtown, but literally thousands of people are choosing other locations like Chesterfield, St. Charles, etc.  Not sure why it's a bad thing to challenge why downtown can't try to attract even more than it currently is.

Laife Fulk wrote: ↑

Nov 18, 2021

dbInSouthCity wrote: ↑

Nov 18, 2021

So it’s kinda bizarre to be saying hey is anyone doing a survey to find out why people don’t move downtown when it’s literally at first place alone in growth and a constant year round under construction of new units coming online
Almost a 1000 under construction or soon to start

Totally disagree on this - yes, there are people moving downtown, but literally thousands of people are choosing other locations like Chesterfield, St. Charles, etc.  Not sure why it's a bad thing to challenge why downtown can't try to attract even more than it currently is.

One Cardinal Way had 3 times more people move in over a 30 day span than chesterfield had in a decade.  See attached

St.Charles is an entire county that’s getting less new out of town residents then downtown.   It’s a weird comp, as weird  as why is someone moving to st.Charles instead of downtown Clayton.  Answer is obvious, not everyone wants a condo lifestyle.  Better comp would be downtown Clayton to downtown stl and I think downtown stl wins that one too
Clayton as whole is 2.5 sq miles so just a tad bigger then downtown+ west and it’s grown by 9%(1600 or so residents) from 2010-2020 and I’d assume that’s all in downtown Clayton since it isn’t exactly adding bunch of single fam residents


There is not a single city in stl county that’s grown as nearly as fast as downtown in % or raw total or even if you want to pick out just a 2.0 sq mile area of any city or part of stl county


I can’t keep going in circles where I am showing data and you’re showing feelings.

(Chesterfield)

Well, that OCW fact is simply false or at the very least an apples to oranges comparison of a previous time frame to a very recent month. Yes, OCW had 296 units that are fully leased... Chesterfield has Wild Horse with 188 units that are fully leased, having just opened up and Aventura that recently opened next door to it that's 176 units fully leased.  

As anecdotal evidence to my point, I've had two different family members who moved to St. Louis over the last two months.  Both initially looked downtown because they were moving from other cities' downtowns, but then after touring a few condos and seeing recent stories about crime, chose to move out to the burbs.  One to St. Charles and the other to Webster Groves.  

I get we're not going to agree on this, so I'll simply say that at the end of the day, we all want the city to thrive.  I just think that we shouldn't look at recent success and accept it for being the best the city can do.  It's ok if we acknowledge that downtown has some warts that need addressing to make it more appealing to more people.

^Besides your family, I can’t imagine too many people were seriously torn between Downtown or St. Charles. Downtown’s true competition for residents is CWE, the Grove, Soulard and to a very small extent Clayton.

The bigger question is how does our Downtown compare to competitor cities downtowns like Cincinnati or Milwaukee.

SouthCityJR wrote:^Besides your family, I can’t imagine too many people were seriously torn between Downtown or St. Charles. Downtown’s true competition for residents is CWE, the Grove, Soulard and to a very small extent Clayton.

The bigger question is how does our Downtown compare to competitor cities downtowns like Cincinnati or Milwaukee.

^^^ Cincinnati is more our competition to be honest. I think Cincinnati, Cleveland, Omaha, Tulsa, Indy, and Memphis. Milwaukee and Nashville are at another level not far ahead but we’re not there yet.


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Has anyone heard of a rumor of Square looking into purchasing the Shell station downtown, I guess to either clean up or tear down.

^I tend to agree and when thinking about those cities, the biggest advantage they have compared to Downtown StL is a lack of competition for urban hi-rise residential within their own city. Downtown StL has to compete with CWE. If Cincy were to get a Jeanne Gang designed hi-rise would it be in a mini-downtown 5 miles away from the true downtown? We’re just too spread out.

I think our downtown gets beat up a lot and perception is PART of the problem.  Perfect example is the car break ins that continue to get mentioned even when discussing break in overnight in St. Peters.  I am not saying we are without problems but I think strides are being made.

I would love to see more events that draw locals downtown:
- Tree Lighting ceremony (and a better Christmas tree) along with thing to do after.  Maybe have that after the Christmas parade?
- I would like to see summer sand volleyball leagues which are very popular.  Wave Taco has a league but they are limited in space.  Why don't any of our parks offer this?
- I really feel we need to open more of our streets and maybe lose the one ways.  Our patterns downtown are not friendly for those unfamiliar and a friend looking for a condo was told by some of his other friends they likely wouldn't visit downtown.  Not much different than other heal the grid complaints.  We need to make things easily accessible.  I get the Gateway Mall - but can't those streets be open during certain times of need?  Rush hour?  Evenings?
- I would really like to see our riverfront revamped.  I know north of the Arch is a focus, and I am hearing rumors (not from the best source) of some redevelopment on the riverfront south of the Arch.
- Get rid of the Jersey Walls and Open Lenora K Sullivan Blvd.  I think having that and the levee closed does WAY more than the recessed I-44.  We are closing our front door.
- Open the streets into Laclede's Landing and just stop trying to block cruising traffic.  Police the areas instead and after time those who wish to do bad will go elsewhere.  Reclaim our city and take a firm stance from the police and the circuit attorney's office.  Those who get by on things will learn it's ok to do them.  
- If you want to increase the Convention center fine other ways than blocking streets.  Build up not out.  See #healthegrid above
- Start experiencing things for yourself rather than letting social media, new outlets etc. form your opinion of a place you don't visit often.

We have pockets and times of heavy foot traffic - it just isn't wide spread.  Just a few thoughts from a person that wants the core of our city to be it's best.

^^^ Colin, they're just looking for exclusive rights to replace the Point of Sale systems with Square readers and the ATM with a Bitcoin ATM

From the moment they purchased it  I've never really grasped what Square's goal is with their new HQ there. It's kind of a no-man's land up there north of Washington Avenue, as in nobody walks up there but the homeless and those that have no choice but to walk. It's separated from downtown by extremely ugly parking lots, that terrible Shell and homeless services.

Then Square has two private security cars idling and blocking sidewalks outside of their fenced parking lot, adding to the dystopian feel. What's the end game for them? What's even the benefit of being "downtown" if it's in a place where many (most?) of their employees aren't going to feel safe enough to walk to lunch?

Square is downtown by definition only, and it's going to remain that way unless we get some development connecting downtown to that no-man's land north of Washington. But who's going to do that? Square? Doesn't seem to be much impetus for anybody else to do so. I don't think the Convention Center expansion is going to change much up there.

^ You gotta start somewhere, you know? Starwood Group owns a bunch of property around Square now (including Square's building I believe). But, I agree that it's not the most welcoming area at this time. But on the contrary, it's only a couple blocks from Wash Ave - it's not like it's THAT far removed from the center of downtown.

Laife Fulk wrote: ↑

Nov 18, 2021

I’d be very curious if any agency or group has (or can) survey people who considered living downtown (either rent or own) but who decided not to.  What factors led people who would be interested in downtown living to choose an alternative?

Good call. Let’s see how many different ways people can cloak their racism.

Tim wrote: ↑

Nov 18, 2021

^ You gotta start somewhere, you know? Starwood Group owns a bunch of property around Square now (including Square's building I believe). But, I agree that it's not the most welcoming area at this time. But on the contrary, it's only a couple blocks from Wash Ave - it's not like it's THAT far removed from the center of downtown.

Three or four thoughtful projects and the whole area has new life and momentum.

I just read in Redfin that 2022 is going to be a renters market and an average increase of 7% in rent when norm is 3%.

A lot of young people looking for rustbelt cities due to affordability specially Columbus, Indy and Harrisburg.

Hopefully the city doesn’t make it difficult for developers to take advantage of this and 2022 could be the year for DT.

With Butlers and 300 starting and completing construction hopefully other will follow through.

If I was the city I would give relocation incentives for certain careers.


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