Record March for the Arch
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I assume this is # of people who go through security at the museum?
from Phil S
More specifically, St. Louis's population layout is a little weird. Even though the bridges across the Mississippi mean that, in theory, the town could have grown concentrically from the original downtown center, in fact, the Illinois side has been underdeveloped for a while. The far north is flood plain, so not good for building. The near north suffered urban decay about half a century ago. So the population mostly sprawls west and south.
On a clock face, roughly from 7 o' clock to 10 o' clock.
That, in turn, diminishes the natural appeal of the downtown as a *center* of a population area.
The fact that St. Louis has never really figured out a way to make its riverfront appealing (probably in part because of flood issues) doesn't help.
And then there's the crime/political situation with the city itself. Not to be underrated, but not the sole cause of downtown's slide.
More specifically, St. Louis's population layout is a little weird. Even though the bridges across the Mississippi mean that, in theory, the town could have grown concentrically from the original downtown center, in fact, the Illinois side has been underdeveloped for a while. The far north is flood plain, so not good for building. The near north suffered urban decay about half a century ago. So the population mostly sprawls west and south.
On a clock face, roughly from 7 o' clock to 10 o' clock.
That, in turn, diminishes the natural appeal of the downtown as a *center* of a population area.
The fact that St. Louis has never really figured out a way to make its riverfront appealing (probably in part because of flood issues) doesn't help.
And then there's the crime/political situation with the city itself. Not to be underrated, but not the sole cause of downtown's slide.
Who is Phil S?hebeters wrote: ↑Apr 12, 2024from Phil S
More specifically, St. Louis's population layout is a little weird. Even though the bridges across the Mississippi mean that, in theory, the town could have grown concentrically from the original downtown center, in fact, the Illinois side has been underdeveloped for a while. The far north is flood plain, so not good for building. The near north suffered urban decay about half a century ago. So the population mostly sprawls west and south.
On a clock face, roughly from 7 o' clock to 10 o' clock.
That, in turn, diminishes the natural appeal of the downtown as a *center* of a population area.
The fact that St. Louis has never really figured out a way to make its riverfront appealing (probably in part because of flood issues) doesn't help.
And then there's the crime/political situation with the city itself. Not to be underrated, but not the sole cause of downtown's slide.
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Has anyone read the business insider article followed by NY times article on St. Louis. Looks like everyone is aiming St. Louis:
https://www.businessinsider.com/st-loui ... sco-2024-4
https://www.businessinsider.com/st-loui ... sco-2024-4
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Don’t worry about it. All the readers know how nice Clayton is and are very excited for Wildhorse Village and Downtown Chesterfield.
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Looks like lazy, copycat, journalism is going to perpetuate this story for a while
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The frustrating thing is, these articles do not look at the big picture. In the grand scheme, the "downtown CBD" is tiny compared to cities with larger downtowns. We do not include downtown west, midtown or the CWE, which would be included in most "downtowns". We separate them, which makes this look even worse. That being said, its not like Railway, Millennium and AT&T went vacant overnight. These buildings have been vacant for years, due to odd circumstances. AT&T was built for one tenant and has no parking, amongst other challenges. Railway was a huge, old beast that needs a lot of TLC. Millennium is also an odd tower that is tough to repurpose. These are not typical buildings with easy conversion potential. Take those oddballs out of the picture and our "doom loop" doesn't look as bad. What Hicks said does not quite apply to STL. We have a National Park, 3 stadiums, Union Station and other amenities downtown that many "peer cities" cannot boast. That being said, the lack of residential in the immediate CBD is a huge issue. Without more people, the shops and restaurants died. Not sure how to fix that issue, but I do believe there are solutions and these articles are not focusing the specific challenges that led to this beyond remote work and other recent challenges. I hope local 'leaders' are working hard for a solution. This bad PR is very harmful.
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102,000 sports fan, tens of thousands of workers, residents and visitors on April 6th in downtown and now the crime data from that day
Yeah, they were talking about that on Donnybrook. A huge number of people Downtown, all having a great time, and no problems. They were disappointed that the media skipped the opportunity to present some good news about Downtown.
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Yeah the fact that big momentum things like Union Station, City Field, Butler Bros, and Jefferson Arms does not factor in to the equation is ridiculous. The article portrays this as something new but downtown has been paddling upstream for 2 decades. Things like CoVID and work from home are just additional factors not the whole story.DogtownBnR wrote: ↑Apr 16, 2024The frustrating thing is, these articles do not look at the big picture. In the grand scheme, the "downtown CBD" is tiny compared to cities with larger downtowns. We do not include downtown west, midtown or the CWE, which would be included in most "downtowns". We separate them, which makes this look even worse. That being said, its not like Railway, Millennium and AT&T went vacant overnight. These buildings have been vacant for years, due to odd circumstances. AT&T was built for one tenant and has no parking, amongst other challenges. Railway was a huge, old beast that needs a lot of TLC. Millennium is also an odd tower that is tough to repurpose. These are not typical buildings with easy conversion potential. Take those oddballs out of the picture and our "doom loop" doesn't look as bad. What Hicks said does not quite apply to STL. We have a National Park, 3 stadiums, Union Station and other amenities downtown that many "peer cities" cannot boast. That being said, the lack of residential in the immediate CBD is a huge issue. Without more people, the shops and restaurants died. Not sure how to fix that issue, but I do believe there are solutions and these articles are not focusing the specific challenges that led to this beyond remote work and other recent challenges. I hope local 'leaders' are working hard for a solution. This bad PR is very harmful.
I also don't appreciate the negative comparison to San Francisco or other coastal cities. Truly pathetic that he uses a very real challenge facing St. Louis and many other cities to dunk on them and point out why the coasts are, 'still better'. It reads like sure San Fran has problem but at least it not a $*($*hole like St. Louis. Like was there any other point to the article? Its like the mean girl who feels threatened because people aren't that into her anymore deciding to put down some other girl for how she dresses or something. Reflects poorly on the authors character IMHO.
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I think the state of downtown is good….
$1,200,000,000 Gateway South project, first permit applied March 8th. Phase 1 of this project is going to turn the area south of the arch into an advanced manufacturing area that will ship homes and buildings up and down the Mississippi to customer all over the world. Besides redeveloping an old abandoned industrial area of downtown, this will also generate millions of sales tax revenue for the City.
- $200,000,000 AHM downtown multi building residential projects- all approvals in place, looking at Q3 start with first building at 2100 Washington and 2125 Locust
- $145,000,000 Jefferson Arms Renovation; this project started about 12 months ago and it has another 12 to go, 200 hotel rooms and 200 apartments at Tucker and St.Charles
- $125,000,000 Kimtpon and Staybridge hotels at Market and Jefferson
- $45,000,000 hotel project at 14th and Spruce, will become a Sheraton
- $53,000,000 Hilton Tapestry at the Mark Twain building, directly behind the ATT tower
-$200-250m renovation of the Railway Exchange building into 400-500 apartments.
-Mansion House (300 N 4th renovation)
- AT&T tower, can’t share yet but excited project should be announced this summer. (Had dinner with the new owner yesterday while he was in town, very nice and sincere, definitely capable. It’s a huge lift)
-Millennium hotel site- going to private sale, I know a group that has plans for it and I hope they get it.
$1,200,000,000 Gateway South project, first permit applied March 8th. Phase 1 of this project is going to turn the area south of the arch into an advanced manufacturing area that will ship homes and buildings up and down the Mississippi to customer all over the world. Besides redeveloping an old abandoned industrial area of downtown, this will also generate millions of sales tax revenue for the City.
- $200,000,000 AHM downtown multi building residential projects- all approvals in place, looking at Q3 start with first building at 2100 Washington and 2125 Locust
- $145,000,000 Jefferson Arms Renovation; this project started about 12 months ago and it has another 12 to go, 200 hotel rooms and 200 apartments at Tucker and St.Charles
- $125,000,000 Kimtpon and Staybridge hotels at Market and Jefferson
- $45,000,000 hotel project at 14th and Spruce, will become a Sheraton
- $53,000,000 Hilton Tapestry at the Mark Twain building, directly behind the ATT tower
-$200-250m renovation of the Railway Exchange building into 400-500 apartments.
-Mansion House (300 N 4th renovation)
- AT&T tower, can’t share yet but excited project should be announced this summer. (Had dinner with the new owner yesterday while he was in town, very nice and sincere, definitely capable. It’s a huge lift)
-Millennium hotel site- going to private sale, I know a group that has plans for it and I hope they get it.
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I think the POTENTIAL state of DT is quite good over the coming years if we actually get shovels in the ground on these projects. I do realize some are farther along like the Jefferson.
I hope history doesn’t repeat itself and the bulk of these don’t stall out. Very cautious optimism.
I hope history doesn’t repeat itself and the bulk of these don’t stall out. Very cautious optimism.
Any rumors about the Chemical Building?dbInSouthCity wrote: ↑Apr 18, 2024I think the state of downtown is good….
$1,200,000,000 Gateway South project, first permit applied March 8th. Phase 1 of this project is going to turn the area south of the arch into an advanced manufacturing area that will ship homes and buildings up and down the Mississippi to customer all over the world. Besides redeveloping an old abandoned industrial area of downtown, this will also generate millions of sales tax revenue for the City.
- $200,000,000 AHM downtown multi building residential projects- all approvals in place, looking at Q3 start with first building at 2100 Washington and 2125 Locust
- $145,000,000 Jefferson Arms Renovation; this project started about 12 months ago and it has another 12 to go, 200 hotel rooms and 200 apartments at Tucker and St.Charles
- $125,000,000 Kimtpon and Staybridge hotels at Market and Jefferson
- $45,000,000 hotel project at 14th and Spruce, will become a Sheraton
- $53,000,000 Hilton Tapestry at the Mark Twain building, directly behind the ATT tower
-$200-250m renovation of the Railway Exchange building into 400-500 apartments.
-Mansion House (300 N 4th renovation)
- AT&T tower, can’t share yet but excited project should be announced this summer. (Had dinner with the new owner yesterday while he was in town, very nice and sincere, definitely capable. It’s a huge lift)
-Millennium hotel site- going to private sale, I know a group that has plans for it and I hope they get it.
Who purchased the Railway Exchange?dbInSouthCity wrote: ↑Apr 18, 2024Nothing yet, we’ll we how long it takes to sale
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Mansion house moving forward? We had an industry conference downtown at the Hyatt recently and the hotel directed all self parkers over there because the garage was full. The condition of that building/garage alone had a dozen or so attendees that know I'm local say that they weren't comfortable walking around area. I spent more time lobbying for STL and assuaging fears than prospecting at that meeting.
All that to say - would be great to see that one cleaned up.
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Yes, it’s a major project. I know who’s doing it but I’ll let them announce it when they’re ready to goTheWayoftheArch_V2.0 wrote: ↑Apr 19, 2024Mansion house moving forward? We had an industry conference downtown at the Hyatt recently and the hotel directed all self parkers over there because the garage was full. The condition of that building/garage alone had a dozen or so attendees that know I'm local say that they weren't comfortable walking around area. I spent more time lobbying for STL and assuaging fears than prospecting at that meeting.
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Glad to hear it. Look forward to learning more.
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Speaking of Mansion House, is the City Place (200 N 4th) renovation dead now?
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I agree the outlook is pretty good and the state of greater downtown is in decent shape. But i will agree the CBD is in a lurch. Its not terminal but its not well.dbInSouthCity wrote: ↑Apr 18, 2024I think the state of downtown is good….
$1,200,000,000 Gateway South project, first permit applied March 8th. Phase 1 of this project is going to turn the area south of the arch into an advanced manufacturing area that will ship homes and buildings up and down the Mississippi to customer all over the world. Besides redeveloping an old abandoned industrial area of downtown, this will also generate millions of sales tax revenue for the City.
- $200,000,000 AHM downtown multi building residential projects- all approvals in place, looking at Q3 start with first building at 2100 Washington and 2125 Locust
- $145,000,000 Jefferson Arms Renovation; this project started about 12 months ago and it has another 12 to go, 200 hotel rooms and 200 apartments at Tucker and St.Charles
- $125,000,000 Kimtpon and Staybridge hotels at Market and Jefferson
- $45,000,000 hotel project at 14th and Spruce, will become a Sheraton
- $53,000,000 Hilton Tapestry at the Mark Twain building, directly behind the ATT tower
-$200-250m renovation of the Railway Exchange building into 400-500 apartments.
-Mansion House (300 N 4th renovation)
- AT&T tower, can’t share yet but excited project should be announced this summer. (Had dinner with the new owner yesterday while he was in town, very nice and sincere, definitely capable. It’s a huge lift)
-Millennium hotel site- going to private sale, I know a group that has plans for it and I hope they get it.
If REX and AT&T happen... Totally changes the CBD. Two projects and Downtown CBD goes from feeling anemic and dead to a hotspot. These NEED to happen.
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Former Harold's Chicken and Sports bar is now a similar concept called U-Turn. ALSO some activity in the old Sliced Pint space. For lease sign taken down and Sliced Pint logos scraped off the windows, looked like some people working inside.