urbanSTL

Best parking cap IMO is apartments. Metro access would allow the parking ratio to stay under 1:1. Doesn't need to be a tower or anything, just 3-5 floors on top. Some kind of street level retail is also a must at that location.

Are they going to build the structure over 10th street?

I imagine it is going to be a massive parking structure, and I would expect more units atop to mean even more parking spaces....

Still, I'd be okay with three levels of apartments on top of 10 levels of parking, or anything similar. 

they;re not putting 1000 apts in ATT and than doing more in the garage for ATT apartments.   downtown has no parking requirement at all for any use but this is stl, you are expected to have 1 to 1 at minimum 

How close are we to celebrating this as real? Dates and renderings.

dbInSouthCity wrote: ↑

Jul 22, 2024

they;re not putting 1000 apts in ATT and than doing more in the garage for ATT apartments.   downtown has no parking requirement at all for any use but this is stl, you are expected to have 1 to 1 at minimum 

Exactly. They've got a million other sq ft to lease out, no developer is going to spend money to add MORE leasible space on top of the garage. Developers are going to build a garage as cheaply as possible to make ATT more easily leasible. Same thing that will likely occur at RRX. I'm sure a new parking garage there is basically going to be Kiener garage #3, with some ground floor retail at best.

What if they stole the idea the city had for a new convention center hotel with a restaurant atop ~10 floors of parking? 

The only reason a developer would do it is if the city required it, which it SHOULD. The reason this section of Downtown sucks is that Pine is like 50% garage. Good urban garage design should at least be a requirement of any tax dollars we throw at this.

you want the city to require someone to build more apartments on a garage thats for the largest apartment building in the State's history? 

Sorry, I think I might have accidentally derailed this with what was supposed to be a side comment on what is possible with parking structures, not necessarily what's needed here. No need for anything other than parking and street level retail for activation. I don't want the parking structure to create a dead block, so we should require street activation, but getting AT&T (or should I say B1C?) going is justification enough. I don't think anything else is required here.

In an ideal world they would be adding some apartments, I understand that is probably a pipe dream. Street level retail is the hill I would die on though. Hopefully the tower gets a retail element too.

I'd be okay if they skipped on apartments ... for now. 

We obviously want them to develop this very important building in downtown St. Louis. That comes first and foremost. 

But what about requiring the developer to include the ability for a future phase on top of the parking structure? 

STLEnginerd wrote: ↑

Jul 23, 2024

dbInSouthCity wrote: ↑

Jul 23, 2024

you want the city to require someone to build more apartments on a garage thats for the largest apartment building in the State's history? 

um yes...  unless they are removing one of the Keiner Garages instead.

So the developer of the ATT building should be forced to build unnecessary apartments and if doesn't, then the owner of unrelated garages blocks away has to demolish one?  what a country 

I don't love the closing of another St. Louis street, but getting this building activated would be worth that cost. 

Street can still go under!

RockChalkSTL wrote: ↑

Jul 23, 2024

I don't love the closing of another St. Louis street, but getting this building activated would be worth that cost. 

Maybe there could be a pass through at street level

RockChalkSTL wrote: ↑

Jul 23, 2024

I don't love the closing of another St. Louis street, but getting this building activated would be worth that cost. 

Wouldn’t have to be closed

I still wonder if 909 wouldn't be an ideal candidate for a vertical farm of the inorganic kind, specifically a vertical server farm considering the massive buildout of data centers and continue buildout with coming AI boom only needing more & more infrastructure while at same time computing power being compressed.   909 Chestnut with the electrical and fiber connectivity of downtown along with some creative approaches to cooling, say opening up some of facade or floors below & above, it seems to have some potential in my mind.   In addition, the cheap sale price just might made the idea of vertical server farm on per square foot unit cost competitive with the massive warehouse buildouts.   Any thoughts on the idea?   

I bring it up because a structure of this size and sheer amount space will need a rent check somehow.   Residential and hotel rooms will generate rent and seem more possible considering the commercial/office market of any reasonable square footage isn't happening anytime soon.   However, I am not a builder (dredger) but do understand that older structures tend to be easier to convert and therefore more cost effective.   So going back to creative reuse that generate a rent check and a data server farm taking up a 1/3 of building seems doable & a whole late easier than vertical green farms.   Put the data center mid rise (that matches up with the elevator banks) and you can develop & market the lower floors and the upper floors very differently 

Kansas City has at least two of those in their downtown. Pros are that the building won’t fall over due to lack of maintenance, cons are no added street life and the facade they don’t really care about.

Don't think the floors would handle the weight of servers.  I believe SW Bell built the building next door specifically to handle such weight.  I'd much rather have a couple thousand humans in this building.  Design should be interesting as  balconies are nearly an expected amenity today.  Wondering if any recent large office building-to-residential conversion included balcony creation.  Either new balconies built out from skin or "built in" through facade window removal and a new "outside" wall set back 10 ft or so.

STLEnginerd wrote: ↑

Jul 22, 2024

Tim wrote: ↑

Jul 22, 2024

dbInSouthCity wrote: ↑

Jul 22, 2024

they;re not putting 1000 apts in ATT and than doing more in the garage for ATT apartments.   downtown has no parking requirement at all for any use but this is stl, you are expected to have 1 to 1 at minimum 

Exactly. They've got a million other sq ft to lease out, no developer is going to spend money to add MORE leasible space on top of the garage. Developers are going to build a garage as cheaply as possible to make ATT more easily leasible. Same thing that will likely occur at RRX. I'm sure a new parking garage there is basically going to be Kiener garage #3, with some ground floor retail at best.

maybe.  I would argue the city should require street facing apartments on at least 2 sides of any garage built for RRX.

Building garage only structures is 1970s and 80s development.

All of these tall buildings in the downtowns of “booming” cities are building space above parking garage with retail level/lobbies. They are adding parking and density (some of them astronomical amounts that we definitely don’t need like in Austin where buildings are build over 15 stores of parking). We should expect at least the same. Garage only structures absolutely kill downtown now. It's a bad use of space. 909 is even right on top of a metrolink stop. We shouldn’t have the same demand for parking as even most of these cities that have zero rail.

Look at the Railway garages, Keiner garages, garages next to Hyatt at Arch, Stadium garages, the countless surface lots. Too much parking or irresponsibly developed parking negates good development, especially in a downtown.

BPV has done a decent job at following the new way of building parking into development and it not creating dead space. The new foundry building seems to have way too much parking but hey at least it’s not only a parking garage. That’s what we need with any new development and should make sure that all new development in the city at least does that if a developer wants maximum parking (I’ll leave aside our need to get rid of parking minimums).

^ Thanks, never thought of that issue.  Obviously the live load of moving and putting individuals servers in place probably not so much an issue (like when my wife's cubicle was setup in the building once upon a time) but once all the servers iin place and fixed the static or dead load might be plausible or maybe some minor work on floor beams.  Also, 909 chestnut  not exactly a spring chicken as it is starting to get some age and therefore maybe a more conservative design on safe loads then we give it credit for vs what is being built today.  However, the added weight probably adds a whole other level when it comes updated and more adequate earthquake codes.  

Getting off topic as I can help rekindle some ancient college memories   But thinking it would a great capstone project for some aspiring Structural Engineering student.   Reverse engineer an existing structure based on a given re-use and give a definitive conclusion/supportive work on whether the given re-use is structurally possible.   Let the Mechanical and Electrical Engineering students figure out the rest.   

Also,  I can Imagine trying to add vertical farming would have the same issues as it involves more water than soil which in itself is pretty heavy as well (weight of server or two vs 5 gallon/35ish lbs bucket of water).