urbanSTL

https://www.reddit.com/r/skylineporn/s/RPalNvRe03

Comments like this are an example of the propaganda war we are losing. Downtown did not "move" to Clayton. Downtown STL currently has in the range of 20,000 more jobs than the entire city of Clayton and millions of square feet more office space. According to CBRE, 11.6 sf million vs 6.8 million. But the prevailing story is that downtown "essentially moved".

And obviously downtown has way more entertainment and tourism than Clayton does and a better restaurant scene.

Not great Bob.

dbInSouthCity wrote: ↑

Oct 29, 2025

Not great Bob.

What's the issue with, whatever this is gonna be?

Auggie wrote: ↑

Oct 29, 2025

dbInSouthCity wrote: ↑

Oct 29, 2025

Not great Bob.

What's the issue with, whatever this is gonna be?

The pizza looks terrible

Auggie wrote: ↑

Oct 28, 2025

And obviously downtown has way more entertainment and tourism than Clayton does and a better restaurant scene.

If we’re only talking about DT Clayton, I agree. If Clayton gets to include the stuff in Demun and at Wydown/Hanley, it’s probably Clayton.

sharks are circling GSL, only matter of time media gets enough people to go on the record. 

dbInSouthCity wrote: ↑

Oct 29, 2025

sharks are circling GSL, only matter of time media gets enough people to go on the record. 

GSL?

dbInSouthCity wrote:sharks are circling GSL, only matter of time media gets enough people to go on the record. 

I had a post drafted yesterday for the forum. “How much quieter can this organization get?” Then last night I went to their website and noticed that their legislative accomplishments haven’t been updated since 2023.

I can’t wait to hear about what went wrong. St. Louis has a serious lack of passionate leaders capable of tabling their egos.

SRQ2STL wrote: ↑

Oct 29, 2025

dbInSouthCity wrote: ↑

Oct 29, 2025

sharks are circling GSL, only matter of time media gets enough people to go on the record. 

GSL?

Greater St. Louis Inc. It's basically the St. Louis Chamber of Commerce.

Auggie wrote: ↑

Oct 29, 2025

SRQ2STL wrote: ↑

Oct 29, 2025

dbInSouthCity wrote: ↑

Oct 29, 2025

sharks are circling GSL, only matter of time media gets enough people to go on the record. 

GSL?

Greater St. Louis Inc. It's basically the St. Louis Chamber of Commerce.

Ah ok, right right. Just didn't recognize the acronym. 

addxb2 wrote: ↑

Oct 29, 2025

dbInSouthCity wrote:sharks are circling GSL, only matter of time media gets enough people to go on the record. 

I had a post drafted yesterday for the forum. “How much quieter can this organization get?” Then last night I went to their website and noticed that their legislative accomplishments haven’t been updated since 2023.

I can’t wait to hear about what went wrong. St. Louis has a serious lack of passionate leaders capable of tabling their egos.

It is a shame because I thought they showed a lot of promise early on. But lately, especially after Jason Hall left, it has been basically nothing and to not even be in the loop on the British Air announcement is pretty telling. 

https://www.reddit.com/r/StLouis/s/udTzzYnXIS

I have no idea how we overcome a gap so large between what is true and what people believe to be true about the city and downtown specifically.

It's not even worth saying that downtown currently has more workers than Clayton because they just don't believe you and there's nothing you can say to change their mind.

It's also shocking how opposed people are to the idea that businesses have a role in upholding the city, which is the prevailing view of pretty much every other city. The city-county divide has uniquely mind-***** St. Louisans.

Peabody will be leaving apparently

https://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/new ... ntown.html

Moving to the Edward Jones campus in Des Peres.

Edit: Post-Dispatch article says the 2022 lease renewal was long term. The move also appears to be relatively minor these days, as Peabody had already downsized in 2022 and will only be taking up 2 floors of the Edward Jones building.

The city also gave Peabody $2.5 million in incentives back in the 2010s to keep them downtown. So it makes for a pretty bad look for economic incentives to keep companies if they can just leave down the line with no repercussions. Edit 2: Lloyd and Taylor, Peabody, and Polsenelli all received millions in tax incentives from the city in the 2010s to stay downtown or expand and all three are now gone. Absolutely terrible look for these types of incentives lmao.
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They re-upped their lease at Peabody Plaza in 2022, but the details were never released. Weird move because Peabody Plaza has been attracting new tenants, not losing them. And they're not going to Clayton, so it's not exactly a typical move out of downtown. They're also bucking the trend of moving away from corporate campuses.

It's gonna be interesting to see if the capable owners of Peabody Plaza are going to be able to attract a new tenant. I also wonder if any of the other tenants will pick up the signage and building name.

Nice to see that the pro-business administration has so far completely failed to retain businesses downtown.

Bad news regarding Peabody! I am even more concerned once "Downtown Chesterfield" is completed. That area will eventually have the same draw as Clayton. The 'Downtown is too dangerous' narrative is out of control. 

I was speaking with an unnamed decision maker at a good size local company with regards to planning a client golf outing. I suggested Forest Park & this individual said " my clients do not want to come to the City. It is too dangerous." I laughed & said "have you ever been to FP on a nice day? It is teeming with activity, life & atmosphere." She admitted the "City is dangerous" narrative is overblown. Just an example of the lunacy out there right now. 

The reality is that corporate workers who are willing to work in downtowns left STL years ago. STL is left with corporate workers named Cindy and Chad and they prefer a suburban office building closer to their homes in Chesterfield. They’re ten years from retirement and their kids visit once a year.

addxb2 wrote: ↑

Nov 07, 2025

I’d like to say “STL should give up on corporate office downtown and support becoming residential neighborhood” but holy crap St. Louis has sucked at office conversion.

Not sure what STL does well.

Btw here is quote from the GSL guy in charge of Downtown.



I’m feeling… not optimistic.

St. Louis has been stellar on office to residential conversion over the last two decades. So many apartment buildings are former office. Not sure where you get this idea.

addxb2 wrote:I’d like to say “STL should give up on corporate office downtown and support becoming residential neighborhood” but holy crap St. Louis has sucked at office conversion.

Not sure what STL does well.

Btw here is quote from the GSL guy in charge of Downtown.



I’m feeling… not optimistic.

That’s…not a very inspiring quote. How do these people keep their jobs after failing year after year


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Auggie wrote:

addxb2 wrote: ↑

Nov 07, 2025

I’d like to say “STL should give up on corporate office downtown and support becoming residential neighborhood” but holy crap St. Louis has sucked at office conversion.

Not sure what STL does well.

Btw here is quote from the GSL guy in charge of Downtown.



I’m feeling… not optimistic.

St. Louis has been stellar on office to residential conversion over the last two decades. So many apartment buildings are former office. Not sure where you get this idea.

I mean relative to the post-Covid office conversion boom and relative to other peer regions. One building that I’m aware of at 10th and Locust.

addxb2 wrote: ↑

Nov 07, 2025

Auggie wrote:

addxb2 wrote: ↑

Nov 07, 2025

I’d like to say “STL should give up on corporate office downtown and support becoming residential neighborhood” but holy crap St. Louis has sucked at office conversion.

Not sure what STL does well.

Btw here is quote from the GSL guy in charge of Downtown.



I’m feeling… not optimistic.

St. Louis has been stellar on office to residential conversion over the last two decades. So many apartment buildings are former office. Not sure where you get this idea.

I mean relative to the post-Covid office conversion boom and relative to other peer regions. One building that I’m aware of at 10th and Locust.

I'd argue that's in part because most of our vacant office buildings have already been converted. Obviously there's some still left, like at Washington and Broadway and then there's the elephants like AT&T and RWX. But we just don't have as many as other cities do because our downtown office fell off long before 2020.

addxb2 wrote: ↑

Nov 07, 2025

The reality is that corporate workers who are willing to work in downtowns left STL years ago. STL is left with corporate workers named Cindy and Chad and they prefer a suburban office building closer to their homes in Chesterfield. They’re ten years from retirement and their kids visit once a year.

First off How many employees downtown does Peabody have? ( I can only find total global workforce online) Second hasn't Peabody been slowly declining and downsizing workers for years now?

As for cooperate workers all the corporate leadership is basically all boomers and native Gen-xers (which in stl are basically boomers in mindset) I don't think we will see any corporate leadership that wants to be in downtown let alone Clayton born before the year 1984 who are native to the stl region. I also think the future of downtown has always been residential with smaller tech focused businesses  found by millennials and older zoomers With some of these ventures may have not been founded yet.  The best thing the city can do to help downtown is get the RXB and chemical building on the solid path to redevelopment ASAP. However long term i think the future is bright.

CommonFire224 wrote: ↑

Nov 07, 2025

addxb2 wrote: ↑

Nov 07, 2025

The reality is that corporate workers who are willing to work in downtowns left STL years ago. STL is left with corporate workers named Cindy and Chad and they prefer a suburban office building closer to their homes in Chesterfield. They’re ten years from retirement and their kids visit once a year.

First off How many employees downtown does Peabody have? ( I can only find total global workforce online) Second hasn't Peabody been slowly declining and downsizing workers for years now?

As for cooperate workers all the corporate leadership is basically all boomers and native Gen-xers (which in stl are basically boomers in mindset) I don't think we will see any corporate leadership that wants to be in downtown let alone Clayton born before the year 1984 who are native to the stl region. I also think the future of downtown has always been residential with smaller tech focused businesses  found by millennials and older zoomers With some of these ventures may have not been founded yet.  The best thing the city can do to help downtown is get the RXB and chemical building on the solid path to redevelopment ASAP. However long term i think the future is bright.

The building they're moving to is 1245 JJ Kelley Memorial Drive which is owned by Edward Jones and is overall 227,000 square feet. The Post-Dispatch article says they will take up 2 floors, which is ~65,000 square feet according to Loop Net.

Their 2016 lease agreement was for 152,000 square feet of Peabody Plaza, but it's a safe bet that their new 2022 lease was a significant decline from that number, especially considering how many more more companies moved to Peabody Plaza after that new lease.

It is still a big loss, but it is also true that Peabody did already downsize significantly. It's not gonna have the affect as US Bank or Stifel leaving, for example. The best way to mitigate this loss would be for a company to quickly take up the space Peabody is vacating, and I think that's not super unrealistic considering how well Peabody Plaza has done at attracting tenants.

Peabody should go out of business as far as I'm concerned, their coal mining projects have destroyed environments and communities across the country, not to even mention the greenhouse gas emissions. I mean I'd rather have an evil company downtown than in Des Peres but I sincerely hope to see them close their doors within my lifetime.