steveinphilly wrote:Let's get one thing straight. Wells Fargo and its predecessor. Wachovia, had nothing to do with the design or construction of their current campus at Jefferson and Market. The first building in that complex, the one just torn down for the hotel, was built and occupied by A. G. Edwards, a locally owned and operated brokerage house that started out in downtown. I believe they started out in the old Victoria Building at 8th and Locust. But in the early 1970's, AGE bought the northwest corner of Jefferson and Market and built the first building which they occupied in 1973. It was completed at the same time as Breakthrough East of Laclede Town was completed. I know because I was the first occupant of apartment 703 of the building at 60 North Ewing. I could look out my window and see the back of AGE, which obstructed my view of the Arch. When you had the original Laclede Town, Breakthrough East, Peacock Alley, Heritage House Apartments, the circular Rodeway Inn, and the Lindbergh Cadillac Building, which was on the southeast corner of Jefferson and Market, you had some nice massing and some modest urban form going on there, AGE's surface parking lot in from of the original building notwithstanding. The northeast section of Mill Creek, (between Jefferson,, 20th, Olive and Market) always had suburban type, low rise buildings in it, but they were occupied by some big name companies at the time, like Smith-Corona-Merrill, Olivetti Underwood and Utilities Insurance.
Unfortunately, the gaping hole in the urban fabric from the demolition of buildings for the North South Distributor created a no-mans land between Downtown West and Mill Creek Valley that precluded any unification of downtown and Mill Creek Valley. I used to walk to and from the old YMCA on Locust and 16th. Downtown West was still pretty alive with Aloe Medical Industries at 19th and Olive, the Century Electric plant on Market, Fruin-Colnon Construction at 17th and Olive, the Sealtest Dairy on 20th street and lots of wholesalers in the huge building at 18th and Olive (now apartments). The silence of the vacancy and emptiness was deafening compared to the activity immediately east and west of this strip of land.
Along with Father Biondi at SLU, AGE was instrumental in getting Laclede Town/Laclede Park/Breakthrough East and Breakthrough West destroyed. But can you blame them? Who would want a festering slum right on your doorstep, which is what Laclede Town had descended into. AGE then acquired the land and when on a major building spree. Then they bought the Sherwood Medical Building (now the police department headquarters) and expanded there. All told, AGE had almost a million square feet at their complex. But my point is is that the entire campus was designed and built by AGE. Wells Fargo had nothing to do with the design of the buildings there. Wachovia bought AGE, then Wells Fargo inherited the campus when it took over the failing Wachovia Bank. St. Louis dodged a bullet when Wells Fargo decided to consolidate its brokerages at the STL site. They could have moved the whole darn shootin' match to Richmond, Virginia.
But the market is built on supply and demand, and right now, there is little to no demand for retail, commercial, office and residential space in and around downtown St. Louis. I just recently moved back to STL after a 50+ years absence, and I really don't want to go downtown now. It's too far gone as far as abandonment and vacancy, and I remember when it was still a fairly active hub of retail, wholesale, light manufacturing and office space. I don't pretend to know all the reasons for the lack of demand here, but taxing already lightly used parking lots in the hopes of somebody MIGHT build something on them is not the way to go.
And as a resident of Pennsylvania for the last 50 years, I can tell you downtown Pittsburgh and downtown St. Louis are in no way comparable. For one thing, downtown Pittsburgh does not have the competition of Chesterfield/Westport/Maryland Heights/Clayton/Brentwood to worry about. Pittsburgh does not have real estate developers whose sole purpose is to destroy downtown Pittsburgh, unlike St. Louis. What Pittsburgh does have in abundant supply is dying old mill towns like McKeesport, Beaver Falls, and Braddock, places that make Wellston look like Beverly Hills.
If it made more sense for WFA to move to Richmond, they would have done it. It made more sense to stay in STL. No companies are giving gifts to STL by moving here or keeping operations here, this myth needs to die.
Your entire post can be summarized as "downtown is a lost cause" and that's just not acceptable or true. The point of trying to get these companies that occupy inefficient campuses that generate comparatively little property taxes (less per acre than some single family neighborhoods) to move into downtown is to boost downtown and make it better. WFA isn't being forced to stay in the 1980s suburban office campus lol.
Downtown STL didn't have Clayton or Chesterfield to compete with back in 1901 when Pittsburgh established its LVT, which is widely recognized as helping to save downtown Pittsburgh. You're old enough, you should have an idea of how many buildings downtown were destroyed in favor of surface parking lots. As it ever occurred to you that allowing that and even incentivizing that is partially what led to downtown's demise?
If there's a surface parking lot downtown, I want it owned by the city so the city can reap the revenue from something unhealthy for downtown. The only way to do that is by taxing them heavily.
Also worth reminding you that theres tens of thousands of jobs downtown and more occupied office space than Clayton.
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