Couple moving to St. Louis; how is downtown? (linear, metro)

[flynavyj]

Originally Posted by Old Trafford

Not within a year - SLC opened in 85, and was really popular till 1991, when the Galleria expansion opened, and toke many of thier exclusive retailers, then 1992-1993 streets around it were shut down for Metrolink work. still it was still viable up till about 1995, after that is when the "A" retailers left and the gold traders and knock-off sellers started coming in, by 2000 it was pretty quiet, and limped along till finally shutting down in early 2006

Just looked it up on wikipedia, and find it nuts. I remember when Northwest Plaza was enclosed back in the the late 80's and could have sworn that St. Louis center was all but dead by the early 90's...I remember all the talk about revamping it into condo space during the mid 2000's, but I never would have guessed it was still open as a mall as late as 2006...Heck, I'd graduated from college by then and was already working my 1st "Real" job. lol.

[Old Trafford]

Originally Posted by flynavyj

Just looked it up on wikipedia, and find it nuts. I remember when Northwest Plaza was enclosed back in the the late 80's and could have sworn that St. Louis center was all but dead by the early 90's...I remember all the talk about revamping it into condo space during the mid 2000's, but I never would have guessed it was still open as a mall as late as 2006...Heck, I'd graduated from college by then and was already working my 1st "Real" job. lol.

yeah, I worked next door to it in the mid 2000's - I was working on sunday in late 05, and had run to the Walgreens that was still open there for some asprin, i was the only one there besides the clerks, the whole mall was empty at that time except for Walgreens, which for some reason was on the third floor.

I took some college friends there on Christmas break 93, still was hopping at that time, 2 years later it went into decline.

[xenokc]

Originally Posted by Old Trafford

Corrrect, in that both dowtowns need work, KC's downtown has overachieved a bit, STL has underachieved a bit. This is due in part that urban STL is much larger than KC's, more urban area = more urban choices, therefore more distribution of your urban population, where as in KC if you want to live urban the River-Crown-Plaza is your only real choice.

St. Louis downtown actually has slightly more office SF, if you are looking at broker stats, keep in mind they do not count privately owned non spec buildings, for instance, AT&T has over 2 million SF between 3 buildings in downtown, Nestle has over 1 million, Wells Fargo has over 1.5 million, none of those numbers show up as they are tenant owned, KC has some of this, with Hallmark at Crown Center and I believe H&R Block, but overall quite a bit less tenant owned SF.

Still the P&L, PAC and Sprint Center has done wonders for downtown KC, its been good to see

KC's downtown is a bit away from overachieving but I know what you mean as P&L is not exactly organic development. But P&L is fairly small area compared to rest of downtown that has various personalities. Xroads in downtown is entirely organic with 60+ art spaces and fun monthly street party but what both downtowns need are more residents. West Bottoms is much like DUMBO in Brooklyn before gentrified. River Market has become a pretty decent urban hood. Both KC/STL need to learn that to have a fully functional downtown you need residents as trying to build attractions for the metro don't entirely work, or at least not enough. P&L serves the convention/arena and event crowd, not really a metro draw within itself.

On office space, every single report I find (CBRE, Colliers, etc) shows that downtown KC has about same or tad more office space than STL when including Class C space. STL has just a bit more Class A but KC did a good job turning old buildings into raw hip Class B/C space. Both have converted a lot of space to lofts. Given that STL has light rail, would have expected much more downtown than KC.

Now that they both have almost run out of buildings to convert to residential, both need to figure out how to attract developers for infill residntial development while keeping it tastefully urbane and not suburban or cheap crap thrown in. KC has some residential investment interest coming back but not nearly enough to keep up with demand. It will take too long before another building or three come online. But a downtown streetcar should be running by then.

[moorlander]

Originally Posted by xenokc

Both have converted a lot of space to lofts. Given that STL has light rail, would have expected much more downtown than KC.

Downtown St. Louis has competition. Take the light rail west about 10min and you'll find the streetcar suburb of Clayton, MO. The central business district of Clayton has another 7 million sqft and 25k jobs.

[xenokc]

However Clayton line is still kinda newish (and downtown KC BTW competes with KS stealing KC companies). Downtown STL should have more momentum at least compared to KC given that light rail comes from two legs W of downtown and from IL, but ultimately both have about the same momentum, KC maybe just a tad more. So LRT doesn't seem to be an ecodev engine like some think it is. Will be interesting to see if KC's free streetcar will actually drive TOD/ecodev.

[Old Trafford]

Originally Posted by xenokc

KC's downtown is a bit away from overachieving but I know what you mean as P&L is not exactly organic development. But P&L is fairly small area compared to rest of downtown that has various personalities. Xroads in downtown is entirely organic with 60+ art spaces and fun monthly street party but what both downtowns need are more residents. West Bottoms is much like DUMBO in Brooklyn before gentrified. River Market has become a pretty decent urban hood. Both KC/STL need to learn that to have a fully functional downtown you need residents as trying to build attractions for the metro don't entirely work, or at least not enough. P&L serves the convention/arena and event crowd, not really a metro draw within itself.

On office space, every single report I find (CBRE, Colliers, etc) shows that downtown KC has about same or tad more office space than STL when including Class C space. STL has just a bit more Class A but KC did a good job turning old buildings into raw hip Class B/C space. Both have converted a lot of space to lofts. Given that STL has light rail, would have expected much more downtown than KC.

Now that they both have almost run out of buildings to convert to residential, both need to figure out how to attract developers for infill residntial development while keeping it tastefully urbane and not suburban or cheap crap thrown in. KC has some residential investment interest coming back but not nearly enough to keep up with demand. It will take too long before another building or three come online. But a downtown streetcar should be running by then.

Exactly - P&L is not everyones cup of tea, but overall it has brought people in, it will evolve in the coming years, still has some vacant spaces that have never seen tenants, shoudl improve with the economy.

The Crossroads is still pretty quiet most of the time, though FF due rock, needs some infill to tie it all together.

Colliers actually pegs the cities CBD's about the same - 27 million SF, CBRE does not take into account owner occupied buildings as I said earlier. Note that the 4 buildings I mention in my earlier post come to over 4.5 million SF, CBRE says that CBD total is 14.7 million SF that should have tipped you that the numbers are off, that would mean the entire rest of the CBD including the massive Met Sq - (1.4 million SF ) would take up all of 10 million SF - STL probably has slightly more SF over all, but allof these brokers calculate it different, really impossible to get a good read, in the past I learned one of the buildings I was working on was off by 20,000 SF and had been for years, BOMA calcs are an inexact science.

That said it is impressive that KC has CBD SF close to a city 25% larger than it. But STL has a large second CBD 5 miles west of downtown as Moorlander said, also the West End and Midtown have a good amount of office space.

KC needs to sweetin the pot to get class A rolling again, right now the vacancy rate is over 20% and heading in the wrong direction with AMC leaving and others considering it.

It will be interesting to see what the streetcar does, it will be a needed part for a larger system and you have to start somewhere, but at 2 miles long its not going to be an answer for much in the way of serious transit. It also ticked off many building owners in the TDD who will pass costs along to their remaining tenants. They need to go after fed funding fast to get a phase II going to make it work.

[Dawn10am]

Originally Posted by xenokc

However Clayton line is still kinda newish (and downtown KC BTW competes with KS stealing KC companies). Downtown STL should have more momentum at least compared to KC given that light rail comes from two legs W of downtown and from IL, but ultimately both have about the same momentum, KC maybe just a tad more. So LRT doesn't seem to be an ecodev engine like some think it is. Will be interesting to see if KC's free streetcar will actually drive TOD/ecodev.

LRT would be an economic development engine if more people used it. St. Louis still has its "training wheels" on when it comes to public transit. Sometimes I overhear people talking about how nice it is to be able to take the L in Chicago but then the same people proceed to drive to places in STL when they could easily take the MetroLink. More middle-class St. Louisans need to catch on to using public transit in their own backyards.

[moorlander]

Metrolink ridership is strong for a system/region this size. As more lines are developed it will be more convenient for a greater segment of the population.
As a region we need to learn how embrace public transit and focus on TOD (transit oriented development) near ML stops.

[Dreadnought]

Most of my friends and family might ride the Metro to go to a Blues or Cardinals game, but that's about it. Honestly, I am the only person I know in St. Louis / County that rides Metro on a daily basis to commute to work, but it's really convenient to my job (downtown). When I switch jobs here in a very few short weeks, that will most likely be the end of my days commuting via the MetroLink; Perhaps at least until it is expanded.

[Old Trafford]

Originally Posted by Dreadnought

Most of my friends and family might ride the Metro to go to a Blues or Cardinals game, but that's about it. Honestly, I am the only person I know in St. Louis / County that rides Metro on a daily basis to commute to work, but it's really convenient to my job (downtown). When I switch jobs here in a very few short weeks, that will most likely be the end of my days commuting via the MetroLink; Perhaps at least until it is expanded.

i rode it when I was not traveling or had to be somewhere after work, about 2 or 3 days per week, from the time the blue lined opened till I took a new job -4 years- The difference btween 06 and 10 were noticeable. the trains are full from about 7:15 to about 8:30 - from Brentwood station on, with about half getting out at West End, In the evening the earliest train I ever rode was 4:45 - which was crowded, to about 6:00 everything after that was sparse.

once again huge crowd getting on at West End.

On game days it was a different story, standing room only downtown to Brentwood.

ridership is pretty good system wide, I mean it is not like the underground, but even when I lived in the UK, many tube trains were pretty quite after 8:00 pm