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By Bill Beggs Jr.
Some folks only go downtown on their commute from the Missouri and Illinois ‘burbs, maybe for a ballgame or concert. Well, they’d be flabbergasted if they stopped to look around at the urban renaissance that’s been going on under their noses right here in River City.
If they blinked, they missed much of it.
That’s how incredibly rapid the rebound has been, thanks to the faithful volunteers of Urban Land Institute (ULI), savvy planners and pioneers of all disciplines, from lawyers and contractors, to architects and retailers.
“Parochial” has been used to describe
St. Louis about as often as the “Where’d you go to high school?” question’s been posed. These days, it’s as inappropriate a moniker as “Indy-a-No-Place” for Indianapolis, the vibrant new metropolis glittering in the middle of the so-called “Rust Belt.”
Our fair city is generating its own gravity. Young people would go off to college, disappointed by the few opportunities here, then relocate. According to Joel Kotkin, journalist and regional strategist, “During the ‘90s, there was a net inflow of educated people in their 20s into St. Louis, but an outflow of people in their 30s.” But many are returning to enjoy a lifestyle and economic possibilities that didn’t exist when they left.
Out-of-town investors are taking a second look at a city that boasts more late-19th century buildings than anywhere. The ULI chapter here had fewer than 150 members just two years ago; today, it boasts almost 250.
“There’s a lot of power under the hood,” says Diane Davis, vice president and chief operating officer for Edward L. Bakewell Inc. realtors, who chairs the St. Louis ULI District Council committee. A true believer in the prospects for St. Louis, even she is astonished by the pace of progress. And she moved here from Denver, another thriving urban success story that observers say took about 10 to 15 years to accomplish, while St. Louis is only seven and a half years into its revival process.
RCGA’s Dick Fleming, who led much of the Denver revitalization effort notes, “the parallel is a sound market-based downtown plan and a collaborative approach.”
The ambitious Downtown Now! plan for the downtown core, kicked off in October 1997 during Mayor Clarence Harmon’s administration, has already generated more than twice the initial hoped-for total of $1.12 billion, and sooner than anticipated. By 2000, according to Tom Reeves, executive director of Downtown Now!, $3 billion in commitments already had been made.
A once pervasive, a defeatist, it’ll-never-work-here attitude is fading fast. Many of the former doubters have come aboard, Reeves points out: “Nobody’s left to shoot at it, because we’re all on the inside!”
From its inception, the plan was non-partisan and inclusive. The founding partners of the Downtown Now! effort were St. Louis 2004, the City, Downtown Partnership, and the RCGA. Representative of this momentum is ULI, a “think tank” that by design invites everyone to the table.
 "ULI has created a forum. We don’t take a position on any one issue."
Diane Davis, vice president & COO, Edward L. Bakewell Inc.
and chair, ULI St. Louis
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“ULI has created a forum,” says Davis. “We don’t take a position on any one issue.”
Plans have lost steam in the past when the faces at City Hall change, or when the strongest backers run out of gas. But the Danforth Foundation ponied up several million, and movers and shakers in the public and private sectors have worked shoulder to shoulder with leaders of cultural institutions and other nonprofits. The plan weathered the 2000 election, when Francis Slay took the reins from Harmon. In fact, the effort picked up steam under in-coming Mayor Slay, who personally began sitting in on Downtown Now! policy meetings.
Reeves notes there still were sighs of relief when the non-political enterprise kept on rolling. “There’s enough private sector leadership and strength to make it through 10 to 15 years. We couldn’t change it all the time.
You go to people’s homes and don’t even have to leave the building. Arts and entertainment; a walk away, maybe an eight-block cab ride.
Tom Reeves, executive director,
Downtown Now!
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“We’ve far exceeded what we set out to do,” emphasizes Reeves, who put a commercial banking career on hold to head up Downtown Now! “We don’t have to drag this thing up the hill anymore. You know it’s a good idea when everybody’s taking credit for it.”
What’s all the buzz really about? Find out at an upcoming half-day ULI symposium:
ULI St. Louis, in partnership with the
St. Louis Regional Chamber and Growth Association (RCGA, publisher of this magazine) on Thursday, May 19 will present an update on how the plan is unfolding: “Investments in Progress—Urban Marketplace.”
The program, 7:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. in the Khorassan Ballroom at The Chase Park Plaza, includes a presentation highlighting urban core investment progress: project case studies demonstrating tools, techniques and strategies for development success; roundtable discussions to meet and learn from the experts; and exhibits highlighting resources available in support of urban investment in St. Louis.
Four case studies will be highlighted:
• Paul Brown Loft Apartments—Among the first conversions from office to residential use downtown, leading a trend for the region, in 2003 the building began its metamorphosis into 220-some apartments. Pyramid Construction also bought the adjacent Arcade and Wright buildings. Such revitalization is key to ensuring the longevity of the new business and residential vitality springing up in and around the Old Post Office.
• Botanical Heights—A from-the-ground-up residential neighborhood. McBride & Son Homes Inc. began its work last June in McRee Town, a blighted neighborhood near the Missouri Botanical Garden. McBride plans to build 160 to 200 new owner-occupied, market-rate, single-family homes. The project has been in the works for about five years.
• Pageant Theater and East Loop—The much-ballyhooed venture east of Skinker by Joe Edwards into a once-blighted area. Built in 2000, the 3,500-seat venue has drawn top-notch acts since it opened. Edwards, not one to sit still for long, is the prime mover behind a proposed resurrection of the historic Delmar trolley line and other unique attractions key to the continuing resurgence of the Delmar Loop area.
• Rudman on the Park—An ideal example of an urban multi-use project. A circa-1901 eight-story office building, Rudman on the Park is an undertaking of McGowan Brothers Development. The top five floors are taken up by loft-style apartments, below that is office and commercial space. Among the retail storefronts is a sushi restaurant, Wasabi.
Just the tip of the iceberg, these case studies are prime examples of what’s happening all over town... and has been accelerating in the past few months and years. About six months ago, NCAA representatives came to town to do the Final Four deal—when they returned a few weeks before the tourney, they were astonished by how much already had changed, says Jim Cloar, president and CEO of Downtown St. Louis Partnership. The shortsighted may fume when delayed by street closings and detours in the Old Post Office district that keep them from arriving at the Renaissance Grand on time for a meeting... they’d do well to remember that just three years ago, the newest jewel in downtown hospitality’s crown hadn’t opened, and plans for the Old Post Office were incomplete.
Jim Cloar, president & CEO, Downtown St. Louis Partners, sitting in the new downtown home
furnishings store, Niche. |
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Cloar, who held a similar job in Tampa, knows first-hand how long it can take for public sentiment to mesh with reality. A year after Tampa opened toll roads, there still wasn’t much impact on city coffers, but traffic certainly had gotten worse.
“A lot of people were talking about what a disappointment it was,” Cloar says. “A real boondoggle.”
Eventually, opinion shifted—but not until it was obvious the project had started to
pay off.
Cloar, Davis, Reeves et al. are in this for the long haul. On a grand scale, this is proof of the old adage “A watched pot never boils.”
“I think we all like to think there are quick fixes,” notes Cloar. “In some cities it’s the ‘panacea du jour’.”
Politics as usual, that is: Keep everyone happy... or at least distracted... with great pronouncements and fireworks, and when public patience wears thin and frustration gets noisy, just move on to the next flashy, temporary illusion of a solution.
Truth be told, says Cloar, “It takes awhile to gel.”
And once again, the haves aren’t running roughshod over the have-nots—under the guise of ULI, ever the even-handed city planners. Lewis Levey, principal of the Paragon Group and chair of ULI St. Louis for the four or five years prior to Diane Davis taking over, knows that the bloom would have been off the rose in no time flat—especially in the biggest, and some would say most skeptical, city in the Show-Me State.
ULI’s raison d’être? Tell it like it is. Case in point: During the debate about building a brand-new stadium downtown, ULI presented the long-term, regional view.
Since ULI is “the go-to group for urban issues,” says Levey, the presentation was
balanced and well thought out. It pointed out “the pluses, and the not-so-pluses.
Ron Johnson, design principal at Arcturis, says that downtown, the region’s “economic engine,” wouldn’t run smoothly without frequent maintenance by ULI, a global organization that applies successful principles from one urban revitalization effort to the next.
“In the role of facilitator, ULI tries to surface issues around smart growth,” says Johnson. Key to today’s urban marketplace is not “razing, then raising,” but carefully considering the existing infrastructure and making the most of it, inside and out.
Joe Edwards, the so-called “Mayor of the
U. City Loop,” exemplifies the new Spirit of
St. Louis, where there’s not much patience for the negative. Johnson describes Edwards as a “hometown pioneer who took a leap of faith, building by building, in a small window of time.” A microcosm of what’s happening throughout the city, and the region, that is.
So much is working, from Laclede’s Landing to Union Station, and in rejuvenated pockets for block after block to the north or south... why not focus on that? ULI does indeed, although the naysayers can be pretty vocal, admits Johnson: “We’ll continue to raise awareness, even though some people have their heads in the sand.”
The proof in the pudding is when firms large and small, from Hamilton Jewelers to Bryan Cave, sign another lease, Tom Reeves says. Or when the Federal Reserve opts to stay put and dramatically expand, which was not the case for the Kansas City branch. This is not to say that efforts are being made to entice a company to relocate, say, from Creve Coeur to downtown: zero sum gain. The goal is not to cut the pie into more slices, but to bake a bigger pie.
From the 35-and-under so-called Young Leaders who thrive in lofts above the urban canyon of Washington Avenue, to grey-haired, lifelong true believers, St. Louisans are putting their money where their mouth is.
To make his point, Reeves drops a name: Don Breckenridge. The developer and his wife pulled up stakes in Town & Country and now live in the Edison Lofts.
“You go to people’s homes and don’t even have to leave the building. Arts and entertainment; a walk away, maybe an eight-block cab ride,” says Reeves.
“Highway 40 doesn’t even exist for these people anymore.” |
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