Former Praxair Site in Lafayette Square - 2016 St. Louis City Talk Favorite

Continuing with my top twenty announced or under-construction projects from 2016, we move to Lafayette Square with a development announcement for the former Praxair site along Chouteau Avenue.

I'm amazed at how long this property has sat vacant in such a desirable neighborhood (2005). We've seen plans floated before as far back as 2007. But, maybe the economy is back on its feet and the time is right to make the development work.

I'm confident the people in Lafayette Square will demand quality and will be very involved in the process. They have worked so hard in this neighborhood, and I expect that will continue here.

So what are we talking?

NextSTL reported in November that a developer has plans for 64 townhomes:

Now Pulte Homes has a plan to build 64 townhomes on the Praxair site bounded by Chouteau, Missouri Avenue, MacKay Place and a separate parcel fronting Hickory Street to the south. The developer is planning to meet next week with neighborhood residents living adjacent to the site. A larger Lafayette Square community meeting is planned to follow before the end of the year. No images or site plans have been made available.

Pulte Homes? Not a name I've heard before, they've never done a project in St. Louis, but they've done many in the suburbs. And it shows, but this site is unique. I don't think the suburban stuff will work here and I don't think the neighbors will let it. Pulte have done some decent work in other parts of the country including the following:

 Pulte project in Alexandria, Virginia

                                 Pulte project in Washington State

This is a dead stretch of Chouteau that needs some love. The south side of the property abuts the fully intact part of the neighborhood and the northern edge has much room for improvement. People have been living around this vacant site for over ten years and they (and people who live near here) are ready for positive change.

This will be a fun one to watch in 2017.

Better Family Life 100 Home Renovation Project - 2016 St. Louis City Talk Favorite

Continuing with my twenty 'Best of 2016' development announcements and under-construction projects, we have an exciting project in North City.

Better Family Life would like to renovate 100 homes around Page Boulevard, the project has a potential to reach $20M in investment in some areas that haven't seen much investment recently.

I have to apologize for not having more information, I've reached out to Better Family Life via email, but have not made the time to reach out with calls or schedule a visit to get the full story. I hope to follow up on this development in 2017 and report back here.

The local media discussed the work they are doing in several venues.

Per the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in a November, 2016 article:

“This is a new beginning for Better Family Life because this project will be a major redevelopment of Page Boulevard, which could spark a renaissance in North St. Louis and eliminate the Delmar Divide by helping the existing community and attracting new residents,” Malik Ahmed, Better Family Life's chief executive, said in a statement. 

He said he envisions the project will attract millennials and others who want affordable housing in the Page Boulevard area. 

Renovation costs for each house will total $200,000, Better Family Life said. Each house will sell for about $130,000, providing owners $60,000 to $70,000 in equity when they move in, the organization said. 

Work has begun on three homes. Two of the rehabs are funded by the St. Louis Community Development Agency with gap financing by Midwest Bank, Better Family Life said.

KMOV Channel 4 did an interview with Mr. Ahmed who spoke about the project.

Do yourself a favor and listen to the following KPLR Channel 11 story with Better Family Life and a representative from the city. If that doesn't get you excited, than what will?

Better Family Life has been active in the 26th Ward of St. Louis and they've been buying properties along Belt, Maple, Vernon, etc in several neighborhoods since the 1990's.

They are gaining momentum and one of their goals is to get African Americans who left the city for the county to move back...especially young people who will be civically involved.  They call this stretch of Page "The Vibe" because this part of town feels right and is on the verge of gaining fresh blood and investment.

I can't wait to learn more from this group. I will definitely make the time to interview them if they'll have me.

My humble opinion is that if we are going to subsidize growth, this area/project is ripe for it. We need more people rooting down who want to live here. We can subsidize things that benefit visitors and tourists next.

This would be a huge deal for North City! Congrats Better Family Life, keep up the good work.  Hope to talk in 2017.

Brew City - 2016 St. Louis City Talk Favorite

Continuing on with my favorite 2016 developments in St. Louis, the local beer scene in the city just seems to get bigger and better.

2016 was no exception with the addition of one more brewery and announcements for a couple others in the city. 

2nd Shift Brewing may be familiar to some, they have been making beer for some time in New Haven, MO about an hour drive from St. Louis.

They set up shop in the Hill Neighborhood at 1601 Sublette Avenue just south of Manchester.  I haven't visited yet, or tried their beer, but I can't wait.

Another brewery, Rockwell Beer Company, will set up shop in the Forest Park Southeast Neighborhood at 1320 South Vandeventer Avenue and they hope to be open in Spring, 2017.

Another brewery, Center Ice Brewery will be a hockey-themed brewery. The tasting room will be constructed from the Old Arena/Checkerdome! they will be in the beautiful Dinks Parish Laundry Building just west of Pappy's and Southern on Olive in the Midtown Neighborhood. Perfect place for all those hosers to converge for a Blues game. On my visit, work was underway on the facade of the building:

Then, work continued on Earthbound Beer's renovation of the Cherokee Brewery, complete with caves on Cherokee Street. Read all about it HERE.

Good news abounds. 

I recently attended a brewery tour at Schlafly Tap Room and I gained an appreciation for their vitally important role in changing the laws around brewing in Missouri and St. Louis. Without them fighting the legal fights to open up brewing to smaller breweries, we would still be in ABI land alone. They really played such an important role to open things up here.  

Oh, and scenes from Escape From New York were filmed in the building that is now the Taproom on Locust. There is an homage to Snake Plissken on their mural:

So with the addition of 2nd Shift and Rockwell, we will have the following breweries right here in St. Louis:

2nd Shift

4 Hands

Anheuser-Busch InBev

Alpha Brewery

Center Ice

Civil Life

Earthbound

Heavy Riff

Morgan Street 

Perennial

Rockwell

Schlafly

Square One

Urban Chestnut

Pappos is brewing their beer for their operations at the Midtown restaurant location as well.

Heck, I'm probably missing a few.

This is something we should really talk up. In fact, that is exactly what local filmmaker Bill Streeter is doing with the recent completion of St. Louis Brews - The Story of Brewing in the Gateway City. I can wait to see this movie:

There is no shortage of good beer and guzzling beer in St. Louis. 2016 was a good year and 2017 should be even better.

Major League Soccer Expansion in St. Louis - 2016 St. Louis City Talk Favorite

This is the second of two sports related favorites from 2016. The first was the Cardinal/Cordish proposal for a mixed-use development at Ballpark Village.

The next is the potential for MLS soccer in our fair city. The league is expanding and they indicated that St. Louis is one of the top cities under consideration for a team. Per MLS' official website:

MLS Commissioner Don Garber announced Thursday that Teams 25 and 26 will be announced during the second or third quarter of 2017, at an expansion fee of $150 million each, and begin MLS play by 2020. Teams 27 and 28 will be announced at a later date, at a price delivered in conjunction with the timeline. 

The league acknowledged ownership groups from 10 markets have publicly expressed interest in securing an MLS expansion team: Charlotte, Cincinnati, Detroit, Nashville, Raleigh/Durham, Sacramento, St. Louis, San Antonio, San Diego and Tampa/St. Petersburg. 

Interested expansion owners must submit applications by Jan. 31, 2017. After review, a series of in-person meetings will take place during the first and second quarters of 2017.

2017 is going to be a critical year for St. Louis when it comes to this burgeoning sport. 

Let me first say, I love sports. Really all sports, but I'm not an MLS soccer fan to date. That would change if we got a team. My kids love soccer. They are into it, they understand it, they play it in the CYC and SLPS. They would beg to go to games just as they do to Blues games.

Secondly, I have had the pleasure of working with people from all around the world. Argentinians, Colombians, Mexicans, Chileans, Belgians, Spaniards and Brazilians, they all have hard core fans. I've never seen such devotion to a team or a sport. It is infectious to be around. It is exhilarating just to be around them and hear them talk about their teams. The chanting, the songs, the colors, the pride...it is like nothing we have here...maybe college football, but Illinois and Missouri aren't those kind of teams.

I think soccer is one of the growth sports for the next century in the U.S. MLS in the most international sport and could help retain and grow our Latino, African and Eastern European populations. I think it could help to attract and retain the next generation of people who will consider living and working in St. Louis.

So when an ownership group of wealthy suburban businessmen floated a stadium proposal just west of Union Station in the Downtown West Neighborhood, I was excited.

If any of these owners actually live in St. Louis, I apologize, but my guess is they are County residents who are not being asked for public $ at the city/county level and not expected to own the stadium if the team decides to pull a Arizona Cardinals/Los Angeles Rams move.

Now remember, some of these same well-meaning folks were behind building a second NFL stadium for the Rams. No offense, but they don't understand what people who live in St. Louis need. It is not stadiums, it is $ for schools, neighborhood stabilization, potholes, and cameras, cops, investigators and prosecutors to combat the out of control crime we have to deal with. It's always easier to spend someone else's money.

The group includes St. Louis Cardinals President Bill DeWitt III, World Wide Technology CEO Jim Kavanaugh, prominent hotelier Bob O’Loughlin, UniGroup President Jim Powers, St. Louis Blues CEO Chris Zimmerman and former NFL task force co-chairman Dave Peacock. 

Jim Woodcock, global sports co-lead and senior vice president at FleishmanHillard, said the group — which is dubbing itself MLS2STL — came together naturally as several of its members, including Woodcock, began asking about MLS ownership following the departure of the St. Louis Rams. (source)

But the pretty pictures and potential for the city were a bit tarnished by the need for massive adjacent and on-site surface parking lots that are not needed 348 days out of the year, and financial support of public tax money from St. Louis only. No St. Charles, St. Clair, Madison, Jefferson or St. Louis County support has been asked for to date, just good old money bags St. Louis. Yeah right. We are broke and need the money more than any city in the region. But we're supposed to bankroll this thing for 17 professional sports games a year (more if you make the playoffs). The Blues bring 41 games and the Cards bring 81.

Oh, and they want the city to own the stadium. Remember how this works Rams fans? It is not smart investment. 

I want MLS soccer here, but we should not be the only city paying for it.

However, I expect in any negotiation the first offer is the one that most benefits the party making the offer. This is how most negotiations work. It is now up to the leaders in the city to pass the napkin back across the table with a better offer.

And hopefully the voters can decide if the public money from St. Louis should go to another sports stadium that we own.

Remember how this played out with the Rams? It is happening again. 

As a citizen and voter in St. Louis, I am willing to pitch in some for this team. The terms have to be reasonable and the ratio of public funds should match the wealth of the region. If it does, this could be a great regional effort to bring a popular and growing sport to St. Louis.

The region can play together nicely and bring a team here. St. Louis would be a great location, we just need to not get completely screwed over financially.

It can work, but will it? Look no further than Great Rivers Greenway or the Zoo Museum District to see the amazing things we can do when we pool our resources.

It will be fun to watch it all play out in 2017.

Viva St. Louis. 

Ballpark Village Phase 2 - 2016 St. Louis City Talk Favorite

Okay, I'm getting into the sports related posts from 2016. How can you not be optimistic with what Cordish and the Cardinals have proposed for Ballpark Village's 2nd phase.

And then you have the Major League Soccer expansion potential...I'll get to that next.

First some opinions on Ballpark Village (BPV).

Let me get it out of the way and say I, just like nearly everybody in this region, love the St. Louis Cardinals. Baseball is in my blood from the earliest days I can remember. The 1982 and 2011 World Series Championships and the 2006 NLCS were unforgettable moments. Willie McGee, Tom Herr and Yadier Molina are my favorite players. Man, if the Cardinals or Blues ever left the city limits of St. Louis, I'd be crushed. When the Rams left, frankly I was relieved.

I'm a Cards fan, okay. Who isn't? But like Kroenke and Demoff, the Cards/Cordish have tested my loyalty.

Now, I have come to really appreciate Busch Stadium-III...I might even love it. Part of me wished St. Louis would have been the last American city to hold on to it's round, multi-purpose stadium from the 1960's. It was not to be and Busch Stadium-II only lasted a mere 40 years. It didn't save downtown either.

That said, I am not a fan of BPV Phase 1. To each his own, but that whole thing is a massive disappointment to the City of St. Louis and the people who live here. I've tried to walk in there on two separate occasions. I made it for about 10 steps each time. The ridiculous music and the volume at which it was being played gave me immediate social anxiety and I knew I had to get outta there. 

Suburban malls and chains don't work very well in St. Louis. This Dave and Busters/carnival/bull-riding stuff is great in Maryland Heights and around casinos, but here it just doesn't work...by itself.

There are too many great, affordable and interesting/unique places to drink and eat in St. Louis and BPV ain't one of em. This is a suburbanite's dream, an entertainment compound surrounded by a fence. It was built for game day visitors and tourists. The fans got what they wanted, but not the city or the people who root down in the city.

I'm not so naive to think that the largest city in the region can't be many things to many people, and I'm glad if BPV rocks your world. But to date it isn't enough to get me excited.

And then there is the MASSIVE surface parking lot that is a scourge on downtown. I started to get cranky with ownership of my favorite sports team. I started to shake my head. 

Further, I can't believe the city leaders, Cordish and the Cards bungled the Centene HQ as it went to the inner ring suburb of Clayton, MO (pop. ~16K). St. Louis lost out on its greatest opportunity for new jobs in my lifetime and I mourned that loss. 

They blew it. The city blew it. Clayton is nailing it. We lost, they won. I am resentful of that and I shake my head every time I think about the lost potential.

One could argue that what downtown St. Louis needs more than anything is professional, career jobs. That was the chance.

Ugh, have I ruffled your feathers enough? Sorry, but I've got to let the frustration show every now and again. 

But, I'm still hopeful and here is why. The Phase 2 site plans are stunning. Modern, beautiful, mixed-use buildings and towers. 

A residential tower would cement the stadium into it's current location. You can't sell these amazing living spaces with views of the stadium and then propose demo of Busch 3 in 40 years and move it somewhere else like Busch 2. The Phase 2 commitment would be just that. Commitment to the site and budding history of this great ballpark.

I want to forgive the Cardinals and Cordish for the parking lot, the contemporary country music at volume 11, the mall food and the Centene disaster.

And this would $220M investment would help:

Go Cards. Do the city right this time.