$1.2 Billion St. Louis Riverfront Revitalization Proposal

[ita]

$1.2 billion plan to develop downtown St. Louis riverfront gets first nod from Port Authority

A $1.2 billion plan to develop 80 acres of the St. Louis riverfront cleared its first hurdle Thursday morning.

The St. Louis Port Authority unanimously approved a resolution to evaluate the financial feasibility of Good Developments Group’s proposal to develop the land south of the Gateway Arch grounds known as Chouteau’s Landing.

St. Louis- and New York-based Good Development Group dubbed the plan the Gateway South Project and estimated its cost at approximately $1.2 billion. Doug Rasmussen, a consultant who represented the developer at the Port Authority meeting, said that if approved, the project would start in late 2022 and take roughly 10 years to complete.

“This project, in many ways, is the front door of St. Louis,” Rasmussen said. “We’re trying to give visitors to St. Louis another reason to stay longer.”

Rasmussen gave a brief presentation on the project at the Thursday morning meeting. He said it would create three mixed-use districts in the area, including recreational, residential, industrial, office and entertainment.

Can we have these developers consider developing some portion of our riverfront, either on the Omaha or CB side? If you go down the rabbit hole, they have done a lot of high rise residential development. We could use that here.

[TitosBuritoBarn]

I really hope this happens. That area has a lot of cool old warehouses dying to be rehabbed and it's crawling with gritty old elevated railroad lines to give it a unique look.

Being close to the development industry here, the pessimist in me thinks it's too big and will be cancelled. However, I can only think of one big project that has been straight-up cancelled. Most just take forrrrreeevvvveerrr to get started unless there is philanthropic/private money behind them. So we'll see..

[ita]

I really hope this happens. That area has a lot of cool old warehouses dying to be rehabbed and it's crawling with gritty old railroad lines to give it a unique look.

Being close to the development industry here, the pessimist in me thinks it's too big and will be cancelled. However, I can only think of one big project that has been straight-up cancelled. Most just take forrrrreeevvvveerrr to get started unless there is philanthropic/private money behind them. So we'll see..

Apparently, this real estate developer has ties to JDS Development Group. JDS have been involved in substantial developments, like $500 million residential towers in NY. That group is involved with deep pockets. Anyway, I don't expect supertalls in this south Arch riverfront site (developers are alluding to affordable housing), but anything with a $1.2 billion price tag has the potential to be really awesome even though we are only in pre-development stage right now.

[ricko]

Lord knows St. Louis could use a shot in the arm. Hope this takes off. It’s a very old city for the Midwest, with lots of great old neighborhoods. It was starting to take off when I lived there; Lafayette Square, Soulard, Tower Grove and the West End, etc.. I’m not sure what happened, but everything seemed to stall in the 80’s and 90’s. A group of us were taken on an architectural tour back then, and I really came to appreciate the city.

[Greg S]

Lord knows St. Louis could use a shot in the arm. Hope this takes off. It’s a very old city for the Midwest, with lots of great old neighborhoods. It was starting to take off when I lived there; Lafayette Square, Soulard, Tower Grove and the West End, etc.. I’m not sure what happened, but everything seemed to stall in the 80’s and 90’s. A group of us were taken on an architectural tour back then, and I really came to appreciate the city.

Yeah I went there in the 90's I thought there downtown was going to be great. We would go to see the Blues play. The light rail was new, Laclede's Landing seemed to be taking off, Union Station was a cool mix of mall and nightlife, St Louis Centre mall was still doing OK downtown, and the Rams had just relocated to St Louis. It seemed like there was just incredible momentum. Crazy how it's actually gone backwards since then. They've kind of fallen behind all the other midwestern downtowns it seems.

Greg

[Louie]

Lord knows St. Louis could use a shot in the arm. Hope this takes off. It’s a very old city for the Midwest, with lots of great old neighborhoods. It was starting to take off when I lived there; Lafayette Square, Soulard, Tower Grove and the West End, etc.. I’m not sure what happened, but everything seemed to stall in the 80’s and 90’s. A group of us were taken on an architectural tour back then, and I really came to appreciate the city.

Yeah I went there in the 90's I thought there downtown was going to be great. We would go to see the Blues play. The light rail was new, Laclede's Landing seemed to be taking off, Union Station was a cool mix of mall and nightlife, St Louis Centre mall was still doing OK downtown, and the Rams had just relocated to St Louis. It seemed like there was just incredible momentum. Crazy how it's actually gone backwards since then. They've kind of fallen behind all the other midwestern downtowns it seems.

Greg

Was there a reason it went backwards?

[Greg S]

Lord knows St. Louis could use a shot in the arm. Hope this takes off. It’s a very old city for the Midwest, with lots of great old neighborhoods. It was starting to take off when I lived there; Lafayette Square, Soulard, Tower Grove and the West End, etc.. I’m not sure what happened, but everything seemed to stall in the 80’s and 90’s. A group of us were taken on an architectural tour back then, and I really came to appreciate the city.

Yeah I went there in the 90's I thought there downtown was going to be great. We would go to see the Blues play. The light rail was new, Laclede's Landing seemed to be taking off, Union Station was a cool mix of mall and nightlife, St Louis Centre mall was still doing OK downtown, and the Rams had just relocated to St Louis. It seemed like there was just incredible momentum. Crazy how it's actually gone backwards since then. They've kind of fallen behind all the other midwestern downtowns it seems.

Greg

Was there a reason it went backwards?

I honestly don't know. After going there in the 90's I didn't go back until a few years ago, Again for hockey (this time coaching). Went downtown on both trips and was really surprised at it's current state. Other areas in StL have done well but definitely not their downtown.

Greg

[TitosBuritoBarn]

Was there a reason it went backwards?

I honestly don't know. After going there in the 90's I didn't go back until a few years ago, Again for hockey (this time coaching). Went downtown on both trips and was really surprised at it's current state. Other areas in StL have done well but definitely not their downtown.

Greg

Not one particular reason really. The biggest one is probably crime, or at least the perception of it. Washington Ave, which has the highest concentration of apartments, bars, restaurants, and other entertainment for some reason has also been the location of some serious violent crimes. So it scares people.

There's also been an issue of office-based businesses leaving, the most significant of which was AT&T some time ago. Their former HQ, the tallest building in St. Louis, now sits vacant. Other office-based businesses have slowly trickled away as well. This has lessened the demand for service-industry businesses and many of those have closed too.

Then there's the issue of urban design. Laclede's Landing, for example, used to be a cool entertainment district in one of the oldest parts of the city, complete with brick streets and arch and river views. It's absolutely delightful. However, it's divided from the rest of downtown by I-44 and the surface parking lots they've decided to build along the perimeter. It's also divided from the arch grounds by the Eads Bridge. So if you're unfamiliar with the area, you won't know it's there. Even if you're trying to get to it, it's tricky to navigate the road network that leads to it.

Union Station, which is now a hotel, used to have a mall attached to it with a Hard Rock Cafe and other touristy-places. These sorts of malls were called festival marketplace and were pretty trendy in the 1970s-1990s. Of course with the trend away from malls, they were the first to die. Granted, it's now an aquarium and has an assortment of new touristy restaurants with less name recognition. I work nearby and can vouch for it having made a comeback, but it's the sort of place you visit and then leave without wandering to the surrounding neighborhoods and such. There's nothing nearby to keep people around.

Fortunately there is still some growth and momentum driving downtown back up. A gigantic MLS stadium and training complex is finishing up construction and the even more gigantic NGA HQ is being built in north City and should in some capacity start negating some of the impacts of decades of disinvestment in that area. A lot of other large old vacant buildings have been or are being rehabbed, mostly into hotels. And the surrounding neighborhoods, which are all pretty healthy except to the north, are seeing a lot of new projects that could hopefully lead to some spill over growth downtown.

In contrast, there are currently seven or eight tower cranes in the Central West End neighborhood. Anchored by the medical district, this area is where most of the urban growth is occurring currently.

[Greg S]

Just got back from 4 days in St Louis. Was down there for a hockey tournament. Thursday night went and saw the Blues. I haven't been to the Enterprise Center in years. They've done some great renovations in the last few years since I have been.

They have a great Anheuser Busch Biergarten area for before and after games on main floor. Was a great place to hang out. Was glad it was there because we didn't see anywhere in the areas we walked through before the game to go.

Greg

[strangerthings]

Most of these buildings burned down during the holidays

[BuildTaller]

Most of these buildings burned down during the holidays

Seems like these were old abandoned buildings with homeless living inside that were going to be repurposed as part of the big project.

Story : https://www.stlpr.org/news-briefs/2025- ... -buildings

Pictures of the fire are pretty crazy :

[skinzfan23]

Wow, that is sad. Reminds me of the Butternut building when it caught on fire right before it was ready to open.

[WiinterU]

The Butternut Building was previously meant to be demolished for apartments. However, it was saved from demolition to be converted into apartments. However, during renovation, the building caught on fire and was destroyed.