Plans are moving ahead for a $150 million transformation of the former Dillard’s department store downtown into apartments, a hotel, shops and restaurants.
Developer Amos Harris says he hopes the project is done in early 2012. Included in the work is removal of the skybridge that connects the Dillard’s building to the closed St. Louis Centre mall. Harris, head of Brady Capital, said this afternoon the skybridge “will be one of the first things we take down.”
In the works is a 212-room Embassy Suites hotel on the building’s second through fifth floors. Above the hotel will be 205 apartments, many with balconies facing an interior atrium. First-floor space will be a mixture of restaurants and shops, Harris said.
The Dillard’s project is related to a larger plan to convert most of the closed St. Louis Centre to parking and to renovate the One City Centre office building above the mall.
“The idea is to make this part of town the cool, hip part of downtown,” Harris said.
He adds that financing for the Dillard’s project is done “or close to done.” Included is a HUD-backed loan and approximately $28 million each in state and federal historic tax credits, Harris said.
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hurrah
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St’ Louis center converted into parking? Do any of the brainstems involved in this realize that roughly half of downtown consists of parking garages that are never full? So lets add a few dozen more garages to park instead of businesses, attractions, and residential that would truly draw more people there on a permanent basis. Another few decades of this and downtown will be fully realized as the parking garage capital of the US. Everyone will be able to easily find a parking spot in a garage that is never full so they can gather down there and slurp Imo’s pizza while they all ask each other where they went to high school. Considering the lack of vision people around here seem to have this is not at all surprising. Keep on keeping it real St. Louis.
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More hotel space in downtown? They can’t maintain profitable occupancy with the rooms they have now. Am I missing something? Oh no, that was a loaded question.
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Any idea when construction will begin?
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1.I am willing to put money on this not being completed.
2. Morfirst you are correct, we don’t need more hotel space downtown at all. Actually we dont need more of anything in this project. Take that 28 million and just give it to the city schools. It will accomplish much more than parking spots will.
3. What we need is more jobs in the city, and not temp jobs created by construction.
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I am pleased to see this moving forward, but like jaco, I am very disappointed to learn that St. Louis Centre will be mostly parking.
There are already too many unsightly parking garages downtown. And it’s not a question of demand, either, as on many days most garages are not anywhere near capacity. I understand Thompson Coburn in the US Bank tower wants more parking, but couldn’t a garage be built for them on the old Ambassador Theater (which should have never been demolished) site at Seventh and Locust streets?
The original plan to renovate St. Louis Centre (The Concord) featured condominiums on the upper levels. That would have helped this part of downtown in so many ways. The critical mass of residents in that immediate area desperately needs to be expanded if Macy’s is going to survive and if we’re ever going to have any hope of attracting other retailers to downtown again.
Unfortunately, our leaders seem content to rubber-stamp any proposal for parking garages without taking into account the oversupply of parking structures in downtown or the effect a garage like this would have on the surrounding area, which by my recollection, has plenty of garages already!
I can’t wait to see the old Stix Baer & Fuller (what the building was before Dillard’s ruined it) restored and filled with residents, tourists, and shoppers, but I hate to see our leaders and developers sell downtown St. Louis short once again by settling for another parking garage.
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When parking rates are $5-$10…A DAY. You know you have an oversupply of parking.
Colliers study of parking rates 2009:
o Midtown Manhattan – $550.00
o Downtown Manhattan – $500.00
o Boston – $403.00
o San Francisco – $350.00
o Chicago – $325.0
o St. Louis – $105.0
The national AVERAGE is $154.
So I think it is safe to say we have enough supply.
http://www.colliers.com/Content/Repositories/Base/Markets/LawServices/English/Market_Report/PDFs/colliersparkingratesurvey2009.pdf
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after the rams move back to los angeles….we dont need this…
i always thought that the city center would make a perfect aquarium….its all glass…just filler up and stock it with fish…
give the money to the schools? yeah…that works…just give it away to the black hole of public education…
our city govt better get a clue soon or we are finished…the trends over the last 5 years for all of stl have been horrible!!!
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HUD backed loan. So no need for it to make sense or be profitable. Its just taxpayer money. We can just print more. In ten years they will turn this into a parking garage and the new parking garage will be converted into a mall. I remember when St Louis Centre was built ” with tax dollars” and it was gonna be the savior of downtown. People said it was gonna be a big waste but the government knew better.
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hey Jaco…where are all the residential buyers supposed to park their cars? on the street? I don’t think so…you may want to think things out before you speak next time.
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Umm…how bout they park in the attached garage, the old Dillard’s garage. You know, the one people were able to park in when coming to shop there. Seriously, more parking?
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So, let me get this straight. The refurbished Dillards and the Glass Elephant are goint to be the “cool, hip part of downtown”. How so, St. Louis. Tee! Hee!
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We’ve come a long way since Scruggs Vandevort & Barney
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I’d support anything that gets the skywalk down. It turns Washington into a huge, noisy tunnel, and pretty much precludes anything else good from happening in that stretch.
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