Am I Missing Something?
If you’re one of the more than 90,000 commuters who take Highway 40 through downtown Saint Louis every day, you might not know what you’re missing. Just beneath the elevated lanes of the highway beyond Busch Stadium and the Scottrade Center stands a building, constructed in 1985, opened in 1988, abandoned in 2003, and foreclosed in 2008. Now, it’s up for auction through the close of business tomorrow, and the starting bid is only $400,000. It used to house the Union Station 10 movie theater, but that was then. The Washington Avenue theater is now.
A mere mile northeast of the failed Union Station 10 theater, state and federal taxpayers are shelling out tens of millions to build a new theater and parking garage on Washington Avenue. The new theater is certainly more visible than the Union Station 10 theater, but is it more viable? With its commercial vacancy rate of more than 22 percent, and some of the lowest lease rates in the region, downtown Saint Louis is a challenging market for any type of real estate development. Does building new while foreclosing on the old make any sense? This taxpayer wants to know.
Awful, just awful. All is takes is a little research in Urban Design to know what freeways can do to a city. (I-70 along the riverfront anyone), who is going to see a movie at a failing shopping mall under a hideous elevated freeway. Sorry not me. I will be frequenting the one on WASHINGTON in the heart of Downtown where there is much more activity, better bars, restaurants, the ARCH, your much closer to the bustling part of downtown on Washington, not Union Station. This has a much better chance at success than Union Station ever did. Way to look at both sides of the issue. This publication sucks.
Comment by Jason — April 27, 2011 @ 4:32 p.m.
Your comment is most welcome, Jason. Do you believe that Union Station failed in a vacuum? As I see it, the concentration of subsidy on Washington Avenue isn’t creating NEW economic activity; it’s simply moving the OLD activities to a different location. The issue isn’t whether a movie theater on Washington is better or worse; it’s whether building a movie theater is a proper function of government. Frankly, I would prefer lower taxes and no movie theater to higher taxes and a fancy theater that will cater to a favored few.
Comment by Thomas Duda — April 27, 2011 @ 4:47 p.m.
Do tell of your prospective tenants for the former Union Station theater? Poor urban planning then and better urban planning now. I’m not going to argue that taxpayer dollars need to be seriously considered on all projects – but the Mercantile Exchange is exciting and is a different approach to retail than the concepts tried at Union Station & the former St. Louis Centre. My taxes are the same they were in 2004 when I started working in St. Louis City…1% and my property taxes are too low in my opinion. If I could have more public transit and schools…I’d pay more. So, let’s not get too out of shape about taxes. Keep asking questions but wake-up and get excited about what is going on in Downtown St. Louis…try it…you’ll be a much less cranky person. It may take public money to get things done in St. Louis at the moment but the plan is for that to change in the next 3 – 5 years and I think it will!
Comment by Jay — April 27, 2011 @ 5:59 p.m.
Bread and circuses.
Comment by Eapen Thampy — April 27, 2011 @ 6:43 p.m.
Jay/Jason,
The City’s economy is so anemic as to make the reuse of many of its buildings difficult if not impossible. However, I don’t subscribe to the view that urban design is a determinant of economic viability. You’re wrapping aesthetic and modal preferences in the veneer of “better urban planning.” Planning is what planners say it is at any given time; it’s hardly incontrovertible and our views of what’s “best” are always subject to change. In my estimation, planning is an offense to the American values of expansive individual freedom and an unfettered marketplace.
There are such things as pretty parking garages and then there are boondoggles. Wasteful expenditures of tax money diminish economic growth and necessitate raising revenues elsewhere or cutting the services.
Unless you choose to never buy anything in the City, you’re simply wrong with respect to taxes since 2004.
I’m over the mythology that “downtown is back.” It’s been coming back for 50 years, while losing jobs and businesses. That’s not something to cheer.
Comment by Thomas Duda — April 27, 2011 @ 9:06 p.m.
Its up to $700k with only 2 hours to go!
Comment by vroman — April 28, 2011 @ 11:51 a.m.
What did it finally sell for? Not that I have the spare change to do anything with it. Just curious.
I agree with Tom Duda, all the city seems to be doing with their economic development efforts is moving the pieces around the board. Same with state efforts. All the money that’s been thrown at downtown doesn’t seem to do any long-term good. Other than temporary things like boosting developer profits and keeping the building trade unemployment rate lower than it otherwise would be what do we get out of it all?
I say spend the money on improving the schools. That’s what people buy anyway. They don’t buy houses, they buy school districts. If the city schools had been and stayed the best in the region the city would never have had a population decline and we wouldn’t be having this discussion.
Comment by Keith Marquard — May 2, 2011 @ 9:21 p.m.