St. Louis - Dead Last

[MU82]

From the WSJ newsletter - The Number:

66

St. Louis’ rank on a list of 66 major North American downtowns where traffic declined between the start of the pandemic and last summer, making it dead last. Cities such as San Francisco and Chicago are trying to save their downtown office districts from spiraling into a doom loop. St. Louis is already trapped in one. It’s using landscaping, bike lanes, construction grants for retailers and other incentives to bring people and businesses back.

[WarriorFan]

I've been in St. Louis a few times in the last 2 years.

There is only one bar left open in Laclede's Landing.
At 7pm on a Friday night the only activity downtown was kids skateboarding down the main streets - and doing some cool acrobatics on the skateboards.
The soulard is almost dead.  A few restaurants remain, but almost nothing of the old bar/club/music scene. 
Most of the buildings downtown have zero or almost zero occupancy.
Very few coffee shops or other services downtown.

Of course most of the old St. Louis companies are either dead or acquired with the acquisition moving the HQ elsewhere.  The remaining center of commerce is now in Clayton - which has almost completely replaced the old St Louis downtown as the center for banking and offices. 

The only two things remaining downtown are the stadiums.  The rest of it could easily just be a park. 

[CreightonWarrior]

I've been in St. Louis a few times in the last 2 years.

There is only one bar left open in Laclede's Landing.
At 7pm on a Friday night the only activity downtown was kids skateboarding down the main streets - and doing some cool acrobatics on the skateboards.
The soulard is almost dead.  A few restaurants remain, but almost nothing of the old bar/club/music scene. 
Most of the buildings downtown have zero or almost zero occupancy.
Very few coffee shops or other services downtown.

Of course most of the old St. Louis companies are either dead or acquired with the acquisition moving the HQ elsewhere.  The remaining center of commerce is now in Clayton - which has almost completely replaced the old St Louis downtown as the center for banking and offices. 

The only two things remaining downtown are the stadiums.  The rest of it could easily just be a park.

I fully believe the landing was fully funded by Creighton during the MVC days. Every year we’d pack it in down there during arch madness.

From my understanding a year or two after we moved to the big east there was a shooting down there and the place soon after emptied out and things started closing.

[WhiteTrash]

FWIW, my daughter passed on a doctoral program at Washington U last year due to the city.

[Jockey]

Yadier’s gone. So are the people.

Just a coincidence?

[cheebs09]

We just went to St Louis over our daughter's spring break. For a toddler, there was a lot of great things to do.

My little plug before I start teasing the baseball fans for the next few months.

[MUBurrow]

That's too bad WarriorFan. I've always thought St Louis was a really cool, underrated city.  Broadway Oyster Bar followed by too many at McGurk's is an ideal night. Last time I was there, I went to a Cards game and will admit the surrounding area was underwhelming and showing signs of emptying out.  Is part of the issue that St Louis is just too sprawly?  When you're there, it seems like the kind of place that would benefit from higher concentrated density.

[The Hippie Satan of Hyperbole]

We looked at going to St. Louis a couple weeks ago, and I was surprised at how cheap the hotels were downtown. Then did some additional research...and yeah...it was crossed off the list.

[MU Fan in Connecticut]

I'm sorry to hear this.
I enjoyed my visit 5 years ago when my daughter visited StLU.  She was accepted and offered a large scholarship so she had to visit despite rejecting in the end.
She had some interest as we visited St. Louis 8 years ago as a family and had a fun visit.  We took the "scenic route" enroute to driving out to Milwaukee for my Marquette class reunion.

[mu_hilltopper]

Found this chart interesting .. basically ranks pre-pandemic vs. Oct 2023 cell phones in downtowns, and what %age recovery there has been.

St. Louis is at the bottom.  Kinda surprised about Minneapolis, 3rd from bottom.

https://downtownrecovery.com/charts/rankings

[LloydsLegs]

The number one problem with downtown St. Louis is, has and always will be that nobody lives there.  It used to empty out when the offices shut down.  Now it is just empty.  There were/are a couple of islands for tourists- Busch Stadium to Union Station; The Arch to The Landing to the Children's Museum.  But The Landing is dead, and now The children's museum is a separate tiny island.  There are non-downtown spots worthy of a visit with kids (Zoo/Forest Park and Grants farm) and lots of very good restaurants / decent neighborhoods, but downtown is awful. St. Louis was home during most of my HS and MU years, and I loved living there, and I still go once a year to visit friends.  But we don't go downtown. (it is a bit of a safety issue, but more so that there is no reason to go if you are not a tourist).

[jficke13]

Well pre-pandemic we were in STL for a wedding. Stayed in a hotel right across from Busch. The rehearsal was at a place on the top floor of a building somewhere down there, maybe 10ish blocks away? It made for a decent walk to or from, and I remember thinking how *empty* the area was. Something tells me that covid was just the straw on the camel kind of situation.

[MU82]

Good recruiting tool for the SLU coach: "The city can't possibly get any worse!"

[Skatastrophy]

I wonder what they consider to be downtown Chicago. Probably just the loop.

[Hards Alumni]

That's too bad WarriorFan. I've always thought St Louis was a really cool, underrated city.  Broadway Oyster Bar followed by too many at McGurk's is an ideal night. Last time I was there, I went to a Cards game and will admit the surrounding area was underwhelming and showing signs of emptying out.  Is part of the issue that St Louis is just too sprawly?  When you're there, it seems like the kind of place that would benefit from higher concentrated density.

Choosing an Oyster Bar in St. Louis is something admirable.  You couldn't find any big city further from salt water?