The last month, news about the floundering Busch's Grove in Ladue has suggested that Vince Bommarito saving the historic restaurant with hints of uncertainty for downtowns Tony's.
This week, Vince made an offer and hinted about the possible changing of the guard at Tony's in an article that included talk about suitors to Pyramid's projects.
Developing the Arcade under a different plan would be a great thing for the city for several reasons. For starters, the ultra-luxury plan envisioned by Pyramid wasn't marketable. Even the developer's have to remember that St. Louis is still a conservative midwestern city. Many "high end" buyer's start out looking for the penthouse and end up spending less.
The next phase of developers that take on downtown will hopefully stick to a more realistic business plan. As admirable as John Steffen and Pyramid are, it seemed that the past year or two that operations were more based on a fantasy than on a business plan. Many other developer's seemed to be caught up in the same notion. Of course, that's just an outsider's perspective. It was an issue that came up with each buyer and seller I worked with.
With the brakes slammed on so many projects downtown, it will give the market a chance to settle down. Despite all the hoopla, progress is being made and downtown is still in business!
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