The Arcade Building Downtown has secured its needed ancor commercial tenant as Webster University has chosen to expand its presence downtown.
The St Louis Business Journal reports that increasing classrooms, adding a cafe, an auditorium and more office space will be the anchor tenant, but declined to state how much of the commercial space will be used by the university.
The upside of this move is big for the city in that it will allow development of a historic gem to be completed and backed financially by a credible institution in St Louis. Nice too that Webster will be increasing its activity downtown, despite not really knowing what extent that will be. Completion is scheduled for 2016.
My hopes are that the actual arcade within the first two floors will allow for additional commercial development and public use of those amenities. That seems to be what the first two levels of the Arcade building is designed for, rather than a secured entry with more lower level offices and classrooms. The remainder of the building is still going to be used for downtown apartments and artist lofts which will add to the density of the area, but retail establishments will be needed to attract tennants and fullfill the needs of downtown.