Quarterly DSLRA Meeting Wednesday!

Downtown Living Tour Today!

The 2013 Downtown Living tour is being held today starting at the luxury apartment building, Park Pacific at 1223 Pine.  

The Premier Team will be consulting prospective downtown buyers at the Syndicate Condominiums Penthouse at 915 Olive St in the heart of Downtown.  That upscale building has some of the most favorite amenities in all of downtown, with multiple roof decks, business center, onsite manager, fully appointed club room with kitchen, media room, artist workshop, dual art galleries, covered parking for everyone, plus access to the 9th street garage for additional parking and access to the Culinaria grocer.  Its the Syndicate Condominiums that define the word 'community' when it comes to downtown living.    

This years tour, as each year progresses, is more laid back than the last year with a theme of visiting only occupied units.  Our first Downtown Living Tour was in 2005 when relatively speaking, downtown St Louis was in shambles.  

We used to have an informational tent at street level and direct people to all our listings.  For several years, we put that tent next to Flannery's because the vacant building next door really looked creepy.  That building, like so many others, was transformed.  In this case into the Fitness Factory, now a sort of centerpiece for downtown residents.  Looking back, anyone involved in downtown can certainly say its come a long way!

One other thing about the tour that I remember was the energy and excitement for the number of projects going on.  In 2005, the Moon Brothers Carriage Lofts and the Ventana were announced on the day of the tour, in 2006, the Meridian was announced and tours of the vacant building were held at the tour before it was even closed on by the new developer.  For those in the know, there was always a lot of discussion with the mostly suburban crowd attending the tour about all the great things being built and conceived to make our downtown world class. As the years changed, so did the types of projects and scope of work.  

After the loft boom, getting a construction loan to redevelop a loft building was virtually impossible.  Since the Roberts Tower had already been started, it seemed to be the last building to be built, but at the prices it would take to justify the construction, prospects of completion were bleak.  Even a solid, reliable community institution like the St Louis Cardinals couldn't get the construction financing they needed to start Ballpark Village.  Projects were still completed and rental lofts and stylish apartments, the MX Exchange, and both the CityGarden and Old Post Office Plaza were completed during the scary days of the recession.  Despite the worst financial crisis since the great depression, Downtown St Louis continued to move forward, earning a distinction as the fastest growing neighborhood for young, college educated professionals.

It should be interesting to see how today's tour unfolds.  The drama and hype of the days when loft developer's ran the show are over, and left in their wake is a stable neighborhood that still has room to grow and thrive. 

Stop by and see the Premier Team at 915 Olive at the Syndicate Condominiums for a list of all our stylish downtown listings!  

Tour registration is $20 today.

The Power of Dishonest PR

Shit happens. Everywhere. After seeing news headlines describing a crime and other current affairs taking place 'near downtown', only to look up the address and find its nowhere near downtown, we've decided to offer a FREE CLASS.

The map above shows two of the locations. One happened in Fountain Park at the 4800 block. Its located close to the Ville and the Greater Ville neighborhoods. If someone isn't familiar with them, its Closer to the Central West End or Skinker- DeBallievere. To get from Fountain Park to Downtown, one would have to go through Grand Center. The other instance at 4100 N Grand Blvd is in the Fairgrond Neighborhood,
which is close to Hyde Park and North Riverfront. Its about as close to Granite City, Illinois as it is to Downtown, yet our St Louis journalists have "Close to Downtown" on the headline. If I was a downtown resident, I'd call up KMOV and complain.

I'd also question why reference to Downtown when the situation is closer to equally known areas like Central West End. They could have said, "near the Cathedral Basilica on Lindell. It would have been more correct than saying near downtown. The Partnership for Downtown St Louis should do something too. A loft tour won't address this problem. Since we're not downtown St Louis residents, we'll help by offering a special class called 'Geography For Dummies' specifically for members of the press. We'll cover city neighborhoods so that press members know something about what they're reporting on. Our class will be free.

They could buy a copy of the downtown neighborhoods map too. While downtown isn't the only neighborhood that gets erroneously connected to crimes happening elsewhere, it definately takes the prize for the most mistaken identity reports. To me this seems like it gives downtown St Louis a bad rap. We always hear public perception about downtown's lack of safety; in addition to events that really do happen, the false reporting of events as being in or close to downtown really should stop.

Cassilly Memorial

I went to Downtown St Louis back in the spring of 1996 to see an art show at this "weird museum" downtown.    It was my first experience in seeing the City Museum and my first chance to see a downtown loft.  We've been back to the City Museum with kids, to list the lofts, to rent them and with buyer's, but I never had the opportunity of meeting the late founder Bob Cassilly, or know much about him.   Working in the same neighborhood and benefiting so much from his contributions to the area, it was nice to see such a long article in this months (January) St Louis magazine about the life of Bob Cassilly.  The online article isn't the complete 4 page article that's in the magazine.

Normally, when someone contributes so much to an area, there are ceremonies and notoriety that comes along with it.  The absence of that almost makes it seem like Bob was taken for granted.  That could be the case, but from the article and everything else, it seemed that type of recognition was avoided while Bob was alive.

1.  At this point, my first wish is that City Museum stays what it is and somehow the vision for Cementland is completed.  It may take years, but in seeing what contributions have been made downtown and elsewhere in St Louis, its just what the doctor ordered for the north riverfront area.

2.  My second wish is that we honor the persistent requests of rock legend, Carlos Santana, and build a statue of Miles Davis.  I would say wish #2 should be to build a statue to honor Bob Cassilly, but Carlos Santana has been asking for St Louis to recognize Miles Davis for 2 decades.

3.  Build a statue of Bob Cassilly.  This request goes to the Partnership for Downtown St Louis and to the Downtown St Louis Residents Association.  Someone needs to pick up the ball.    Why this seems urgent to me is that if it doesn't happen Downtown, it will somewhere else.  From reading the magazine article, Bob seemed to have roots all over town:  Kirkwood, Lafayette Square, Webster Groves, Dogtown.  His work was all over town, and across the country.  

  

We can do better than this!

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Loft Education Revisited

November was a tough month. 


Having to live with a euphoric fog of having another World Series Championship in the bag, enjoying the unseasonably warm temperatures, then the beginning of the holiday season.  The whole month just flew by.


One of the events I missed was the Condominium Education Event held by the Partnership for Downtown Saint Louis and Wells Fargo.  This type of class being held downtown for free gets me giddy;  not because of its entertainment value - more of a life-long mission.


That mission starts with my belief that there is a good amount of ignorance pertaining to condominiums.  This theory applies to professionals as well as the general public.  Some people say this is a St Louis thing, since we're not as experienced as a whole compared to South Florida or Manhattan.  Many of the mortgage lenders, insurance brokers and realtors in St Louis just assume that working with lofts and condos is the same as dealing with a single family home, or a mutifamily apartment.  In observing and speaking with other professionals, I've gotten the sense that if they've never lived in a condominium or if they only work with them occasionally, that they have limited understanding of how they can assist their clients. 


I've seen more lenders attempt to finance a loft and fail, I've seen hundreds of underinsured condos, and I've worked with other Realtors that make huge errors that would have been avoidable with proper condominium education.  


As far as non-professionals go, the biggest mistake I see generally is not considering what a prospective home buyer or their buyer's agent would perceive of decisions made on condo bylaws or management decisions.  Crazy stuff can happen.  I've heard some condo associations have decided not to maintain their buildings FHA approved status because they think that status will allow Section 8 tenants to live in the building or less than stellar buyers needing government assistance will buy!   These are both 100% false, yet once the decisions are made with false information, they're hard to be reversed, and often times aren't even realized by anyone else in the building, due to the same ignorance.
   
This brings me back to the event hosted by the Partnership and Wells Fargo.


I ran into one of the partnership folks a few weeks back, and they boasted of the success of the Condo Education event in November and said they were looking at another one soon.   Its a great event for Realtors, Loft owners, condo association memebers, board members, and property managers.  


The event will be held at the Laclede Gas Building in the New Yaeger 1st floor conference center.  NEXT TUESDAY (January 31st) at 6:30pm.  


While I'm not 100% sure of the topics involved, I know that this is information that will benefit the Downtown St Louis neighborhoods and can ultimately lead to better price appreciation and overall market stability.  


BE THERE!