Wearing BattleHawks shirts, Tyler Gray and his wife Samantha Gray walk to Busch Stadium for Saturday’s game between the Miami Marlins and St. Louis Cardinals in downtown St. Louis.
David Carson, Post-Deployment
More than 100,000 people filled the streets of downtown this past weekend to cheer on the Cardinals, Battle Hawks and City SC. Have a fun and safe time. Bringing economic investment to bars, restaurants, shops and hotels.
Days like this remind us of what downtown can and should be: a safe, vibrant, dynamic and walkable neighborhood in the heart of metro St. Louis. And with days like this on the rise, hotel bookings, foot traffic and visits to downtown attractions like the Gateway Arch are all up, and violent crime is down downtown and across the city of St. Louis.
The momentum is real, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have work to do to truly revitalize downtown. In fact, the Wall Street Journal published an article this week highlighting some of the major challenges facing downtown St. Louis, particularly the large vacant properties in parts of the Central Business District.
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The article took an overly dramatic and pessimistic tone, focusing on one of the major problem properties, the Railroad Exchange Building, and using it to paint downtown St. Louis as a whole in a negative light. We brought to the fore the reasons why STL is opposed. The 2030 Jobs Plan identified the recovery of downtown St. Louis as a top strategic priority.
The Wall Street Journal article also relied on a flawed Canadian study that claimed St. Louis was lagging behind other cities in terms of returning tourists, workers and residents to its downtown area. It was a great disservice to our readers and to the St. Louis Metro. . The study does not include major facilities that drive downtown pedestrian and economic activity, such as the Gateway Arch, CityPark Stadium, Enterprise Center, major employers Ameren and Purina, and Union Station. Regardless of where you live in metro St. Louis, it’s safe to assume that all of these locations are downtown.
We point this out to set the record straight, but we also want to be clear: the St. Louis metropolitan area will not grow without a strong downtown, and downtown St. Louis is still not where it needs to be. It means that it is not. The complex challenges we face downtown did not emerge overnight, nor will they be resolved overnight. It requires rigorous, intentional, and focused collaboration.
That’s why business, civic, and government leaders in the St. Louis region are working together to meet these challenges head-on. There is much work to be done, but we are optimistic about St. Louis’ future and the revitalization of our downtown.
The City of St. Louis, Greater St. Louis, and the St. Louis Development Corporation are partnering to address challenges such as developing a rail exchange for a functioning downtown in the not-too-distant future. It is an economic and cultural beacon for our entire region.
GSL and SLDC recently partnered on a new incentive package to attract retail businesses to downtown St. Louis. The incentive package includes four separate components, all aimed at attracting new retail activity and increasing density and vibrancy at the street level downtown. This series of retail attraction incentives, based on national best practices, generated more than 20 serious inquiries from retailers in the first week of its announcement.
We are also partnering on much-needed infrastructure investments downtown to improve safety and walkability. This includes traffic calming measures along Fourth Street, Broadway and Washington Avenue, as well as infrastructure improvements along Seventh Avenue between Ballpark Village and America’s Center. Additional infrastructure investments are needed, but these are necessary steps to better serve downtown residents, workers, and visitors.
Additionally, there is positive economic news across the metro region, with leading indicators such as employment and GDP growth showing that we are on a growth trajectory. The day before it published an article about downtown, the Wall Street Journal named St. Louis one of the nation’s “hottest job markets,” ahead of metropolitan areas such as Atlanta, Denver, San Antonio and San Francisco.
These national media articles show us the promise and the challenges we face, and remind us of the work we must remain focused on. As we work to return St. Louis to growth, downtown must be a priority for the entire region. We need to think creatively about what that would look like and work hard to get there.
We are making progress and will continue to work together every day to make Downtown a world-class district in the heart of a world-class metro. That’s our responsibility.
Jones is the mayor of St. Louis. Mr. Hall is CEO of Greater St. Louis, Inc.
