Why not more jobs Downtown? (St. Louis, St. Charles: rent, crime, loans)

[Citykid644]

Right now downtown is looking good and is getting better and better every year but Why is regional corporate leadership and the business community continue to ignore downtown?
In other cities you see jobs moving back to downtown areas like Quicken loans in Detroit and GE in Cincinnati but why don't you see Edward Jones, Enterprise, or Express Scripts move or add workers to downtown. There are a lot of nice perks to being downtown right now. Office rent is cheap, Light rail, classic architecture and growing number of start up business, residents and students.

Why does the corporate leadership continue to ignore downtown and will this ever change?

[Dawn10am]

I've been asking myself that question. It seems like it would be beneficial for major employers to all be in a central business district for synergistic purposes. The only answer I can come up with is that I guess people just like working in suburban office parks, which is baffling to me.

[mufilm]

It is a strange phenomenon. The DT population has really bounced back, but the jobs have not. It's even stranger when you consider that major regional institutions have gotten in on the game, like SLU opening it's Law School and Webster set to occupy the Arcade Building. On one hand it makes me feel like it's only a matter of time before we here the announcement of a major corporation locating hundreds of jobs DT, but on the other, I feel like it should have happened by now.

[STLCityMike]

I would love to see more companies invest in downtown. A few thoughts - 1) commercial investment is more significant and long term in natrure, and I think it tends to always lag behind the residential market. When the residential market shifted outward, the jobs slowly made the move .. The move back may be slow as well. 2) while we do have the population growth, there is still a significant populatioin outside of the downtown area, and unfourtunately, there are those that still don't want to work in the city / downtown for various reasons (paying to park, 1% earnings tax, distance from home or fear of the unknown?). There are perks that I hope everyone realizes about working downtown including availability of food establishments withinn walking distance.

[billiken]

Originally Posted by Dawn10am

I've been asking myself that question. It seems like it would be beneficial for major employers to all be in a central business district for synergistic purposes. The only answer I can come up with is that I guess people just like working in suburban office parks, which is baffling to me.

The majority of the population lives in the burbs. I think people have adapted to their commute times. One of my friend's offices was considering a move from Clayton to downtown, and there was an enormous amount of uproar from the people in the office. They did not want to add another 15/20 mins to their commute. Office remained in Clayton despite known rent savings. Granted, Clayton isn't suburban office park, but I think the commuting problems remain the same.

[flynavyj]

As a guy lucky enough to work downtown I enjoy a 25-30 minute commute from my mid-county residence...and have the joy of giving 1% of my earnings back to St. Louis City for the privilege of having a job.

As the previous poster said, the majority of the St. Louis population lives outside of St. Louis City, and I don't see that changing in the near future. Additionally, the majority of St. Louis' wealth seems to be located along I-64 expanding Westward towards the Daniel Boone Bridge.

I'll be the first to tell you that I don't mind my 25 minute commute. Co-workers in St. Charles County often carpool or vanpool to work so they can avoid extended delays, and can make their commutes productive (similar to if you were riding mass transit...but without the mass transit citizens that many county folks seems to dislike). Additionally, while there will ALWAYS be a demographic that desires urban living, many people want suburban living with urban amenities...people like big yards, green grass, neighborhood pools, and applebee's...but wouldn't mind being able to walk to a store every now and then, or turning "drive time" into "bike time".

St. Louis City has many obstacles that need to be overcome still as well...the top two being crime and poor schools. Until you can attract more residents than the young fabulous and broke, you're going to be fighting an uphill battle with the surrounding counties.

[Hector2]

I don't think it is about ignoring downtown. For the three companies you named, they are already on large corporate campuses that are new to newish. There is no need for them to leave. As to why they didn't locate downtown in the first place, my speculation is that it was much cheaper to build the corporate campuses than to find and reconfigure the amount of office space needed. I mean, those firms need huge amounts of space. Where would they go downtown. Well, now they could use the AT&T building...Plus, as has been mentioned for many workers and execs it's a plus not to have to drive downtown and deal with street lights that aren't timed, frequent road closures, higher taxes, and pricey parking.

As for companies in the professional services sector, like legal, accounting, banking, and finance, I've been told that most customers/clients don't want to travel downtown and would rather visit an office in Clayton or Chesterfield if given the choice. That doesn't mean that those types of companies have completely abandoned downtown but you've seen some big moves to Clayton and other firms that have considered moving downtown but have ultimately decided to stay in the county as billiken alluded to.

Isn't the real question, when will this region add a significant amount of jobs? I don't see many reasons to be optimistic on that front. It won't be until then that you see downtown get an influx of new corporate jobs.

[MUTGR]

Originally Posted by Hector2

As for companies in the professional services sector, like legal, accounting, banking, and finance, I've been told that most customers/clients don't want to travel downtown and would rather visit an office in Clayton or Chesterfield if given the choice.

This is definitely true.

[Dawn10am]

I find it interesting that pricey parking is often mentioned as a detriment to downtown, but is't that also true of Clayton? Doesn't Clayton have a lot of the same headaches as any other downtown area? Why are people more willing to put up with those headaches in downtown Clayton than downtown St. Louis?

[MUTGR]

Originally Posted by billiken

The majority of the population lives in the burbs. I think people have adapted to their commute times. One of my friend's offices was considering a move from Clayton to downtown, and there was an enormous amount of uproar from the people in the office. They did not want to add another 15/20 mins to their commute. Office remained in Clayton despite known rent savings. Granted, Clayton isn't suburban office park, but I think the commuting problems remain the same.

Yep, I posted this a couple of years ago, but the jobs followed the people:

http://www.stltoday.com/business/loc...1f5e892a2.html

When I was a kid my father and most of the people I knew worked downtown - now it's flipped. I know and work with many city residents who commute to the county.