Increasingly rare, I agree with readers in the latest non-scientific Sunday Poll:
Q: Ald Chris Carter was arrested, his wife accused him of abuse. Should he resign now or remain in office.
Stay in office, resign only if found guilty 17 [54.84%]
Resign immediately 8 [25.81%]
Unsure/no answer 4 [12.9%]
Stay in office, even if found guilty 2 [6.45%]
The allegation of something shouldn’t be enough to force an elected official to resign. The police, prosecutors, and courts will seek justice.
The other issue, however, is his place of residence. I contacted Ald Carter on Monday to ask him a few questions, we spoke by phone. He says he and his wife, Lotasha Carter, are separated. She and their 18 month old daughter moved out of their house in the 5900 block of North Pointe Blvd a few months ago, they’ve been staying with her mother on East Gulf Shore in unincorporated North St. Louis County. Carter says he visits daily to help with their daughter.
Chris & Lotosha Carter were married in June 2013, but they’d been discussing divorce — which is why she moved out of their home. They bought the home in July 2014 — year after getting married. Both of their names are on the deed. The Carter’s listed their home for sale in December 2015
Monday afternoon I replied to 27th Ward Committewoman Pamela Boyd’s email, who’d questioned his residency, to see if she had any facts otherwise. In her reply she indicated her claims were based on the fact she had seen a for sale sign in the yard. I also contacted the other person questioning Carter’s residence, I’ve not heard back from Rep Clay. Chris Carter told me the sale is scheduled to close Friday next week.
It appears the issue of his residency is much ado about nothing.
I remember trips to Sears with my mom in the early/mid 1970s, plus I’d look through the Sears catalog at home. Much of my early wardrobe was from Sears. I also remember trips to the same Sears with my dad to buy/replace Craftsman tools. My parents had our new house built in 1965 — the same year the 160,000+ sq ft Sears store was built 2.2 miles away (map). That Sears store is still open, and isn’t on the recent list of Sears/Kmart closures.
One Kmart in the St. Louis region was on the list last month, the Bridgeton location at 11978 St Charles Rock Rd.
The Bridgeton Kmart was built in 1991, per St. Louis County tax records
A few years ago the Bridgeton Walmart moved to just East of this Kmart. But the Sears/Kmart closures are part of a bigger trend for these retailers:
Trying to cut its way to profitability, troubled Sears Holdings announced Thursday that it will close 68 Kmart and 10 Sears stores this summer in its latest move to cut losses.
Sears’ (SHLD) move (see the list of the stores) comes atop a previous announcement that it will close 50 other stores. Sales have been falling and Sears had a disappointing holiday sales season.
“The decision to close stores is a difficult but necessary step as we take aggressive actions to strengthen our company, fund our transformation and restore Sears Holdings to profitability,” said Sears Holdings CEO Edward Lampert in a statement. (USA Today)
From February:
Sears said Thursday that its same-store sales fell 7.1% in the fourth quarter and revenue dropped 9.8% to $7.3 billion.
The company reported a quarterly loss of $580 million, or $5.44 per share, compared with a loss of $159 million, or $1.50 a share, the previous year. (Business Insider)
Retailing is competitive. but many put part of the blame on the libertarian leader: Eddie Lampert. From July 2013:
Every year the presidents of Sears Holdings’ many business units trudge across the company’s sprawling headquarters in Hoffman Estates, Ill., to a conference room in Building B, where they ask Eddie Lampert for money. The leaders have made these solitary treks since 2008, when Lampert, a reclusive hedge fund billionaire, splintered the company into more than 30 units. Each meeting starts quietly: When the executive arrives, Lampert’s top consiglieri are there, waiting around a U-shaped table, according to interviews with a half-dozen former employees who attended these sessions. An assistant walks in, turns on a screen on the opposite wall, and an image of Lampert flickers to life.
The Sears chairman, who lives in a $38 million mansion in South Florida and visits the campus no more than twice a year (he hates flying), is usually staring at his computer when the camera goes live, according to attendees.
The executive in the hot seat will begin clicking through a PowerPoint presentation meant to impress. Often he’ll boast an overly ambitious target—“We can definitely grow 20 percent this year!”—without so much as a glance from Lampert, 50, whose preference is to peck out e-mails or scroll through a spreadsheet during the talks. Not until the executive makes a mistake does the Sears chief look up, unleashing a torrent of questions that can go on for hours. (Bloomberg)
Why does he manage this way? From December 2013:
Once upon a time, hedge fund manager Eddie Lampert was living a Wall Street fairy tale. His fairy godmother was Ayn Rand, the dashing diva of free-market ideology whose quirky economic notions would transform him into a glamorous business hero.
For a while, it seemed to work like a charm. Pundits called him the “Steve Jobs of the investment world.” The new Warren Buffett. By 2006 he was flying high, the richest man in Connecticut, managing over $15 billion thorough his hedge fund, ESL Investments.
Stoked by his Wall Street success, Lampert plunged headlong into the retail world. Undaunted by his lack of industry experience and hailed a genius, Lampert boldly pushed to merge Kmart and Sears with a layoff and cost-cutting strategy that would, he promised, send profits into the stratosphere. Meanwhile the hotshot threw cash around like an oil sheikh, buying a $40 million pad in Florida’s Biscayne Bay, a record even for that star-studded county.
Fast-forward to 2013: The fairy tale has become a nightmare.
Lampert is now known as one of the worst CEOs in America — the man who flushed Sears down the toilet with his demented management style and harebrained approach to retail. Sears stock is tanking. His hedge fun is down 40 percent, and the business press has turned from praising Lampert’s genius towatching gleefully as his ship sinks. Investors are running from “Crazy Eddie” like the plague.
That’s what happens when Ayn Rand is the basis for your business plan. (Salon)
For now the Big K store on Manchester in St, Louis remains open. But for how long?
The retailer filed for Chapter 11 protection in federal bankruptcy court in Delaware in a move aimed at helping it shed much of its debt and clean up its balance sheet. A successful revamp would let Sports Authority improve its brick-and-mortar, perhaps with in-store boutiques similar to the Under Armour and Nike shops that have been so fruitful for rival Dick’s Sporting Goods.
Sports Authority, whose name adorns the stadium of the Denver Broncos, has been saddled with boatloads of debt ever since a $1.3 billion leveraged buyout a decade ago. At the time, the Colorado-based retailer and Dick’s DKS -1.79% were similar in size with annual sales of $3 billion. But since then, Dick’s has invested in its in-store experience and in-store tech, which have helped propel the retailer’s sales past Sports Authority’s. Analysts are forecasting total 2015 sales of $7.3 billion for the Pennsylvania-based company, compared to almost $3 billion at Sports Authority. (Fortune)
In early April it looked like the bankruptcy might work:
Embattled retailer Sports Authority has finally received a bit of good news: it looks to have settled a dispute with consignment suppliers that could resolve around 160 lawsuits.
The suits centered around $85 million-worth of winter gear currently being sold at the sporting goods retailer’s stores, and suppliers who had sold these products on consignment wanted them back in the wake of Sport Authority’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing in March.
Now, if the settlement is approved by Judge Mary Walrath of the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware, Sports Authority will be able to sell this gear throughout the bankruptcy proceedings, according to the Wall Street Journal. (Fortune)
The Bridgeton Sports Authority on April 24th had a sign indicating only this location was closing, the others in the region were staying open
End of April:
Vendors, however, didn’t like seeing the merchandise they had consigned sold off in liquidation sales without reimbursement, and they sued. Sports Authority countersued.
Landlords also were upset that the company filed for bankruptcy protection one day after March rents were due, stiffing them out of $27 million.
“They didn’t get very far into this before they hit snags with their suppliers. That tells me they weren’t that close to getting the reorganization done,” said Dan Schniedwind, a credit analyst and retail specialist with Denver Investments.
In the end, creditors weren’t willing to allow the company to continue making large purchases, something required to keep stocking the shelves in even a reduced number of stores. (Denver Post)
By mid-May:
Sports Authority Holdings Inc. will head to auction next week with bids in place from two groups of liquidators plus smaller offers from rivals Dick’s Sporting Goods Inc. and Modell’s Inc., according to people familiar with the situation.
However, the bids from Dick’s and Modell’s were considered “disappointing” and for fewer stores than initially expected, one of the people said. Dick’s, which one equity analyst said could make an offer for 180 stores, instead placed a bid for less than 20 stores; Modell’s made an offer for a small handful of stores, the person added. (Wall Street Journal)
Heres’s a list of the St. Louis area locations, the first three were announced in March:
New retail tenants are moving into the space in Ellisville Square in Ellisville that Kmart vacated earlier this year.
Brixmor Property Group, the New York-based commercial real estate company that owns Ellisville Square, said the space will be filled by three new tenants: a 40,000-square-foot Sports Authority, a 19,000-square-foot Michaels and a 16,000-square-foot Party City. The stores are slated to open in the third quarter of 2015, Brixmor officials said in a statement. (St. Louis Business Journal)
The Ellisville location was announced in January 2015:
Three new stores — Michaels, Sports Authority and Party City — will be opening soon at the site of what was a K-mart store at Clarkson and Manchester roads in Ellisville (Post-Dispatch)
Earlier we discussed the Sears/Kmart CEO, but why did Sports Authority fail?
Once one of the largest sports retail chains in the country, Sports Authority has now slipped behind outlets like Dick’s Sporting Goods and REI. These chains have positioned themselves more successfully in the market through establishing strong relationships with their suppliers, developing the leverage to keep prices low that their competitors have had difficulty matching, Rory Masterson, an industry analyst at IBISWorld, told the Los Angeles Times in April. They’ve also adapted more sucessfully to the online marketplace. Online sales at Dick’s climbed at a compounded annual rate of 39 percent from 2010 to 2015.
While Sports Authority may be faltering, the sporting goods industry as a whole is growing. It accounts for an estimated $150 billion per year globally. In 2014, the most recent year available for figures, the industry was worth $63.7 billion in the United States, an increase of 24 percent since 2009 and a jump of 2 percent from the year before.
Sports Authority faces tough competition from traditional sports retail outlets, yet its financial struggles point to the increased diversification of the sports retail market. A wide array of more specialized competitors have entered the field, providing both traditional sports garments and “athleisure”, or casual wear inspired by workout clothing that has exploded in popularity over the past few years. (CSM)
The Bridgeton Kmart & Sports Authority are both part of Hill Top Plaza.
Hilltop Plaza Redevelopment Area Tax Increment Financing Redevelopment Plan – Hilltop Plaza Community Improvement District; analysis of the eligibility for TIF and CID, and the planning and financial projections for the redevelopment of the 70% vacant portion of Hilltop Plaza, formerly a destination shopping area on St. Charles Rock Road. (EDR)
I was at the MetroBus stop on St. Charles Rock Rd in 2013 — had no idea at Kmart & Sports Authority were close. Was wasn’t/isn’t any pedestrian access. Even between Kmart & Sports Authority there’s no pedestrian route! I know the lack of pedestrian access didn’t cause these stores to close, but it didn’t help them either. Pedestrians do exist in the area — there are sidewalks along St. Charles Rock Rd and the parallel internal road — they just don’t connect the businesses to transit or each other.
The Railway Exchange occupies city block 128, bounded by Olive, 7th, Locust, and 6th. It contains 1.2 million square feet but not a single parking spot. In the early 60s buildings to the South were razed so a 1,000-car garage could be constructed.
The parking garage for the Railway Exchange building was built in 1962, per city records. Shown here in 1966 while the Kiener West garage is getting started. The Railway Exchange is in the background. Scanned from my collection, photographer unknownLooking from the former department store into the bridge over Olive St connecting to the garage, January 2011
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6th & Pine corner of the garage7th & Pine7th St focus group at 7th & Pine on May 1, 2012A little further up the group is under the only ramp into the garage. The ULI TAP recommended the ramp be removed and access be gained another way
The garage has lots of issues:
It’s 54+ years old
It has low heights
Looks dated inside & out
Is awkward to use as a motorist
Is unsecure — elevators open onto the sidewalk
Using some of the building’s square footage for parking is an option, especially the basement level. The problem? The building doesn’t have a back side. All four facades are finished and face public streets.
West/7th St facadeNorth/Locust St facadeEast/6th St facadeSouth/Olive St facade
Last year parking came up for the Mark Twain Building in Kansas City, another future project of Hudson Holdings:
According to Chuck Reitzel, a project manager with Ebersoldt + Associates Architecture, Hassenflu is not planning parking on just four floors. Reitzel, who is Hassenflu’s architect for the Mark Twain project, said parking is planned on six levels: the lower level, first floor, a mezzanine level, and floors two through four.
The parking would be accessed off of Baltimore Avenue through a new garage doorway cut into the northeast corner of the building, Reitzel said. He said a driveway would proceed from the entrance through what his now retail space occupied by Goodden Jewellers, with a circulation ramp allowing motorists to access higher levels.
See the facade they wanted to cut open for garage access here, next door is a parking garage.
Back to the Railway Exchange…
When the indoor mall St. Louis Centre was built North of the Railway Exchange in the 80s it included a dock with elevator/tunnel connected to the basement. This might be better suited for those moving in/out of future apartments than accessing for parking
Another option is to raze the 1962 garage and start over with a modern garage, or perhaps just a new structure to go under Olive St into the building. Either would be very expensive.
I favor building the modern streetcar project that was floated a few years ago, it would run on 2-3 sides of the Railway Exchange. T
he ground floor of the Railway Exchange should be active habitable space — restaurants/retail– not parking. No garage access/curb cut should be permitted either. Already too many garage entries to negotiate as a pedestrian downtown.
A St. Louis city alderman was arrested in St. Louis County on Monday under suspicion of domestic abuse.
Alderman Chris Carter was taken into custody by St. Louis County police after a traffic stop, authorities confirmed.
Carter’s wife called police about 11:20 a.m. on April 30 to report that Carter had injured her during an argument at a home in the 4200 block of East Gulf Shore near Florissant. (Post-Dispatch)
The poll is open until 8pm, the answers are shown in random order. Please note: any organized effort to get a large number of votes, one way or another, is easy to see. If it happens the poll will be shut down and the last unaltered results will be final.
While most were cheering the “news”, I was digging into the record of this developer. From the NextSTL post:
“While the firm has completed several historic redevelopments, one stands as particularly analogous. Hudson purchased the 1M+ sf Huntington Building in downtown Cleveland for $22M last year and have planned a $280M renovation. The 21-story building was completed in 1924.”
So the analogous example is planned…not completed. What about their other projects? Let’s take a look, in the order listed on their website:
I didn’t find anything actually completed — other than some purchases. Do they have the right experience to get these complex projects done?
From January 2015:
Steven Michael once managed hedge funds and was a member of the Chicago Board of Trade.
Today he is focused on redeveloping historic and distressed properties, a passion he and his family have followed for some time.
In Delray Beach, he started real estate development firm Hudson Holdings with friend Andrew “Avi” Greenbaum, who also has a background in finance. The company is now managing the Sundy House hotel and restaurant and has a vision to renovate the surrounding area. Hudson also recently bought the Gulfstream Hotel in Lake Worth, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, and plans to redevelop that hotel, and add hotel rooms. (Wealth managers move into real estate development)
Their bios do indicate experience closing real estate financing deals. After my research, I have many reservations. I hope they’re successful.
One year ago yesterday, a ULI Technical Assistance Panel (TAP). gave a presentation on the top floor of the Railway Exchange:
First slide, click image view ULI page with link to full presentationBoards from a Washington University project on ideas for the building, click image for article on their projectSouth view
Again, I want to see the Railway Exchange redeveloped, but we must not get so excited we fail at due diligence. Having worked in real estate for years I know that not every contract closes.
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The other issue, however, is his place of residence. I contacted Ald Carter on Monday to ask him a few questions, we spoke by phone. He says he and his wife, Lotasha Carter, are separated. She and their 18 month old daughter moved out of their house in the 5900 block of North Pointe Blvd a few months ago, they’ve been staying with her mother on East Gulf Shore in unincorporated North St. Louis County. Carter says he visits daily to help with their daughter.
