Readers Not Keen On Walmart Express

No majority winner in the poll last week but clearly readers don’t want a typical auto-centric Walmart:

Q: Would You Support Or Oppose Walmart Express Stores In The City Of St. Louis?

1. Oppose, Walmart is a horrible company 66 [41.77%]
2. Support, with good design regulations 59 [37.34%]
3. Support, competition is good 23 [14.56%]
4. Neutral 4 [2.53%]
5. Unsure/No Opinion 3 [1.9%]
6. Other: 3 [1.9%]

The three “other” answers were:

1. Oppose. Letting them in would likely open Pandora’s big-box.
2. Not any worse than Family Dollar
3. I’d have to see one first

The problem is so many of our elected officials like new construction, they add the cost to their tally to brag about investment they attracted. Some do get that we need an overhaul of our regulations to force retailers to use their connected urban prototypes rather than doing the least they have to. These retailers have saturated suburban markets and need new locations to grow.

We can demand better from them!

— Steve Patterson

Eclectic Mile : Chippewa Ave From Jefferson Ave To Grand Blvd

A couple months back I took a look at a mile stretch of South Broadway, from Cherokee to Chippewa (see A Look At South Broadway Through The Marine Villa Neighborhood).  At the time I thought about looking at Chippewa, each time I went down Chippewa on the #11 to/from Target I admired the buildings. For years I’ve admired the mile stretch of Chippewa St between Jefferson Ave and Grand Blvd., I’d even walked, biked and scootered parts years ago. I had to travel it again though.

Quite a stretch! Chippewa Ave was never a commercial street the way Cherokee St was, and still is, but it had  many neighborhood corner stores. For decades now people have been driving to bigger and bigger boxes to buy merchandise so these storefronts are no longer critical for daily needs.

However, all over this city we’ve seen cafes, niche retailers and others do well in these spaces. With a cohesive marketing plan Chippewa could become a cool street for new businesses. Attract the gays and hipsters to get those vacant storefronts occupied!

Getting someone to take charge will be a challenge though, the south side of Chippewa is in the Dutchtown neighborhood and the north side is in the Gravois Park neighborhood. This gives the mile road a split personality, although neither focus on it because it is an edge.

On the positive side, all but the last block before Grand are in the 20th Ward. I’ve known Ald. Craig Schmid for years and he’s a very nice guy, but I don’t see him leading an effort to attract hip new businesses — they might want serve alcohol in disproportionate quantities to food.

A few years ago, when I was still a real estate agent, I listed and sold the first house on Virginia Ave just south of Chippewa. Thus, I realize the area has real, and perceived, issues but I also think it is worth fighting for. I’m unwilling to write it off, saying the all mighty market has spoken. The market is always changing! In my 22+ years I’ve seen an enormous  amount of positive change because people weren’t willing to just discard entire neighborhoods. With some effort the market could be altered to see this mile Chippewa as an eclectic gem.

— Steve Patterson

AT&T Quietly Reduced Workforce In Downtown St. Louis

When most people see the AT&T office towers at 1010 Pine and 909 Chestnut St. they assume many people work there. The Pine tower is from 1925 and the Chestnut tower was built as the corporate headquarters of Southwestern Bell in 1985, both have just a fraction of the number of employees of even just 5 years ago.

Two issues: how AT&T reduced the workforce without public layoff notices and the implication for other downtown St. Louis businesses nearby.

Former and current employees tell the same story about how AT&T avoided having to issue layoff notices as required by the 1988 WARN Act. From one source:

AT&T has done a number of outsourcings since 2006-ish to different companies include Accenture, IBM and Amdocs. I was part of a 1,000 person division in IT which was outsourced to Amdocs in 2008.

We were given a very last minute notice about a mandatory meeting in February, 2008 in the Data Center auditorium where we were told we were being outsourced to Amdocs. Our pay & benefits (health insurance, vacation, etc.) were kept the same, with the exception of our pension as Amdocs did not have a pension plan. Instead, we were given an additional 5% match to our 401k. We still worked for the same boss (the outsourcing went up to the VP level, in my instance), at the same desk, doing the same work. The only difference is that our paycheck was coming from Amdocs.

In early February 2009, we received another mandatory meeting invite for the employees in my group. In the data center auditorium, an Amdocs manager (from a different division, located in Champaign, who none of us had ever met) read a prepared statement stating that layoffs were necessary because the amount of work assigned to our group was falling short of what was anticipated at the time of the outsourcing. We should return to our desks and those employees being let go would receive an email while those not being let go would not. About an hour later, I received an email indicating I would be laid off on February 26, 2009. Approximately 500 of the 1000 people in my group were laid off in total.

The significance of that date? It was one year and one day after we had been outsourced to Amdocs. The contract between Amdocs and AT&T specified any employees laid off in the year following the outsourcing would be given severance at the AT&T rate (4% of salary per year of employment). After that date, severance would be paid at the Amdocs rate (1 week per year of employment). To rub salt in the wound, our final paychecks contained pay for 72 hours as we were let go on a Thursday and worked only 9 days out of the 10 day pay period (rather than the usual 86 2/3rs hours as salaried employees).

My source indicated Amdocs issued WARN Act notices in California, where they have stricter requirements, but AT&T and contractors avoided having to announce reductions in St. Louis.

In August 2009 our downtown grocer, Culinaria, opened for business. A year later businesses on the one block of 9th between AT&T and Culinaria  were closing due to lack of customers. Culinaria was blamed but one person I spoke with says this was the height of the reductions.

To make matters worse for nearby businesses, many of the remaining employees telecommute from home rather than come into the office.  Reduced property taxes is another issue:

Inland’s affiliate, MB St. Louis, convinced St. Louis assessor Ed Bushmeyer that the AT&T tower is now worth just $135 million – about $70 million less than what it sold for in 2006.

Jerome Wallach, an attorney for MB St. Louis, argues that the building’s value plummeted because AT&T has slashed the size of its workforce there, and low occupancy cuts the building’s market value. The owner would have difficulty selling the half-full building for an attractive price when AT&T’s lease expires in 2017, he added.

But the building is not for sale now, Wallach acknowledged, nor has MB St. Louis given AT&T any rent breaks on the property because of its diminished presence. Wallach argues the rent shouldn’t factor into assessed value, which should be based on what it might sell for now in its half-full state. (stltoday.com from April 2012)

No doubt AT&T plans to completely vacate the 909 Chestnut building after their lease expires, in the meantime the numbers of employees at both buildings will continue to dwindle.

— Steve Patterson

Poll: Where Do You Read Local Blogs?

Blogs are now mainstream information sources and St. Louis is fortunate to have blogs on nearly every topic imaginable. Hopefully UrbanReviewSTL.com is among your top St. Louis blogs but even if it isn’t I’m curious where you do your reading of blogs. Is it at work? Home? School? Mobile?

Vote in the weekly poll in the right sidebar, smartphone users switch to the full layout to vote. My guess is most read at work but we will see. results will be presented on Wednesday October 31st.

— Steve Patterson

Reading: Clayton Missouri: An Urban Story

A beautifully illustrated book recently came across my desk, Clayton Missouri: An Urban Story by Mary Delach Leonard with Melinda Leanard:

In 1878, Ralph Clayton and his neighbors Martin Franklin and Cyrene Hanley donated 104 acres of farmland so that St. Louis County could build a courthouse and county seat. The townsfolk who pushed to incorporate Clayton, Missouri, in 1913 had little reason to suspect that their rural outpost of small frame buildings and plank sidewalks would later be recognized as a progressive metropolitan hub-one carefully buffered from quiet tree-lined neighborhoods and gorgeous parks. Clayton, Missouri: An Urban Story reveals the making of a city and the people who built it as a community. This lavishly illustrated book tells Clayton’s story through historical anecdotes and the voices of residents, timelines, and pullout sections on key facts and figures, plus stunning photographs of modern street scenes and nostalgic images of the city’s past. Also highlighted are important city leaders and residents who looked to the future at critical moments. Their efforts helped yield the Clayton of 2013, where magnificent steel and glass high-rises reach to the sky within blocks of historically splendid homes, many of them designed by noted architects of the twentieth century. (Reedy Press)

Clayton became the county seat for St. Louis County when St. Louis divorced itself from the county in 1876. I’ve only skimmed this hardback book so far but I look forward to reading more about this municipality on the west edge of St.  Louis.

— Steve Patterson