Photography by William Greenblatt
“Great downtowns have great plans,” says Missy Kelley, CEO of Downtown STL, Inc. And now, with the organization’s Design Downtown STL, a new one-year effort that asks St. Louisans for input on the next stage of downtown’s revitalization, the city is charting its course. Before she stepped into her role as CEO, in 2015, Kelley wanted to walk the walk. She moved into the heart of the city, where she lived with her kids for two and a half years. What she loved: the sense of community, the walkability, meeting people in her apartment building. What she’s looking forward to as downtown begins to create a plan for the next 10 years: a transformed skyline, a game-changing aquarium, and housing 20,000 residents.
On changes to downtown that you might not have noticed: Twenty years ago, there were 156 empty buildings down here; there are now fewer than two dozen. There’s been a transformation inside these buildings: redevelopment, homes being created so people could move down here. We’ve grown our residential population to a little over 10,000. [In 2010, it was 3,721.]
And the changes you can see: What we’re seeing now is transforming the skyline, between the St. Louis Wheel, One Cardinal Way, and the new PwC office building. We’ll have the new soccer stadium. It’s fun to see this growth become much more evident to people who maybe have been coming down to go to one restaurant for years.
On one of downtown’s biggest goals: When we hit the 20,000 mark in terms of residents. That’s a completely different game. That level of density would change the perception of downtown’s vibrancy, and restaurants and retail would be more sustainable.
On living downtown for two and a half years: You think you kind of know by working down here every day what it means to live downtown, but you don’t until you actually live here. I lived close to Citygarden, and I loved walking there. My kids loved meeting the people in the apartment building. It was like this whole new social pool for them, which was fun. I think the biggest deterrent for families, and this is not uncommon in all cities, is the lack of confidence in the public schools... Even if someone is going to send his or her kids to a private school anyway, the transportation to the private schools from downtown comes into play.
On how downtown is responding to crime: Downtown STL, Inc. manages the Downtown St. Louis Community Improvement District, which spends about $1.1 million annually on security. Initiatives include police officers working secondary, patrolling the downtown neighborhood; a radio exchange network that connects commercial property owners with the secondary police force; rent, equipment, uniforms, and training for SLMPD’s downtown bike unit; and Real Change, an awareness and education program regarding how to respond to panhandling.
On a potential game-changer: The development at Union Station. LHM has done a good job of thinking about ways to use that large piece of real estate but keeping the integrity of the history. The aquarium is going to be uniquely St. Louis in that it will have marine life from the oceans but also the two rivers. It’s going to be a place that people who live here are going to go to multiple times, similar to the zoo.
