This is the first in a new series of editorials by Ron Kitchens, Managing Partner of Greater St. Louis, Inc. Photo by Brad Henderson.
A few months ago, I found myself sitting at a table with people representing more than a dozen very different organizations.
Business leaders. Civic organizations. Philanthropists. Downtown advocates. People responsible for some of our region’s most important institutions. Each had a different mission, different responsibilities, and a board to answer to. Each could have arrived with a list of what they wanted.
But something remarkable happened.
The conversation wasn’t about whose idea would win.
It was about Downtown.
How do we take a once-in-a-generation opportunity like the Rams settlement and make every dollar work harder? How do we combine public investment, private capital, and philanthropy? How do we make one investment unlock the next?
At some point, I looked around that table and thought:
This is how St. Louis wins.
Not because everyone suddenly agrees on everything. That would be suspicious, and frankly, very un-St. Louis.
We win when people with different resources, expertise, and responsibilities decide to row in the same direction.
And that is exactly what is beginning to happen Downtown.
There is a growing alignment: Downtown matters to all of us, and that alignment is changing Downtown’s trajectory.
And I could not be more optimistic.
Downtown belongs to the entrepreneur opening a restaurant, the family making it home, the developer bringing an old building back to life, the employer investing in the urban core, and the visitor coming for a Cardinals game, a CITY SC match, a concert, or a convention.
Each brings something different.
Together, they create momentum.
That is also the role Greater St. Louis, Inc. was created to serve. We bring people together around a shared vision, align resources, remove barriers, and help turn good ideas into results, into growth.
And we do it alongside extraordinary partners: the City of St. Louis, St. Louis Development Corporation, the Downtown CIDs, Explore St. Louis, the St. Louis Sports Commission, Gateway Arch Park Foundation, our professional sports teams, developers, employers, property owners, neighborhood leaders, universities, philanthropy, and many others.
No one organization owns this work, but everyone has a piece of it.
Changing the Fundamentals
Downtowns across America have changed.
People work differently. Office markets have changed. Retail has changed. Housing preferences have changed. Cities are competing harder than ever for people, employers, visitors, and investment.
Our response cannot simply be more of what worked 20 years ago. We have to build the Downtown the next 20 years will demand. That begins by changing the economics of redevelopment.
It is why Greater St. Louis, Inc. spent nearly three years helping advance Missouri’s office conversion legislation. Now that it is law, developers have powerful new tools to turn obsolete office buildings into housing, hotels, and productive new uses.
There was no crane in the sky while that work was happening. Just years of meetings, negotiations, problem solving, and persistence.
But that is often how transformation begins.
The Rams settlement funds offer another opportunity to change the fundamentals.
Success will not be measured by how quickly we spend the money. It will be measured by how much investment those dollars unlock.
By aligning Gateway Arch Park Foundation, the Arch to Park Equity Fund, the St. Louis Sports Commission, Greater St. Louis, Inc., businesses, philanthropy, public partners, and others, we have the chance to turn those dollars into something far larger.
One investment strengthens another.
One project unlocks the next.
One success gives someone else the confidence to make the next bet.
Building the Future
Across Downtown, we can see that the bets are already on the table.
The Millennium Hotel site.
Mansion House.
The Edison Brothers Building.
Rollick in Downtown West.
New housing. New restaurants. New investment.
Each project has its own complicated story of capital, risk, persistence, and partnership.
Taken together, they say something much more important: People believe in Downtown St. Louis, and increasingly, they are acting on that belief. Our opportunity now is much bigger than filling vacant buildings.
We can create a truly mixed-use Downtown where thousands more people live, restaurants and retailers thrive, historic buildings find new purpose, employers choose to grow, streets stay active beyond the workday, and young people decide this is where they want to build a career and a life.
That future is already taking shape. Some days progress looks like a crane on the skyline or a ribbon cutting. Other days it looks like a financing gap closing. Legislation passing. An employer expanding. Disparate organizations solving a problem together.
Those moments do not always make the evening news, but they are how cities change. Wins become momentum, momentum becomes confidence, and confidence is contagious.
The next chapter of Downtown St. Louis will not be written by a single organization. It will be written by a community that decided to row in the same direction and by organizations that understand the measure of success is not who gets the credit. Nor by those who stand on the sidelines and opine.
It is whether St. Louis moves forward.
At Greater St. Louis, Inc., we are proud to be one of those partners.
There is real work ahead of us. But there is also real progress beneath our feet, real investment on the way, and a growing coalition of people who believe the future of Downtown is worth building.
Together, we are building what comes next.
Always Forward.
Ron Kitchens