Blu in the News
Blu CitySpaces featured in St. Louis Homes and Lifestyles
Blu was featured in the Build NewUrban section of the June/July issue of St. Louis Homes and Lifestyles magazine. Download a PDF version of the article here.
Even Now, Buying Home a Smart Move
By Gregory Karp
Spending Smart
www.chicagotribune.com
Purchasing a home is generally considered a good way to spend money, but is a declining real estate market the right time to buy? How about housing markets where long-term prices have risen slower than average? What if prices already had a big run-up and haven't fallen much?
Those are all the wrong questions because they focus on changes in house prices, contend Gary Smith and Margaret Smith, authors of the new book "Houseonomics: Why Owning a Home is Still a Great Investment." Buying a home can be a smart move, even if prices stay flat over a long period, say the husband-and-wife team who, respectively, are an economics professor at Pomona College in Claremont, Calif., and president of her own fee-only financial planning firm.
Blu Street Team in Alive Magazine
The Blu Street Team has been featured recently in the Scene pages of Alive magazine. See them at Flight at the Contemporary Art Museum, the STL TV Lineup Launch party, and at rBar for Serving the Cause.
Forbes names St. Louis one of the "Most Affordable Places To Live Well"
The Gateway to the West has a desirable housing market, a strong ratio of parks and restaurants to citizens, and is the 15th cheapest city in which to live. For these reasons and more, Forbes ranked St. Louis the 4th most affordable place to live well in the nation.
To review Forbes' full list of top ranked cities and see the "Most Affordable Places To Live Well" article, click here.
Blu Developer vLog and Lofts Blog
Blu developer Steve Anrod recently talked about his involvement in Blu CitySpaces and the great lifestyle opportunity it brings to downtown St. Louis. You can watch Steve’s video here.
In other news, there’s a great new site for downtown St. Louis living: www.stlouisloftsource.com/. It’s the first video blog created for Downtown St. Louis that will allow you to listen to the developers and post comments based on your experiences and what you think of each project. If you are thinking about moving to downtown or already live here, this blog will keep you up to date with the most recent projects.
Neighborhood News:
Retailers opening 100,000 square feet downtown
By Lisa R. Brown St. Louis Business Journal March 9, 2007
Chris Dougher and Rita Navarro will debut a 7,800-square-foot Good Works store downtown this summer.
The list of restaurants and retailers coming downtown continues to grow and is expected to top 100,000 square feet of new space before the year is over. That amount dwarfs the retail and restaurant space that has opened downtown in each of the past four years. Read the full article >
Tower Struggle: What makes urban high-and mid-rise home building a Mecca for a mere few creates a minefield for some of home building's most well-resourced initiates. What gives?
By Lisa Marquis Jackson Big Builder Magazine, February 8, 2007
In 1999, Steve Anrod, division president of Silverstone Communities, got his first glimpse at urban development opportunities in St. Louis. Building luxury condo projects in Chicago and its suburbs, Baker Development Corp., where Anrod worked as a vice president, had earned a reputation for its quality product and expertise. Though the condo market was heating up in the Windy City, Anrod traveled south at the insistent prodding of a St. Louis real estate investor.
“He called me out of the blue and said, ‘Hey, I think Central West End’s ready for a luxury high-rise building.’ So, I went to St. Louis … and I agreed with him,” recalls Anrod. “It was like a land that time passed by.”
Once the Midwest’s third largest city, St. Louis’ glory days sprang from a vibrant garment district, river trade, and the brewing industry a century ago. The 1950s brought a flight to the suburbs that emptied out the urban core. “There were these beautiful loft buildings frozen in time. And there hadn't been a new condo high-rise built in St. Louis for 30 years.”
But Anrod also discovered was that interest in redeveloping the downtown was starting to stir, driven in large part by historic tax credits passed in 1996.
So it seemed like a perfect marriage proposal when, armed with a trunk full of capital, Silverstone Communities, the national infill operation backed by Hearthstone, planned an expansion into the Midwest. As part of a national move to fund start-ups in five regions, the company sought a Midwest president who’d prove to be adept at penciling urban projects and have a Rolodex packed full of local influentials. Click here to read the full article at Big Builder Magazine.
Checketts puts spotlight on Kiel
By Christopher Tritto, St. Louis Business Journal, January 12, 2007
Dave Checketts led the 1997 acquisition and $75 million restoration of New York's historic Radio City Music Hall. Executives at SCP Worldwide, owner of the St. Louis Blues, plan to redevelop Kiel Opera House this year and have their eyes on properties adjacent to the Scottrade Center that are ripe for complementary real estate ventures. Read the full article.
