Downtown in Decline.
Downtown is falling far behind
its peer cities.
First, Let’s take a look at different sectors in the downtown real estate market, beginning with apartments:
Not only is downtown falling behind peer cities in the apartment market, it’s also falling behind the rest of the region:
How is the downtown condo market doing?
Here are residential sales going back to 2005. *Source: St. Louis Region Multiple Listing Service (MLS). If you’re not into reading data, just read the four bolded data points below:
Year / Units Sold / Avg Sales Price / Avg Sales Price Per Square Foot (SQ FT)
2005 / 136 sold / $253,593 / $156.81 per SQ FT
2006 / 235 sold / $221,468 / $162.76 per SQ FT
2007 / 182 sold / $237,411 / $184.75 per SQ FT
2008 / 115 sold / $226,380 / $162.25 per SQ FT
2009 / 98 sold / $180,677 / $137.49 per SQ FT
2010 / 82 sold / $176,040 / $131.12 per SQ FT
2011 / 98 sold / $159,323 / $109.94 per SQ FT
2012 / 109 sold / $160,086 / $112.64 per SQ FT
2013 / 119 sold / $181,190 / $116.94 per SQ FT
2014 / 109 sold / $184,454 / $124.20 per SQ FT
2015 / 126 sold / $188,227 / $124.33 per SQ FT (fifteen sold for over $300,000, six
of those over $400 and five at over $500
2016 / 131 sold / $163,242 / $121.42 per SQ FT (five sold for over $300,000, one
of those at over $400,000 and one at over $500,000)
2017 / 122 sold / $182,993 - $125.55 per SQ FT (thirteen sold for over $300,000, one
of those at over $400,000, one at $500,000 and one at $600,000)
2018 / 144 sold / $163,853 / $119.40 per SQ FT (ten sold for over $300,000, three
of those over $400,000 and two at $500,000)
2019 / 162 sold / $156,155 / $117.32 per SQ FT (seven sold for over $300,000 and
two of those were over $400,000)
Now let’s take a look at the downtown office market. Here is a comparison of St. Louis office rental rates to peer cities:
Now let’s look at the retail sector:
•Clayton retail rental rates range from $20-$30 per SQ FT
•Loop retail rental rates range from $30-38 per SQ FT
•CWE retail rental rates range from $30-42 per SQ FT
•Downtown retail rental rates range from $6-15 per SQ FT (which is significantly down from 10 years ago when some properties rented in the low $20s per SQ FT)
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR OUR CITY?
Downtown is a large contributor to the City of St. Louis tax base. But, downtown is not growing at even an inflationary rate. Read more here: Downtown’s Tax Base is Not Growing