St. Louis Commercial Real Estate Collapse

In its article, "America's forgotten 'doom loop' city, where $205m skyscrapers are selling for under $4m and the decaying downtown has become a ghost town," the Daily Mail reports on the collapse in value of commercial real estate in downtown St. Louis. For instance, "St Louis's largest office building - its 44-story AT&T tower - for example. In 2006 this prime real estate sold for $205 million," but recently sold for $3.5 million--a 98% drop in value. More generally, the article indicates that "[s]ince 2012 a collection of the region's largest office buildings have dropped nearly 24 percent in appraised value, according to a 2022 analysis by The St. Louis Business Journal." 

    Although the article indicates that the trend started with the closing of the downtown Macy's in 2013 due to the rise of online shopping, it is also clear that the lockdowns that came with the Covid pandemic is what really killed the downtown business district. Per the article:

    But modern-day St. Louis was hit hard by the pandemic, with its population sinking to below 300,000 for the first time since the 1800s, according to the New York Times. This compares to nearly 400,000 people living in St. Louis back in 1990.

    In fact, St. Louis has seen the worst recovery in foot traffic to its downtown area of all other major US cities since just before the pandemic broke out in 2019.

    The University of Toronto's School of Cities released data in October 2023 comparing the number of visits to major North American cities during a four-month period in 2019 to the same timeframe in 2023. 

    St. Louis was ranked last out of 66 cities observed, while Las Vegas was the only city to actually increase its visits since 2019.

Of course, the loss of foot traffic leads to more businesses closing and, consequently, the downtown area becoming even more uninviting, leading to more businesses closing. 

    And then there is the crime. Although crime reportedly declined in 2023 versus 2022, the city still has one of the highest murder rates in the world. If it falls off the list of deadliest cities, it may be because its population drops below the 300,000 threshold to be considered for the honor. In case you were wondering, the U.S. Census indicates that blacks make up 43.9% of the population.