Musings from Brian J. Noggle

Thinking Inside the Box

St. Louis Union Station, the city's old train station, remodeled as a mall, isn't doing so well:

Randy Knight set a new record at his Union Station kiosk, and it wasn't a good one. He had a day, earlier this month, when the crystal figurine and tchotchke stand where he works made just one sale: $15.

At the rental rate of $1,600 a month, it may not be long before his brother-in-law, who owns the kiosk, becomes another failed businessman at the converted train station.

Business is slow at Union Station and seems to be getting slower, shopkeepers say. It doesn't help that the St. Louis Blues aren't playing this winter at the nearby Savvis Center. Krieger's Sports Grill, which opened just a year ago, shut its operation after New Year's Eve.

Union Station, beautifully restored 20 years ago with a soaring, glass-enclosed shopping area adjoining the former train depot, recently was taken over by a new management company, Jones Lang LaSalle, one of the nation's largest managers of shopping centers. General Manager Byron Marshall and Marketing Manager Frances Percich have been on the job for less than two months.

"We're going to come up with a plan," Marshall said. "We're very optimistic we can come up with change, some positive change."

Meanwhile, even though train tracks continue to butt up against the mall so that people who can afford it can ride a to eat and drink well while enjoying the vistas of the junkyards of East St. Louis, rail travellers in St. Louis will visit a new temporary rail station since Amtrak is replacing the previous 25-year-old temporary structure (the Amshack).

So when faced with no shopper traffic in a "revitalized" former train station chock full of shops and kiosks that sell t-shirts and St. Louis souvenirs but very few necessities of life (unless you subsist on coffee and fudge), undoubtedly the obvious answer demands that you turn some of the empty shop space into condominiums.

- posted by Brian J. @ 11:06 AM