Luxury Condos Push St. Louis Riverfront Redevelopment
December 09, 2005
By Amanda Metcalf, Managing Editor

In partnership with Pinnacle Entertainment Inc., Rodgers Group Development plans to develop a 10-story, 49-unit condominium complex in St. Louis. Located at Laclede's Landing, the development, named Port St. Louis, will overlook the Mississippi River, the Gateway Arch and downtown St. Louis.

The $25 million project represents half of the development investments to which Pinnacle committed in an agreement with the city of St. Louis. Pinnacle agreed to invest a total of $50 million within five years of breaking ground on a nearby hotel-casino complex. Pinnacle CFO Steve Capp told CPN that the two projects will complement each other and the Gateway Arch stylistically, as well as benefit each other. "If you think of the concept of redevelopment in a downtown area, there's a mutual dependence," he said. "Residential, retail and mixed use work together to drive traffic, interest and convenience."

What's more, "We can participate in the upside of the regeneration of some of these areas," Capp said. Though the size of the condominium structure pales alongside Pinnacle's 18-acre plot of land and the $400 million casino-hotel complex going up there, Pinnacle also wants to serve the "latent demand of this kind of (luxury) living in downtown St. Louis," he added. "For us, this is a very important milestone investment in the continuing resurgence of downtown. This is the right scale to get going in St. Louis."

The scale allows Pinnacle and Rodgers Group to maintain exclusivity and introduce luxury, with water views on one side and city views on the other. Rodgers Group Development held an option on the land where the condominiums are going up. The partnership, Capp pointed out, is equal financially and operationally.