I guess I’m part of the problem.
For nearly 30 years, I worked in downtown St. Louis, on the sixth floor of the Security Building, a timeworn brick edifice with a view of the Mississippi River and the Gateway Arch. I did the suburban commute thing, driving into the sunrise in the morning and into the sunset at night—a 17-18 minute drive on the very best of days, half an hour on average days, and I don’t even want to tell you how long it would take in bad weather or when one of the highways was under construction.
On the whole, it was a pretty good setup. I had a place to park for ballgames or other downtown events, and there was always an invigorating or inspirational lunchtime walk to be found. And we were definitely spoiled by the view from the office.
But then COVID-19 hit.
Almost immediately, we all fell into a new routine, with everybody working from home with Zoom and Microsoft Teams. There was no commute, which was great, but there was also an unexpected problem: when you work from home, there’s no escaping from “work.” Without that separation between “home” and “the office,” it’s like you’re always at your workplace.
Over the course of the next year, I would still go downtown about once a month, to pick up mail and see if the Security Building was still standing. It was, but downtown was becoming a wasteland. It was if the city was being hollowed out. St. Louis is a city where there aren’t a whole lot of people who live in the core area. Even on work days, it doesn’t exactly “bustle.” And on evenings, except on ballgame nights, there’s really not much going on. Not much that you—or at least I—would want to be involved in, anyway.
A trend had already begun before the pandemic of restaurants in the central downtown area closing, while more were opening along Washington Avenue, which roughly marks the northern border of what we consider downtown. COVID only accelerated that trend. Some longstanding favorite eateries—even the closest Starbucks—either shut down or put notes on their doors saying they were “temporarily” closed, although the longer it went on, the less “temporary” it seemed.
And once the COVID shutdowns started, downtown in general and Washington Avenue in particular became more and more disorderly and chaotic, with people drag racing on the increasingly vacant streets, and doing who knows what on the sidewalks. The city responded by putting up barricades to block or restrict traffic, and downtown’s decline accelerated.
Moving Out
At some point in the fall of 2020, the owner of my company decided to explore other options. I’m not sure if it was because of the decline of the area around our office, or the cost of downtown rent or whatever, but early in 2021, he announced that our office—which had been in same building since the early 1980s—would be moving to St. Louis County. Specifically, Ladue, Mo., just north of the Ladue/Clayton border. The new space had to be built out, so we would continued to be headquartered at the Security Building until early summer.
During that time, those of us who were willing went back to the downtown office for the last couple months of our time there (in that halcyon window between when it looked like the vaccines were going to end the pandemic, and the realization that vaccine refusers were going to prolong it for us all). It looked like a few other businesses had also returned, but by no stretch of the imagination was downtown anywhere near as lively as it had been. None of the restaurants that had closed reopened, although a few hangers-on had managed to stay open thoughout the COVID year.
But even with the barricades still in place on some key downtown streets, many drivers simply ignored things like stoplights and speed limits. One day in June I was leaving work and trying to cross 4th Street to get to my car. The stoplight turned red, the WALK light came on, and then I stood and watched as at least four cars zipped through the intersection before someone finally took pity on me and stopped so I could cross. After a couple of months of that, I’d had enough; the next time I went to the office, I gathered up my computer and all the stuff I’d accumulated there over three decades, and left the city for good.
Part of the problem with St. Louis, I know, is that the city doesn’t have enough revenue to fund an adequate police department. And every time a company like ours leaves, the city loses more, as some of that revenue comes in the form of a city earnings tax that takes 1 percent out of every employee’s pay. So, for me, that’s another advantage of moving out: to get those few extra pennies in my paycheck every couple of weeks. But of course that doesn’t solve the city’s problems.
I feel like it could be years before downtown comes back.
We’ve now had a couple of months in the new office, in a building that’s newer than the Security Building by at least a century. The commute, for me, is much shorter; on most days, I can go driveway-to-desk in 10 or 11 minutes. More and more, I feel separated from downtown, and frankly, it’s kind of a relief. The city crime reports continue to pile up. I have no plans or desire to go back there, even for a Cardinals game or a Rolling Stones concert (although, admittedly, the COVID situation plays into both of those possibilities). I’m content to hang out in the new office, where the lights go on by themselves, the parking is free, and the taxes are, somehow, lower.
