Published on Thursday, 25 October 2012 07:51
Starting Monday, WhoLou.net will join nextSTL. Over the past year, Geoff Whittington has routinely broken news on his "St. Louis Business News and Gossip" site. A dedicated page will feature Geoff's weekly Monday column and be titled, "WhoLou - primary sources". Time and again Geoff has displayed the ability to go to the source of the news and inform readers days or weeks ahead of traditional media outlets. His reporting will expand the reach of nextSTL and offer readers insight into breaking regional business development news. Select prior news published on WhoLou will be made available on nextSTL.Among recent breaking news items from Geoff was the surge in the capital improvement budget from $3-$6M annually to $16M for 2012 for Dial Corp.'s North Riverfront Business Corridor (NRBC) facility. The item further revealed that Dial Corp., a personal-care and household-cleaning products manufacturer, is planning to expand their popular Renuzit brand of air freshener. Geoff was also first to report that the St. Louis College of Pharmacy would embark on a $100M campus expansion and renovation project to be led by Canon Design. Commercial real estate broker Michael Convy of the Convy Group LLC has been selected by the college to be owners representative for the project. In 2005 Convy Group LLC was developer for the CORTEX One building project.
Published on Thursday, 23 August 2012 11:00
The video above comes from the Al Jazeera news network in Qatar. It's not fancy, or exploitative, or sensational. It striks me rather, as simply honest. It's not pleasant of course, but until this type of reporting is created (or at the very least viewed) by residents in our cities, there's little hope of significant change. Every once in a while the details of a particular murder may catch the larger public's attention, but as in Baltimore, such crimes are immediately met with a flurry of statistics proving that crime is down and more and more resources are being dedicated to making our city safe.
In St. Louis today, this means the Megan Boken murder. She was shot and killed at about 2:00pm on a Saturday in the city's Central West End neighborhood, a block from what most would consider the city's most vibrant intersection at Maryland and Euclid. In the wake of such an incident, we're told about the Neighborhood Security Initiative, the 285 patrol shifts and 1,300 hours of supplemental police coverage in the CWE each month. And if you're aware at all, you know that the vast majority of the more than 60 murders in St. Louis so far this year have received little attention. Fewer than 20% occurred south of Delmar Boulevard.
Published on Wednesday, 01 February 2012 16:28
nextSTL is happy to partner with GOOD in bringing GOOD Ideas for Cities to St. Louis. GOOD has done the incredible legwork to attract not only talented teams of individuals to address some of our most pressing civic issues, it has successfully corralled the region's decision makers from City Hall to the airport, East-West Gateway Council of Governments to Washington University. Fostering unique and creative discussion is what GOOD does. Check out the line up below and plan to attend the March 8 event!
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From GOOD Ideas for Cities:
For our second event of 2012, GOOD Ideas for Cities is headed to St. Louis.
Last year, we issued a call for creatives in St. Louis, and chose seven teams to represent the city. Each team was issued a challenge proposed by local urban leaders. At the event, the creative teams will present their solutions to their assigned challenge, and the urban leaders will join them onstage for a brief Q&A. Afterwards, join us for drinks and more conversation as we discuss how to make these ideas a reality for St. Louis.
Published on Thursday, 10 March 2011 21:34
Today's St. Louis on the Air program focused on vacant property in St. Louis. I represented nextSTL.com and was joined in the studio by RJ Koscielniak, the person behind the Open/Closed conference concept, Audrey Spalding of the Show-Me-Institute and Otis Williams, Deputy Executive Director of the St. Louis Development Corporation, the organization that oversees the city's Land Reutilization Authority (LRA). The conversation proved to be an excellent starting point to further focus on the issue of vacant property in our city.Summarizing the discussion and viewpoints in a short online article inherently leaves out the significant nuance offered by each of us, but I'll attempt to do just that. The Show-Me Institute completed extensive research, compiling information on the number of LRA properties, offers made on those properties and the LRA's response to those offers. If I may offer a simplified premise of the Show-Me Institute's conclusion, it is that the LRA is unnecessarily rejecting offers. The LRA's position? They have a responsibility to sell to the right person and have sold thousands of properties in recent years. nextSTL and Open/Closed seek to raise awareness of the issue, highlight successes and bring diverse voices to the table.
Published on Monday, 14 February 2011 12:36
Please visit the conference page for the latest schedule and panel lineup.
Organized and developed by nextSTL.com and Frontier St. Louis and made possible with the generous support of the Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis and the Rebuild Foundation, Open/Closed is the first annual summit on vacant land, buildings and property in St. Louis.
Open/Closed: Exploring Vacant Property in St. Louis, is an opportunity for community stakeholders, leaders, artists, and activists to strengthen their knowledge of the vacant property issue and to develop new solutions. St. Louis faces many challenges, but none are more visceral than the thousands of vacant homes and lots that have a corrosive effect on our community. With one in five addresses currently vacant, we cannot ignore the issue any longer. The challenge demands collaborative responsibility and action.