Excitement is in the air in St. Louis. No doubt some of that fervor can be attributed to the big bat of St. Louis Cardinals’ first baseman, Albert Pujols, the player most feared by big-league managers, according to an ESPN poll earlier this year. However, another kind of excitement has been building with a major effort to revitalize the downtown area. And it wasn’t just talk; two years ago, the city received an urban renewal award from the nonprofit World Leadership Forum.
As the host to two major sporting events next year—Major League Baseball’s All-Star Game and the Women’s NCAA Final Four basketball tournament—and with its profusion of free attractions, down-to-earth vibe and passion by citizenry to retain the area’s rich history, the “Gateway City” is becoming more known for the sum of its parts rather than that city with the big arch. (Although the Gateway Arch is the tallest monument in the U.S., which is pretty amazing.)
The image of the Gateway Arch is being employed by the St. Louis Convention and Visitors Commission (CVC) to promote the city’s riches.
“Change is definitely in the air in St. Louis, and our motto is changing with the times,” says Donna Andrews, director of public relations for the CVC. “With our new marketing tagline, we really want to emphasize all that St. Louis has to offer.”
The new campaign tagline for the CVC is “St. Lou Is All Within Reach,” with the city name broken down into “St. Lou” and “Is.” Only three-quarters of the arch is depicted in the logo. It looks a bit like a stroke of a paintbrush to indicate a rainbow and seems to suggest that a pot of gold gleams at the end.
“We want to show that we have all these great treasures and show the great sense of community we have,” Andrews says.
A lot of those treasures in the city cost nothing to soak the senses. Admission is free to the St. Louis Art Museum, Grant’s Farm (former home of Ulysses S. Grant), the Missouri History Museum, the St. Louis Science Center and the city’s zoo.
“When I tell people that our zoo is No. 1 over even the San Diego Zoo, people don’t believe it,” says Teresa Bryant, director of sales and marketing for Destination St. Louis, a DMC based in the city.
Indeed, the zoo was named the nation’s best by a recent Zagat survey.
New and Noteworthy
A lot of new experiences await groups visiting St. Louis.
The McKinley Bridge Bikeway reopened less than a year ago. The 3,000-foot-long bike and pedestrian path is part of the McKinley Bridge, which spans the Mississippi River and connects St. Louis to the city of Venice, Ill.
Groups can head indoors for some fun at Flamingo Bowl, a new 12-lane bowling alley and martini lounge in downtown’s Washington Avenue district. The bowling alley includes private party space and features signature cocktails such as the Blackberry Royale and Pink Mojito, and an American menu spiced up with Latin American influences.
The highly anticipated $507 million hotel and casino complex, Lumiere Place, located in the Laclede Landing entertainment district, is up and running. The development boasts two new upscale hotels with meeting space—Four Seasons Hotel St. Louis and HoteLumiere—and a 75,000-square-foot gaming floor with 2,000 slot machines and more than 40 game tables. Rounding out the heady mix at Lumiere Place are seven restaurants, a luxury spa and a nightclub named Sleek, with a signature menu crafted by renowned French chef Hubert Keller, who designed the menu of the Burger Bar at Las Vegas’ Mandalay Bay and other glitzy restaurants.
The new hotels at Lumiere Place join existing meetings properties, many of which have been renovated, such as the Renaissance Grand Hotel, the Hyatt Regency St. Louis, the Hilton St. Louis Downtown, the Sheraton City Center St. Louis, the Millennium St. Louis Downtown, the Westin St. Louis, the Hilton St. Louis at the Ballpark, and Hyatt Regency St. Louis Riverfront, formerly the Adam’s Mark Hotel.
Washington University also has two IACC-certified facilities: the Charles F. Knight Executive Education Center and the Eric P. Newman Education Center.
Several communities in the outlying areas also have properties geared toward meetings, including Chesterfield, Westport, Lambert and Clayton. Among the options are the Doubletree Hotel and Conference Center St. Louis, the Sheraton Westport Plaza Hotel, the Sheraton Westport Chalet Hotel St. Louis, the Renaissance St. Louis Hotel Airport, the St. Louis Airport Marriott, the Hilton St. Louis Airport, the Sheraton Clayton Plaza Hotel St. Louis and Harrah’s St. Louis.
Meanwhile, St. Louis’ America’s Center is the destination’s premier venue for large events, with 502,000 square feet of exhibit space, 82 meeting rooms, the 1,400-seat Ferrara Theatre and a 28,000-square-foot ballroom.
Holding On To History
St. Louis’ urban renewal is focused on what real estate developers like to call “adaptive reuse,” meaning that old buildings are given new life and converted into apartments, condos and retail and office space. Missouri is one of the few states that awards historic tax credits to developers to renovate historic buildings. Many of these historic tax credit projects are located in St. Louis.
“That’s what is so cool about St. Louis; we don’t like to tear anything down,” Bryant says. “When you are in St. Louis, you know you are in St. Louis. Meeting planners are always telling me how unique St. Louis is compared to many other venues.”
With a host of historic attractions to absorb, including the city’s Victorian-era Union Station and the Roberts Orpheum Theater, originally built in 1917, there’s plenty under the arch to explore.
Giving Back
One of the newest trends for groups in St. Louis is “activities with an angle toward corporate and social responsibility,” notes Destination St. Louis’ Bryant.
The DMC recently hosted a “Build a Bike” event in which the group was divided into smaller teams that were then taught how to assemble bicycles. A bike technician was on-hand to inspect all the work. Children who had never received a bike came to the location, and the group presented the kids with their new bikes. Bryant says a 700-person group built 70 bikes for local children.
“It was an amazing event,” Bryant remembers. “We’ll likely do a lot more of these kinds of events. Groups can have fun and at the same time give back.”
St. Charles
This city of 62,000 located just northwest of St. Louis on the Missouri River is filling a niche for groups, says Joe Capitanelli, marketing manager for the Greater St. Charles CVB.
“We’re only getting started with our events business,” he says.
The town with cobblestone streets, a dizzying number of antique stores and slower pace to big sis St. Louis is a welcome respite for groups, Capitanelli notes.
In 2007, St. Charles welcomed 455 events. The CVB expects more groups to set up shop in the state’s first state capital. Close to 200,000 people are forecast to assemble at the St. Charles Convention Center for various events by the close of this year.
The big news in town is the opening of the Ameristar Resort and Spa, with its 10,000-square-foot Imagination ballroom and swanky interior, and the expansion of the Ameristar Casino.
More development is taking shape in the heart of town at the Streets of St. Charles at Noah’s Ark, a huge mixed-use plan that includes a hotel and retail and residential components. The first phase is expected to come on-line in 2010.
“That will definitely impact group business, but how no one is sure,” Capitanelli says. “For now, we’re just doing what we’re doing: marketing the city’s quaint charm and its art scene. So far it’s working.”
For More Info
St. Louis Convention and Visitors Commission 314.421.1023 www.explorestlouis.com
Saint Charles CVB 636.946.7776 www.historicstcharles.com
