JLL Names New Leader for St. Louis Market

ST. LOUIS—JLL recently chose David Steinbach as its new office leader for the St. Louis market. Steinbach succeeds his longtime business partner, Lynn Schenck, who has stepped down from that position to focus on select client opportunities.

As office leader, Steinbach will oversee the office's brokerage, property management and project and development services service lines. The St. Louis operation currently focuses on the office and industrial sectors, and Steinbach tells GlobeSt.com he will continue to work closely with JLL's capital markets team to pursue local acquisition and disposition opportunities, and look into hiring new people for the office.

“We definitely want to add some depth to the bench,” he says. The goal is to add both seasoned brokers “and some young up-and-comers.”

He adds that this is an interesting time for real estate professionals in the region. The suburban office market, for example, especially towns such as Clayton, has for some time been healthier and more attractive to many users than the city's downtown. But the lease rates in these outlying areas have been picking up lately, and if they go much higher users once inclined to rent suburban spaces will start looking downtown. Steinbach is already seeing more groups take tours of both Clayton and the CBD.

Historically, downtown has not been a growth market, he adds. A 20% vacancy rate is not unusual, and “most buildings fill up by taking tenants from other buildings,” rather than attracting newcomers. But this could be about to change. Much like other downtowns throughout the US, St. Louis' can offer more nightlife and a vibrant lifestyle that younger workers find more appealing.

And the CBD is on the verge of its biggest change in decades. A public-private partnership will complete by 2016 its $380 million renovation of downtown's iconic Gateway Arch. The project, called CityArchRiver 2015, will for the first time connect the CBD to the riverfront and the park surrounding the Arch with one continuous greenway.

For decades, office users and residents had been cut off from these amenities by a highway. And Peter G. Harwood, a Chicago-based executive vice president at JLL, told GlobeSt.com that once the project is done, “I think there is going to be a tremendous in-migration of people into the downtown.”

There are already some signs that a transformation is underway. Steinbach is heartened that a few tenants that he considers trendsetters have recently chosen to stay in the CBD. HOK, for example, the St. Louis-based international design firm, recently took over a very visible space on the first two floors at 10 S. Broadway just next to the Arch.

“If we can get more success stories like this,” he says, “more people will start taking the downtown seriously.”