Robust Opens In The MX
Right around the Christmas holiday we welcomed our two newest neighbors, Robust Wine Bar and Snarf’s. Here’s a little more about Robust.
Stanley and Arlene Browne opened Robust in September of 2007. They set out to create a space where people could enjoy good wine and good food in small plates. Besides being a place to enjoy great wine, the Brownes set up to create a place where novices could learn more about wine and those further along in their wine education could learn more and teach others. Robust does this in part through the Robust Factor rating system. The system rates the wines by their body types and then offers foods that each can be paired with. While the main focus at the bar is the wine, a variety of beers and cocktails are also offered.
Robust serves both small plates as well as larger sandwiches and entrees for both lunch and dinner. Separate menus are available for each on their website.
The MX location, at the corner of 7th and Washington is open for lunch and dinner seven days a week. A Saturday and Sunday RoBrunch is not available yet, but is in the works. The Shoppe features all of the wines available on the menu at the bar for purchase by the bottle. Related accessories, apparel and books are also available. A private meeting room can hold up to 50 guests. It features a wireless audiovisual system perfect for giving presentations from laptops, MacBooks, or even iPads. Outlets are easily accessible throughout the bar for easily charging any of your electronic gadgets.
Resident Holiday Party ’12
This past Friday, residents of The Laurel gathered in The Laurel ballroom of the Embassy Suites to celebrate the holidays.
A macaroni and cheese bar and buffalo sliders were among the food catered by the Embassy Suites team. A dessert bar was provided by The Laurel staff with the help of a few residents.
Residents were entertained throughout the evening by DJ Moody and Goodeye Photoshare was on hand to capture the moments.
Here is a sampling of the pictures.
City Museum + Pumpkins
The City Museum is one of the coolest places in St. Louis for a plethora of reasons. One of those reasons is the annual Throw Pumpkins Off The Roof Day. Ryan and Miranda went to check out this event this year and brought along plenty of extra pumpkins. Check out the video. (Hint: It’s better with sound)
Hot Chocolate And Desserts Resident Event
Residents gathered last night in the community room for the “Hot Chocolate and Desserts” party. The Laurel contracted with the Embassy Suites to provide a hot chocolate bar, complete with handmade whipped cream, Bailey’s Irish Cream liqueur and marshmallows.
Residents brought desserts ranging from spiced cake balls to s’more shots to pumpkin cheesecake dip.
Recipes will be posted when available. Until then, enjoy these pictures.
Resident Chili Cook-Off
Over the weekend Laurel residents assembled in the building’s community room for camaraderie, drinks and chili. Seven residents entered their dishes in the competition to win money off their December rent. A wide range of tastes were represented from “Tex Mex” to “Hominy White Bean” to “Cheesy Meaty”. One resident baked a Pumpkin Gooey Butter Cake for the event and another made a pumpkin and whipped cream pie. Most of the residents also tasted “Pumpkin Chili” for the first time at the event. The Laurel Leasing Staff provided drinks for Chili Cook-Off and announced at the event that all entrants would receive money off their December rent.
A couple of the chili recipes are below.
Corbin’s Chili Recipe
Ingredients
1 pound ground beef (chuck)
1 chopped whole white onion
1 chopped green bell pepper
about 3 tablespoons chili powder
about 1 teaspoon cumin
1-2 bay leafs
about 1 and half cloves of minced garlic
3-4 jalapeño peppers chopped
1 can of stewed tomatoes
1 can of tomato sauce
1 can of rinsed pinto beans
1 can of rinsed black beans
1 can of rinsed red beans
dash of salt and pepper
Steps
Sauté and brown the ground beef with the chopped onion and bell pepper for 5 minutes.
Add the rest of ingredients (except the beans) and simmer 1-2 hours.
Add the beans at the end, 30 minutes prior to eating.
Hominy White Bean Chili
The Laurel Resident WeCar Has Arrived
As of early next week, residents of The Laurel will be privy to a perk unique to the St. Louis apartment community. Enterprise Rent-A-Car and The Laurel have partnered together to place a Chevy Volt extended range electric vehicle (EV) at the building primarily for use by residents as part of the WeCar car-sharing program.
The Volt will have preferential parking at the ChargePoint dual-port charging station located at 7th and Lucas adjacent to the building. The station, installed by local firm Microgrid Energy, is also available for public use.
Nicole Strand, Property Manager at The Laurel, had this to say in the press release:
“We are working with WeCar to bring an affordable transportation option to our residents, many of whom have moved here from other urban areas and appreciate the environmental advantages, convenience and economies of car sharing. This program meets the needs of urban dwellers who prefer car sharing and public transportation options over owning a car. In fact, we hope the program will help reduce our reliance on everyone having their own car and contribute to local sustainability efforts. “
WeCar by Enterprise offers its members around-the-clock access to hourly, daily and overnight rentals. The convenience of only paying for the vehicle when you need it is easily attained by using the stress-free online reservation system.
St. Louis Mayor Francis G. Slay applauded the arrival of the Volt and had this to say in the press release:
“Car sharing is important for creating a lower impact urban mobility system and we are delighted that Laurel Apartments has chosen to work with Enterprise Rent-A-Car, which is committed to developing long-term transportation solutions and supporting a more sustainable future in their hometown of St, Louis and around the world.”
The Chevy Volt will be fully available for use beginning early next week. While this particular Chevy Volt is available to all registered WeCar members, residents of The Laurel Apartments will be given exclusive deals not available to all members. The hourly rent for the Volt will start at $8 per hour and that will include gas and insurance.
Happy Opening Day To Collective at MX
Today the Mercantile Exchange welcomes its fourth business to the district with the opening of Collective at MX. The Collective brings 25+ boutiques to downtown St.Louis in part of the building that formerly housed St. Louis Centre. Nicole Benoist, the former Style Editor at St. Louis Magazine and Founder of MiniPinkBook, serves as the Managing Curator.
The retailers that have signed on to be part of the Collective will be showcased in the nearly 4,000 square foot space in a customizable “mini-shop” format. The retail cooperative will feature a variety of unique offerings such as jewelry from Adam Foster, unique St. Louis gifts from Stl-Style, antiques from Roots, stylish home decor from White Rabbit, designer women’s resale from Women’s Closet Exchange and even candy from Oh Lolli Lolli Candy Shoppe.
Laurel residents will be some of the first people to peruse the Collective’s offerings when they attend a private showcase tonight at Collective at MX complete with complimentary wine and hors d’oeuvres.
Laurel MetroLink Adventures Episode 1: The Delmar Loop
The Convention Center MetroLink station is mere steps away from our front doors. We got the bright idea that this meant we needed to take some adventures to showcase all of the fun places you can go and fun things you can do without having to get in your car.
When I was younger, I took the MetroLink with my dad from the North Hanley Station by his house into downtown for special events and sporting events. It was much easier for us to take the Metro from out there and get dropped off steps away from the action rather than having to drive down and park. I hadn’t really ridden the MetroLink since then. Since I haven’t explored all of the places the MetroLink can take you from downtown to out west, we grabbed a trusty Flipcam and headed out.
This MetroLink station is a little different than a lot of them because it is underground. You take the stairs or the escalator down and there you are in the tunnel. The ticket machine is right there as you walk down. It takes paper money or plastic. For change, it spits out coins. Fares for the MetroLink and buses can be found here. We each bought a roundtrip ticket for $4.50.
Every time I ride the MetroLink, I feel like I am on vacation. I leave when I leave, I get there when I get there. I can read a book while I ride or text or whatever. You always find that one person on a trip who thinks it is perfectly okay to talk loudly on a cell phone and annoy everyone around them. I guess that’s par for the course anywhere in life.
We rode past Busch Stadium, the Scottrade Center, Union Station, Saint Louis University and the hospital complex at the Central West End station until we got to The Delmar Loop.
The station is about a block off of Delmar behind The Pageant music venue. Speaking of The Pageant, it is an awesome place to watch a concert. The acts that play there rave about the acoustics. The event in front of the stage is off-limits to food and beverages so you can enjoy the music and “move yo hips” without worrying about some idiot spilling something on you.
Just up from The Pageant is the Moonrise Hotel. The Moonrise is a luxury boutique hotel with St. Louis-themed suites named after folks on the St. Louis Walk of Fame. Check out this post for a peek at what it’s like to spend at night at the Moonrise.
It was Miranda and I that went on the adventure, so of course we had to do some shopping. We stopped in at Pizzazz Furniture where we found perhaps the most comfortable office chair ever. I also stopped at Miss M’s Candy while Miranda shopped more. She found some great clothes at Sole&Blues and Ziezo.
We decided to eat lunch at the most amazing sandwhich shop in the world, Snarf’s. I’ve been here a couple of times and I must say my favorites are the peanut butter, banana and honey sub and the hot dog, american cheese and bacon sub, both toasted. The most amazing thing about this place? They will be opening fairly soon downtown right next to Pi, meaning they will also be neighbors with us in the Mercantile Exchange.
You can’t go to The Loop without checking out Vintage Vinyl. You know you want to look at some records, maybe see a band play a random show? Speaking of seeing someone play. The legend himself, Chuck Berry, plays at Blueberry Hill once a month. It’s a show and a place you must see.
So many other places on The Delmar Loop that we didn’t get a chance to visit this adventure. For now, check out this video we made. And remember, this is just one of the many places you can go on the MetroLink from The Laurel Apartments.
The St. Louis Color Run
The Color Run recently exploded through St. Louis, leaving behind a trail of pinks, greens, blues, purples, oranges and yellows throughout the streets of downtown as well as thousands of rainbow color stained t-shirts, socks, tennis shoes, headbands and of course, tutus, because you can’t participate in a color run without a tutu!
The Laurel had the pleasure of participating in this color extravaganza complete with powder bombs, music, free giveaways from Chevy and of course, the color caboose after-party.
The memories will last a lifetime, or at least until the color washes out of our socks. We can’t wait for next year!
Check out Team Laurel at the event:
The Laurel Apartments Featured by St. Louis Business Journal
For immediate release: July 27, 2012
The Laurel Apartments Featured by St. Louis Business Journal for Strong Leasing in MX District
Amir Kurtovic’s coverage provides a positive update on The Laurel Apartments and the downtown apartment market and gives an update on MX retail tenants open and under construction.
St. Louis, MO – For a new apartment building, the first goal is always to fill it up. But that shouldn’t be a problem for the Laurel building, part of Amos Harris’ $250 million Mercantile Exchange development. Demand for apartments has been so good, in fact, that Harris has been able to raise prices less than a year after starting the leasing process.
“We are killing it with the apartments,” Harris said. “When we opened up our preleasing, we were leasing at $1.20 per square foot. We are now leasing at $1.34 per foot, which is huge. We’re talking about a more than 10 percent increase in the last six months.”
About 70 percent of the 205 one- and two-bedroom apartments are leased, said Harris, who is president of Brady Capital and a principal of Spinnaker St. Louis. The grand opening of the Laurel Apartments was in February and Harris said he could see rents rising to about $1.45 to $1.50 per square foot by next year.
The strong performance was a surprise to Harris. The Laurel Apartments were still under construction when Steve Smith’s 230-unit Park Pacific development opened.
“I was right there with everybody else in thinking that there were too many apartments coming on the market at the same time, but that didn’t turn out to be the case,” Harris said.
Deborah Done, president of locally owned rental agency Apartment Search, said there is a lot of demand for the Laurel Apartments because of their location and amenities.“Overall, the downtown market is strong and availability it tight,” she said. “Most of the properties are bringing their rents back up.” Done estimates that average rental price for downtown apartments have increased about 5 percent in the last six months.
Strong apartment leases are not the only good news coming out of the MX development. Harris said there is a lot of interest for the planned National Blues Museum at the MX and a number of supporters have shown interest in helping to raise the $6.5 million necessary to make the project a reality. About half of the $23 million price tag for the museum has been secured in New Markets Tax Credits.
The streetscape around the MX development could also soon get a facelift. The city of St. Louis has submitted an application to the East-West Gateway Council of Government for a $2 million grant that would fund improvements to sidewalks, lighting and decorations on Washington Avenue, from 7th Street to Memorial Drive. Harris said the $2 million grant required a $400,000 match, which the city was not able to provide. Instead, Spinnaker and Stifel Financial Corp. have agreed to split the match, Harris said. Stifel bought its headquarter building at 501 N. Broadway, adjacent to the MX development, last August for $20 million.
The 150,000 square feet of commercial space at the MX are about 60 percent leased so far, Harris said. On the restaurants and retail side of the MX, Pi Pizzeria at the corner of Sixth Street and Washington Avenue is already open and construction is under way for several other projects, including St. Louis Cinema’s three-screen MX Movies theater slated for October. Also under construction is the Collective at MX, a 3,700-square-foot fashion co-op that will house mini boutiques.
Eric Heckman, owner of Tani Sushi Bistro in Clayton, will also be one of the commercial tenants at the MX. Construction for his Takaya New Asian restaurant is under way and should be complete by late summer. The 3,300-square-foot restaurant will seat 120 and Heckman has projected sales of $1.5 million within three years. Harris said he is also in discussions with several companies about putting in an 8,600-square-foot fitness center. The fitness center would include steam rooms, saunas and cater to residents and workers in the surrounding office buildings.
For more information about the Mercantile Exchange visit: http://www.mxstl.com/ or follow The MX on Twitter and Facebook.
Media Contact:
Mack Bradley, StandPoint Public Affairs
314-324-8567 | mack@standpoint.com