Editorial: Office Workers Ditched Downtown STL. Can Residents Fill the Gaps?
Date Posted: April 30, 2026
Posted In: Discussion, News, Organizations,
From St. Louis Post-Dispatch: (NO PAYWALL) In downtown St. Louis, as on the rest of planet Earth, COVID changed everything.
Although the city’s central core was already bleeding away the retail and entertainment venues that enlivened the neighborhood, downtown office culture was still a reliable driver of social and economic activity before the pandemic.
On weekdays, workers would come down from their desks in restored century-old buildings to lunch or happy-hour on and around Washington Avenue, before heading home to the suburbs. Having so many people working in the neighborhood, even if they didn’t live there, made downtown feel like a less isolated, less alien setting to many of our regional neighbors.
Then the pandemic hit early in 2020, clearing out offices. Downtown employers who had been reluctant to embrace the growing trend of remote work suddenly had no choice. Meanwhile, downtown bars and restaurants suspended business; storefronts were shuttered.
The businesses that managed to hold on until society re-opened were then hit with a new reality: Many of the workers who had been stationed downtown, and who had been working from their dining room tables throughout 2020, would continue doing so. They — and their happy-hour dollars — weren’t coming back.
The Post-Dispatch Editorial Board this week is publishing a series of editorials exploring how St. Louis can revive its troubled downtown/Downtown West corridor. That’s the more than two-square-mile stretch from the Arch grounds on the east, to Jefferson Avenue on the west, to Chouteau Avenue on the south, to just beyond Washington Avenue on the north. We are keeping all the editorials in the series outside our paywall, free to everyone, to include as many community members in the conversation as possible.
Today, we focus on the decline of office culture — and how it might be turned into a win.
The concept, strongly supported by city officials, downtown business and community boosters, is to transform all that vacant former office space into residential living.
While the neighborhood is home to far more St. Louisans today than it was at the start of the current century, it’s still far from the necessary critical mass of residency to support restaurants and other amenities that can no longer count on office workers.
While the neighborhood is home to far more St. Louisans today than it was at the start of the current century, it’s still far from the necessary critical mass of residency to support restaurants and other amenities that can no longer count on office workers.
“Ten years ago, Washington Avenue was really vibrant … before this sort of mass exodus” during and after the pandemic, said Marc Hubbard, general manager at Hair of the Dog, a bar on the strip where he has poured drinks for a decade. “That’s when it started getting kind of ‘Mad Max’ down here.”
“There’s definitely been a shift, not just here in St. Louis but across the country, across the world,” Sarah Arnosky Ko, vice president of Greater St. Louis Inc., the nonprofit business and civic organization, told the Editorial Board. “A lot of companies don’t see the need for those massive floorplans.”
The impact of that shift on downtown office space has been profound.