Paric Corp. has broken ground on a $23.5 million hotel in the Delmar Loop neighborhood of St. Louis. The Moonrise Hotel will be a seven-story, 124-room boutique hotel featuring an upscale restaurant and bar, two meeting rooms and a rooftop patio. The developer is the Loop’s very own Joe Edwards and ACI Boland is project architect. St. Louis-based Lodging Hospitality Management will operate the hotel upon completion in February 2009.

Source: REBusiness Online 

Construction is complete on the $8 million Saint Louis University Simon Recreation Center. The Lawrence Group provided  architectural and interior design and Alberici Constructors of St. Louis was the general contractor.

Phase II of the two-phase project completed in January 2008 includes a 9,638-square-feet expansion of the entrance on the upper level of the Simon Recreation Center. The new space features an open floor plan, a new entry reception area, a circular welcoming desk, a renovated lobby, all natural materials, a 35 feet tall water feature built into a maple wall glass mezzanine and a 4,990-square-foot glass mezzanine.

The Phase I 41,800-square-foot expansion of a parking garage into an exercise facility was completed in January 2007 with 200+ new workout machines, a juice bar and lounge, full wellness suite, additional locker rooms, a boulder wall and a gaming area. Several new multi-purpose rooms feature Pilates, yoga, spinning, aerobics and other fitness classes.

Walton Construction St. Louis has three Wal-Mart Supercenter projects under construction in Missouri and Illinois. The firm began work on a 180,954-square-foot Wal-Mart in Harrisburg, Ill., in November 2007, and is expecting completion by August. Walton also is building a Wal-Mart Supercenter in Jacksonville, Ill., scheduled for completion in February, and is expanding an existing Wal-Mart in Chesterfield, Mo., into a Supercenter. That project began this past fall and is scheduled to be completed in October.

Wichita, Kan.-based Law/Kingdom is providing design services for the Chesterfield and Harrisburg projects, and The Benham Group is designing the Jacksonville project.

Source: REBusiness Online

Today I made a presentation on Web 2.0 for Marketing & PR at the Society for Marketing Professional Services (SMPS). Their members wanted to know how Web 2.0 (”second generation” Web) tools like blogs, podcasts, RSS feeds, social networking, wikis and widgets can be used by architects, engineers and construction firms to communicate with clients and prospects in today’s brave new marketplace.

My key messages are this:

• The “window” through which PR people have traditionally “pushed” releases continues to narrow, as print publications struggle with ad revenues and cut back on editorial pages.
• More and more business people are getting their news online in a “pull” fashion, using Web 2.0 technologies to select exactly the kind of news and information they want to receive.
• Journalists are high on the list of “consumers” getting their news and information online.
• As communicators we need to be in that arena, participating if not leading the way.

The best way to enter the Web 2.0 world is to start using the technologies. In fact, you most likely already are using them. UTube, Flicker, your Yahoo My Page, Wikipedia, Amazon, news or sports feeds on your Web browser, and any Web site you visit that has up-to-the-minute headlines or visitor comment options is powered by Web 2.0 technology.

I encourage communicators to use the technology. Create your own blog (takes less than 10 minutes with no cost at www.blogger.com). Blog about your kids or your cat if you’re not ready to do a business blog, but jump in and learn the technology.

Subscribe to blogs - my AEC industry blog here at www.aecstlouis.com offers a Blogroll, with links to other industry blogs.

Listen to podcasts. You don’t need an IPod or MP3 player; you can listen to them right on your desktop computer. McGraw Hill offers podcasts with interviews of construction industry leaders at ConstructionCast.

Learn how to subscribe to RSS feeds through your favorite browser. Most offer instructions and make it simple to add RSS feeds to your Favorites bookmarks bar. Once you’ve subscribed, it’s easy to view news headlines and link to articles that interest you. Here is the RSS instruction page for Internet Explorer.

The innovative Media Center that my PR firm Synergy Group has created for all of our clients uses RSS technologies powered by a proprietary Web 2.0 software program that we’ve developed. I invite you to explore how we offer our clients’ messages and materials to media and consumers, 24/7.

Here are some other resources I mentioned in the presentation:

Podcast Alley - top 25 business podcasts

PR and AEC Blogs - a list of several good ones

Guide to Corporate Blogging - rules of the road for corporate bloggers

The US Green Building Council - St. Louis Regional Chapter is accepting abstracts for presentations at their fifth annual “Greening the Heartland Conference,” which will be held in St. Louis June 22 to 24. They’re looking for submissions from the architecture, building and planning fields, corporate policy makers and facility/real estate managers, green innovators on school campuses, public officials, planners, lawmakers and others involved in sustainable programs and processes.

The deadline for submitting abstracts is this Friday, January 11, 2008. For details, visit www.greeningtheheartland2008.org or call 1-866-933-4GRN.

The U.S. Commerce Department reports that construction spending edged up slightly in November, with the steep slump in housing offset by record spending on government and business projects, according to Engineering News Record.

At the same time, a key gauge of manufacturing activity fell in December to the lowest point in almost five years, indicating that the slowdown in housing and a credit crunch are having an impact on the overall economy.

The housing slump is the worst in more than two decades, following five boom years that pushed home sales and prices to record levels. Analysts believe the housing slowdown will last through much of 2008, forcing builders to slash construction plans to reduce a huge backlog of unsold homes.

The impact of the housing slump on the construction industry is cushioned somewhat by strength in government projects and non-residential activity, according to ENR.

Source: Engineering News Record