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Tech job listings decline puts focus on St. Louis startups

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The effort to substantially grow the region’s technology workforce is facing stiff headwinds.St. Louis is dealing with some of the national employment trends in the sector, like layoffs and companies cutting back on hiring new positions.From 2022 and 2023, the total number of active job listings for tech positions dropped 45%, according to a March report from TechSTL, the region’s tech council. The report also finds the St. Louis region had steeper drops in active listings compared to the U.S. as a whole in that same time period.As stark as this news was for TechSTL Executive Director Emily Hemingway, it also offered a sense of relief, she said.“When this [report] came out, it was really validating for all of us because we had seen in life, in reality, that things had shifted,” Hemingway said.She cites two culprits for the current contraction: an end to the pandemic hiring spree in tech and the explosive growth of artificial intelligence prompting some companies to become leaner.While the report found the number of active job listings dropped dramatically between 2022 and 2023, overall employment in the local tech industry ticked up slightly, by 2%.This comes as the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics anticipates some tech-sector occupations like software developers, information security analysts and data scientists, will grow as much as 35% by 2032 compared to about 3% growth for all occupations in the country.Hemingway said that means the underlying skills for a technology-focused role are still in demand, just maybe not at a large firm.“When you have significantly fewer jobs, you can’t be dependent on our large anchor institutions or corporate partners to really drive the workforce,” Hemingway said. “These jobs that are being cut are largely in these larger hiring agencies.”She said the St. Louis region needs to prioritize the development and growth of local startups and entrepreneurs as a way to support the existing tech talent in the region.“If we can’t find these folks a good way to make money in St. Louis, they will either change their industry or they will change their town,” Hemingway said. “It is a race to support what we have here and give them a reason to stay in St. Louis.”

Eric Lee

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St. Louis Public RadioResident companies are listed on a sign late last month in St. Louis’ Cortex district.

‘A lot of fluff in the startup ecosystem’An innovative idea typically forms the basis of new startups, but there can be a downside to focusing too much on pitching them, said Christian Johnson, who runs the geospatial startup Metis Analytics, which provides workflow management software for intelligence analysts.In the 8½ years that Johnson’s been involved in the local startup scene, he said he’s seen some organizations catering to startups favor pitching and promotion over concepts like how to build and scale a new venture.“There’s a lot of fluff in the startup ecosystem,” he said. “It becomes a fashion show basically, instead of it being about can you actually build a product that people want and that will buy from you?”Johnson also runs Founders Lounge, a weekly forum where entrepreneurs of any experience level can discuss their ideas and any obstacles they’ve faced. It also has events that bring in speakers from other cities who shed light on marketing, sales and the technical sides of a business, like choosing a cloud database or how to incorporate large language models into an application, he said.“Just different things that will help move the needle in your business that actually do help,” Johnson said.Spaces for these kinds of interactions are vital, yet lacking in St. Louis, he said, that adding other markets in the U.S. have established places like these.“This is not something that is foreign but something that is super powerful that we’re bringing to St. Louis,” he said.

Brian Munoz

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St. Louis Public RadioGabe Angieri, Arch Grants’ executive director, at St. Louis Public Radio’s headquarters in Grand Center.

Financing and customersBeyond more programming to help startups with their business strategy, there’s the sticking point of securing local capital or customers that will invest in or buy a local company’s product.It’s something Arch Grants specifically looks for when vetting the companies it eventually supports, said Executive Director Gabe Angieri. The nonprofit awards grants to companies with high growth potential in St. Louis that are either already located in the region or that will relocate here, he said.“We want companies that see their long-term path to success in St. Louis and this region,” he said. “We put a high barrier to entry on that.”It helps when a startup, local or otherwise, can clearly articulate potential partners, customers or when it can point to people in the St. Louis region who have weighed in on its business plan or innovation, Angieri said. Locating capital and customers are frequent challenges for new ventures in the region, he added.“St. Louis is an extraordinarily generous city — there’s a lot of wealth in this region,” Angieri said. “It is not the most adventurous when it comes to investing in early-stage startups. And it is a high-risk endeavor, no question about it.”There is a push at the state level for tax credits for angel investing that could entice more early-stage investing. But even in the local biosciences sector, which has examples of successful startups that are now standalone companies or were acquired, lots of capital can be hard to come by.“There’s just fewer examples of people taking giant home run swings and succeeding,” said Tom Cohen, chief operating officer at Panome Bio, a local biotech startup.This can push local startups to look for capital or customers elsewhere, likely from the coasts, and that can leave startups asking, “Why am I here?” if their financial support is elsewhere, Angieri said.One solution he sees is in some of the existing large corporations in St. Louis working directly with local startups in addition to the dollars they already dedicate to organizations like Arch Grants, he said.“It’s shifting from a mindset of community-based philanthropy to a more risk-tolerant approach,” Angieri said. “To see the solutions and the innovations come out of the startup sector as viable options as you seek to address pain points in your own companies.”If local corporations started dedicating a portion of their budget to pilot with startups in St. Louis, it could unlock considerable growth for small to midsize ventures in the region, he said.

Eric Lee

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St. Louis Public RadioPeople play a card game during a networking event hosted by Founders Lounge late last month at Aloft St. Louis Cortex Hotel.

‘Right now we’re whispering’Entrepreneurs are also responsible for driving this shift in perspective for local companies, argues Chris Ocasio, a server and bartender who’s recently started developing apps.“If we want them to listen, then we have to speak,” he said. “And right now we’re whispering.”When Ocasio first decided to pursue his own venture less than a year ago, he said he was struck by the level of support he received.“Two years ago, a year ago, I had no idea there was this type of ecosystem in St. Louis,” he said. “Everyone was excited to see someone hungry to get into the entrepreneurial space.”Ocasio argues not enough people or companies in the broader St. Louis community are aware of the innovations people like him are working on or how they can get involved in the community if they wanted to.“There’s no TikTok’s about this, you know? Like why can’t we do that,” he said. “We need to show that pride and get St. Louis talking about the fact that there’s innovators here, [that] we’re hungry [and] going to make it happen.”

National Geospatial Intelligence AgencyThe exterior of the new National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency in north St. Louis. The agency has plans to collaborate with more outsider organizations, academic institutions and private industry when its new headquarters in St. Louis fully opens in 2026.

A blueprint for successLeaders across St. Louis don’t have to look far for a potential blueprint on how to respond to the current job environment in the technology sector. The biosciences sector experienced a similar contraction about 20 years ago, said Justin Raymundo, BioSTL’s director of regional workforce strategy for the bioscience sector.“In the early 2000s, we really didn’t have what we would call a thriving entrepreneurial ecosystem or an innovation economy,” he said. “We focused particularly on having large corporations or large academic institutions.”St. Louis saw large companies leave the area or get acquired by firms outside the region, Raymundo said. The strategic response to this and the urban depopulation of the time was to create the Coalition of Plant Live Sciences (the precursor to BioSTL) that would focus on developing an ecosystem to support homegrown innovation in the biosciences and cushion against corporate downsizings, he explained.Two decades later, that strategy has paid off and led to key drivers of innovation in the Cortex Innovation District, BioGenerator Ventures, a dedicated fund for investing in and building biotech startups, and other markers of a healthy startup system where new ventures are making successful exits, he added.“That’s a story of how anchors came together in this community at a point when we really needed to invest,” Raymundo said.But it wasn’t cheap or necessarily easy, he added.“What we’re demystifying now is that a lot of this requires investment, particularly philanthropic investment, state and local investment, private-sector investment,” Raymundo said. “We’ve reached this point in our region over 20 years of a lot of patient capital and commitment.”Johnson, of Metis Analytics, said it’s worth it for St. Louis to make similar pushes now for other sectors like geospatial or artificial intelligence.“We have to do that,” he said. “There are more geospatial startups that are coming here from out of town. But also there needs to be more geospatial startups that are starting from here.”The National Geospatial Intelligence Agency has plans to collaborate with more outsider organizations, academic institutions and private industry when its new headquarters in St. Louis fully opens in 2026.It could create similar conditions in the biotech sector now, where ideas can spin out into new ventures, said Cohen with Panome Bio.“That seems like something that could really blow up,” he said. “And could be the nucleus that creates a whole new sector. We could become the space to build geospatial companies.”

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Laclede’s Landing is moving from nightlife hub to neighborhood

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Laclede’s Landing has cycled through many identities throughout the history of St. Louis. Now, some people involved with its redevelopment in recent years hope the landing’s next one will be as a residential neighborhood.The small district tucked directly north of the Gateway Arch National Park has quietly undergone a massive redevelopment with more than $75 million pouring into the rehabilitation of many of the historic buildings at the landing.“We are starting to feel that momentum, especially in the last really 60 days. Things have drastically changed around here,” said Ryan Koppy, broker and owner of Trading Post Properties and the director of commercial property for Advantes Group.Advantes alone shouldered the rehabilitation of six of the historic buildings, which now sport a mix of apartments and retail or office space, he said. Four of those buildings are completed, and of the 119 apartments available, about 90% are filled, Koppy said.“It just shows you what kind of demand we do have for the area,” he said. “We’re separated from downtown a little bit, and for the tenants, their local park where they’re walking their dogs, it’s a national park.”

Sophie Proe

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St. Louis Public RadioInterior of the Peper Lofts at Laclede’s Landing on Aug. 16

Another 40 apartments are set to come online next year along with some retail space, Koppy said. He added he’s noticed a wide range of people who are considering and moving into the newly refinished apartments.“It’s very mixed, surprisingly,” Koppy said. “We have a lot of young professionals, maybe on their second job out of [university], we have some empty nesters too.”Part of the newfound momentum comes from a new market, the Cobblestone, and coffee shop, Brew Tulum, opening recently and bringing more foot traffic to the area, said Brandyn Jones, executive director of the Laclede Landing Neighborhood Association. She added that more apartments are set to come online within the next few months.“We have a great riverfront area here and so there are plans in the works to activate those spaces, bring people in,” she said.That could be more daytime events, like a farmers market, music festivals (one of which is happening this weekend) or just bringing in food trucks to Katherine Ward Burg Garden, Jones said. It’s a departure from the identity the district held a few decades ago as a hub for nightlife and entertainment.“That’s part of what connects so many people to Laclede’s Landing,” Jones said. “It’s important to tell the story of where we’re evolving. It won’t be what it was in the same exact way, but it will still be fun, and it can be fun early morning, midday or late night.”It’s a view shared by Koppy.“It’s grown up, it’s a bit mature,” he said. “We’re not going to have 3 a.m. bars here anymore because we have residents here.”Koppy added that Advantes is joined by other developers working to rehabilitate buildings in the district.“We all work in unison,” he said. “If I get a call and [a client is] asking for something and maybe the square foot doesn’t really match up with what I have available, but I know it matches up over there, they’re getting a very warm welcome and introduction.”

Sophie Proe

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St. Louis Public RadioRyan Koppy looks out the window of Brew Tulum Specialty Coffee Experience on Aug. 16 at the Cobblestone on Laclede’s Landing in downtown St. Louis.

This push toward making Laclede’s Landing a residential neighborhood also comes alongside broader conversations about the future of downtown St. Louis more generally as it looks to move away from a dependence on office space. While the city as a whole continues to lose population, downtown added about 1,700 people between 2010 and 2020, according to U.S. Census data.“It’s been wonderful timing to have all that going on, that stress that you’re not just in downtown to work has been critical to part of this rejuvenation and energy down here,” Jones said. “Sometimes people forget Laclede’s Landing is part of downtown, really the original downtown.”And success in the small district could spread beyond its small confines and potentially serve as a model for success, Koppy added.“My idea is, if we could get all the great things of St. Louis coming in through here, we can eventually spread that,” he said. “We understand we can’t change the whole world, but we’ll just make the effort to try and change the world around us.”

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St. Louis barbecue festival Q in the Lou canceled

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The largest barbecue competition and tasting festival in St. Louis, Q in the Lou, has been canceled. The event was planned for Sept. 6-8, but organizers decided to cancel it due to poor ticket sales and insufficient corporate sponsorship.The traveling festival had low attendance in Denver last week, said Sean Hadley, a festival organizer.“We made the tough decision to cancel Q in the Lou,” said Hadley. “We’re seeing a lack of support … it’s just not there.”The traveling event first came to St. Louis in 2015 and drew hundreds of people to downtown St. Louis for barbecue, live music and a “major party.”“It shut down out of the blue … I’ve gone every year,” said Scott Thomas, local chef and food blogger. “It’s brilliant. You could take a tour of some really amazing barbecue restaurants and competition barbecue guys all in one place.”In a late July news conference, city officials touted Q in the Lou as a significant tourism draw and a boost for downtown revitalization.“Bringing a signature national festival back to downtown St. Louis … is making us stronger,” Greater St. Louis Inc. CEO Jason Hall said then.Less than a month later, ticket holders from every festival stop learned they’d be refunded. On Monday, organizers privatized the Q in the Lou website and deleted its social media accounts.Conner Kerrigan, a spokesperson for Mayor Tishaura Jones’ office, said city officials are disappointed the festival won’t be back this year.“St. Louis knows how to throw a festival … bringing people together to celebrate our culture is one of the things we do best as a city,” Kerrigan said in a statement. “Should Q in the Lou try to come back next year or any year after that, they’ll have the support of the Mayor Jones administration.”

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Alton’s Jacoby Arts Center likely to relocate permanently

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The Jacoby Arts Center, a staple of Alton for many in the Metro East community, will likely permanently move out of its downtown building at the end of September.Its departure and relocation from the historic building that the arts center has called home for the past 20 years has created a tense situation for not only the arts center’s supporters but also the local development company working to revitalize Alton’s downtown that owns the building.“It’s an unfortunate situation,” said Chad Brigham, the chief legal and administrative officer with AltonWorks, the real estate company owned by another prominent local attorney working to develop the town. “I wish there wasn’t misunderstanding and disappointment in the community. It’s difficult sometimes to clarify that.”When news of the likely departure spread in June via a letter from the Jacoby Arts Center to its supporters, an outcry on social media quickly followed. Some assumed it would be the end of the arts center.“There’s a lot of feelings right now that I think are more about the building itself than there are about the Jacoby Arts Center,” said Valerie Hoven, vice president and treasurer of the nonprofit arts center’s board.For supporters of the Jacoby, moving from the building and likely never returning will be a sad affair. Exactly what’s next for the arts center remains unclear. However, Jacoby board members believe this will not be the end of the organization. It will likely look different though.

Sophie Proe

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St. Louis Public RadioThe Jacoby Arts Center earlier this month in downtown Alton

Sophie Proe

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St. Louis Public RadioThe Alton-based Jacoby Arts Center features more than 75 St. Louis-area artists and their work.

The history of the buildingFirst dubbed the Madison County Arts Council, the nonprofit arts center renamed itself after the Jacoby family gave it the current building in 2004. AltonWorks founder John Simmons purchased the Jacoby Building in September 2018, according to property records from the county.Managing the large building, at 627 E. Broadway, became too expensive for the Jacoby Arts Center. In 2018, the organization approached Simmons to purchase it, said Dennis Scarborough, a past president of the board and a downtown business owner.“Of course, it sounded really, really good,” Scarborough said of Simmons’ purchase. “He took over the insurance, property taxes, all those kinds of things that were really, really getting into our budget, and he rented it to us at a fair price.”The two parties entered into a lease agreement initially for five years. Since then, Simmons has spent more than $1 million in upkeep, taxes, insurance and more on the building. The lease has been extended twice until the end of September this year.Over the six years, Jacoby paid $1,500 per month, which covered a portion of the utilities.“It’s been wonderfully generous of AltonWorks,” Hoven said.Because the building is aging and needs repairs, Brigham with AltonWorks and those connected to the arts center have long known the Jacoby Arts Center would need to relocate — at least temporarily.

Renovations on the Jacoby building will begin this fall. They’ll include modernizing the aging building, repairing the old elevator and putting in apartments on the second and third floors.

News of the likely departure and controversyRenovations will begin this fall. They’ll include modernizing the aging building, repairing the old elevator and putting in apartments on the second and third floors.In May, it became clear that a preliminary proposal for the arts center to return to the building after renovations finished in 2026 would not work for them, Hoven said.She estimates the first floor and basement of the Jacoby Arts Building span roughly 20,000 square feet.

Chad Brigham is a business and legal adviser for AltonWorks.

AltonWorks’ initial idea floated to the arts center would only provide 2,553 square feet, according to both Hoven and Brigham. While the board calculated the price for the new space to be at least triple the current payment, Brigham said there was never a specific price discussed.“No discussion in terms of actual rent price,” he said.AltonWorks didn’t make a specific rent offer because the organization doesn’t even know itself, Brigham said.In addition to cash from John Simmons, there will be loans, tax increment financing and state tax credits to cover the $20 million in building renovations. The entities financing the cost of renovations will also help determine the rent when the construction is complete, Brigham said.Regardless, the price required to return will be too much for the arts center to pay, Hoven said. Also, the organization would like to maintain the many programs it offers to the community — a rentable event space, a dark room and a clay studio, for example — in the future.“For us to really meet the needs of the community and be sustainable, we need a space where we can offer some of those programs — the artists’ shop, and other spaces that offer some kind of income as well — so that we can continue to give money back to the community,” she said.AltonWorks offered at least two other locations as possible alternatives from their vast stock of buildings along Broadway to house the arts center during the roughly 18 months of construction. Those alternatives came with similar deals requiring the Jacoby to cover only utilities, Brigham said.“We did put in a great deal of work behind the scenes in trying to find an interim solution,” Brigham said. “We wanted to find a place for them to go, where it was easy for them to continue programming, whether it’s 100% of it or some portion of it, that would work for them.”Initially, the arts center hoped to keep the basement during the renovations, Hoven said. When it became clear the preliminary offer to return was for much less space than the arts center anticipated, the letter to the community was sent.“The letter that came out was merely showing our surprise,” Hoven said. “Don’t misinterpret it as panic. Don’t misinterpret it as desperation.”

Sophie Proe

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St. Louis Public RadioA smorgasbord of radios are displayed at the Jacoby Arts Center in Alton.

The commentary on social media was passionate. Some critics of AltonWorks said the organization has good intentions but hasn’t executed those plans. Others said Jacoby hasn’t planned well enough for the future.For Brigham and the AltonWorks team, some of the criticism has been disappointing.“I thought that there were some decent solutions. Were they perfect? No, but they were very, I thought, very good solutions,” he said. “And the fact that it has come to the point that it is right now is a bit hurtful.”AltonWorks remains committed to the arts, Brigham said. John Simmons remains one the largest donors of the Jacoby Arts Center, Hoven and Brigham said.“I don’t think there’s ever been a question of our support of that organization — of our affinity for that organization,” Brigham said. “While some of the events were unfortunate, some of them were encouraging. The entire community rallied around the Jacoby Arts Center. That’s a good thing. It’s a good thing to have a love for the arts like that in a downtown community.”Sara McGibany, the executive director of Alton Main Street, an organization aimed at preserving the town, said AltonWorks should be commended for its vision. In many ways, her organization and AltonWorks share a vision for a thriving downtown.Even though AltonWorks hosts public meetings, McGibany believes the current situation lacks true community engagement.“We really think that if AltonWorks can get past some of the communication hurdles — and harness the community’s passion and shift to more of a bottom-up decision-making process that centers on community input — then we can turn around the growing sentiment of distrust that’s happening now,” McGibany said.Scarborough, the past board president and downtown business owner, echoed the praise for Simmons and his support of the Jacoby Arts Center. With the Jacoby likely moving, the future looks bleak, though.“It’s a community arts center that does a lot of good work,” Scarborough said. “The community is going to suffer, and they’re going to be missed by the community if they’re not there.”

Eric Lee

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St. Louis Public RadioShalanda Young, director of the federal Office of Management and Budget, talks to Illinois U.S. Rep. Nikki Budzinski, D-Springfield, during a tour of a construction project by AltonWorks last April in Alton. AltonWorks, who is building the LoveJoy Apartment Complex is receiving over $1 million in federal funding.

What does the future hold?AltonWorks will continue forging ahead with its ambitious plans to revitalize Alton. The organization hopes to conclude construction on the Wedge Innovation Center, which will have a restaurant, retail and co-working space, this fall. Lucas Row, a mix of apartments and retail space, is scheduled to be completed next spring.The remainder of the arts and innovation district, currently named after the Jacoby, will also move forward.“I believe in two years it’s going to be a much different place,” Brigham said of Alton. “It’s going to be thriving. It’s going to be new businesses, new tenants — and it’s going to be a nice proof of concept for what you can do in a small community like that.”The Jacoby board recently formed a strategic planning committee. Its task: figuring out what’s next for the arts center. The committee will reevaluate what space the Jacoby needs, what programs it wants to offer to the community and how they want to make that a reality.Keeping the arts center is essential for board members like Hoven. In her experience, it’s been a place where local aspiring artists get their start.“Art is one of the only ways to show your true authentic self,” Hoven said. “And there’s more people than I realized who do not get that opportunity every day.”The Jacoby will shut its doors to pack over the next month. Hoven said she’s optimistic the board will have concrete plans by the end of September when their lease officially ends.“Alton is such a fabulous and supportive community,” she said. “We still have lots of great options, so that the Jacoby Arts Center will continue to thrive in Alton and beyond.”

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