All of these stats are from the cover story, The Law of Supply and Demand, in last week’s St. Louis Business Journal.

Downtown Projects Still in Development

• The Arcade 134
• The Alexa 85
• The Avenida 48
• Cupples Station 148
• Ballpark Village Condos 250
• City Museum Lofts Phase II 18
• The Concord 135
• The Ford 26
• Jefferson Arms 100
• The Laurel 99
• Leather Trade Lofts 59
• Park Pacific(existing building) 94
• Park Pacific (new construction) 48
• Port St. Louis 49
• Roberts Tower 69
• Sky House 166

That is a total of 1,528 projected to open by 2010. Right now sales are slow, averaging about 39 a month. There is a bright side. According to John Monshausen, Vice President of Development for Jacob Development, “If you go to any major city, 2% (of the population) wants to live downtown.” The population of the whole metropolitan area of St. Louis is approximately 2.7 million, so that 2% would equal about 60,000 residents.

If you want a condo downtown now would be a good time to buy. Developers are offering more incentives and upgrades in order to sell so the circumstances favor the buyer. However, it looks like those circumstances will persist for a while so if you are buying downtown be sure you can commit to at least 18-24 months. With so many new projects planned, it looks like it will be some time before the resale market downtown takes off.