A long-vacant, 44-story office tower in St. Louis sold last week for $3.6 million

A long-vacant, 44-story office tower in St. Louis sold last week for $3.6 million, a 98% plunge from when it changed hands for $205 million in 2006. The cratering value of the former One AT&T Center is the latest example of how commercial real estate in the Midwest has been ravaged by remote work.

Six of the 10 office districts in the US that had the biggest decline in foot traffic from 2019 to the middle of 2023 are in the Midwest, according to a University of Toronto study. St. Louis had the steepest drop of all.

The challenge for St. Louis is one faced by many major cities since the pandemic: Avoid a “doom loop,” the phenomenon of people fleeing a city when conditions worsen, followed by the conditions becoming even worse because people moved away, which causes more people to move away. St. Louis may already be trapped in one, the WSJ reports.