AT&T to vacate downtown St. Louis building

ST. LOUIS -- One of the largest office buildings in downtown St. Louis will be mostly vacant by 2015 after AT&T announced plans to move employees out of the building and relocate them around the St. Louis area.

AT&T announced Thursday it will move about 2,000 workers out of the 44-story building to other buildings downtown and to west St. Louis County. The company says it no longer needs the space as more employees work from home.

A company spokeswoman told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch no jobs will be lost as part of the reorganization.

Still, the move is a blow to downtown. The city stands to lose tax money, while restaurants and other businesses will lose customers.

AT&T has about 4,500 employees in three buildings in a row downtown. It is the biggest employer in the central business district.

But the number of workers has dropped in recent years due to telecommuting and the sale of AT&T's Yellow Pages division last year.

The company plans to gradually shift workers to one of the neighboring building on Pine Street and to buildings it owns in Des Peres and elsewhere in the region.

The building being largely vacated is owned by a Chicago-area real estate investment trust that purchased the property from AT&T in 2006 for $204.9 million. Officials for the trust did not return calls seeking comment.

"I'm sure this is not a surprise to them and is something they've prepared for," said Kevin Farrell, head of economic and housing development at the Partnership for Downtown St. Louis.

Jim Mosby of the commercial real estate broker Cassidy Turley said he believes prospective tenants have toured the building in recent months.

Downtown already has a relatively high office vacancy rate: 13.8 percent of higher-end "Class A" space sits empty, according to brokerage firm CBRE.