ST. LOUIS-NorthPark Partners, a joint venture of Clayco Inc. and McEagle Properties, have hired Jones Lang LaSalle to market the 550-acre NorthPark business park here. While the planned $500 million park includes a number of offices, including a few buildings for pharmacy benefits manager Express Scripts, the project still only has about 50 acres occupied by about 1.3 million square feet.

NorthPark replaced a former residential subdivision that was originally purchased for the airport more than 20 years ago. The redevelopment, created in partnership with St. Louis County and the state of Missouri, is adjacent to Lambert International Airport and the University of Missouri-St. Louis at the northeast corner of Interstates 70 and 170 in the cities of Kinloch, Berkeley and Ferguson. The first office, 90,000 square feet of office and classrooms for Vatterott College, was started at the park in 2007.

Bob Clark, CEO of Clayco, said in a statement that he knows JLL shares the vision to market the park. “We know that NorthPark is one of the finest sites available for corporate office, industrial and R&D users,” he said. EVP Lynn Schenck, SVP David Steinbach and VP David Branding with JLL will lead the marketing team. The local region could be doing better – the St. Louis office market is more than 17% vacant, with the rate expected to remain more than 300 basis points higher than its cyclical low.