ST. LOUIS—Booksource, a book distributor for school systems across the nation, has just signed a new lease for 217,000-square-feet at 1431 Kingsland Ave. in the Pagedale neighborhood, an expansion from the less than 100,000-square-feet it had. The renewal and expansion is another sign that not only is Booksource, a division of GL Group, Inc., continuing to grow, but the entire St. Louis market is gathering steam as it continues to recover from the recession, local experts say.
“The market is definitely tightening up,” Hal C. Ball, senior vice president and principal of the St. Louis-based Hiliker Corp., tells GlobeSt.com. Ball represented the landlord, Kingswick Holdings, LLC, and Booksource in the lease negotiations. “About two years ago, if you were looking for 100,000-square-feet of warehouse space, you would have had a couple of dozen choices, now you have about six.”
In this case, Booksource, which has had a contract with New York schools for a number of years, has picked up additional contracts, so it needed more space. The warehouse was originally built in 1957 and has 16' clear ceiling height, “so it's low for a warehouse, but it's got an advanced sprinkler system and good column spacing,” and perhaps most important for Booksource, it has about 430,000-square-feet and about 160,000-square-feet remaining, “so there is room to expand.”
This new lease is only good through December of 2015, as Booksource needs to make sure various contracts get renewed before it commits to anything long-term. “If they renew their contract with New York City schools they will probably come back for more space,” Ball says.
He anticipates that the St. Louis market will continue to see a steady level of absorption. “Prices were all squashed in the recession,” but in the past 12 months, Ball says, prices have increased about 10% to 15%, and are probably set to increase another 10% to 15%. “That will bring us back to where we were in 2007, and will allow us to begin building spec warehouses again.”
“There are several on the drawing board right now,” he adds. “We're almost out of the hole.”
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Brian J. Rogal
Brian J. Rogal is a Chicago-based freelance writer with years of experience as an investigative reporter and editor, most notably at The Chicago Reporter, where he concentrated on housing issues. He also has written extensively on alternative energy and the payments card industry for national trade publications.
