ST. LOUIS—The industrial market in the St. Louis area continues to show signs of recovery. SKF USA, Inc. has just launched a 310,000-square-foot, $60 million build-to-suit development at NorthPark, an industrial park in northern St. Louis County. The manufacturer plans to move from its current St. Louis location on Goodfellow Blvd. by the end of 2015, retain its 388 jobs and create another 73 over the next six years.
“The period from 2007 to 2012 was a fairly dormant period for industrial development,” Steve Tharpe of Colliers tells GlobeSt.com, “but there has been a definite pick-up in demand.”
Tharpe and Colliers' Spencer Toder, along with Jim Eaton, senior vice president at NAI Geis Realty Group, provided site selection, lease negotiation, and transaction management services for SKF, the US subsidiary of the SKF Group, a Sweden-based company. JLL represented the seller, NorthPark Partners. According to the park's website, NorthPark Partners is a collaboration of two development companies – McEagle and Clayco.
NorthPark is already home to a number of corporations and institutions such as Express Scripts Corp., Vatterott College and Staples.
The brokerage team spent about one year putting the entire deal together, Tharpe adds, and checked out many sites, including existing buildings, in both Missouri and across the river in Illinois. But the lack of new product meant very few existing structures could meet SKF's need for more than 300,000-square-feet and a host of modern features.
“They really want this to be their flagship plant,” Tharpe adds. For example, the building will be designed to secure a LEED certification. “Most major corporations are quite sensitive to the importance of green building” and how that helps a company's image. “If you want to maximize sustainable components you're best served by building something new.”
Other area developers have noted the pent-up demand. PCCP, LLC, a real estate finance and investment management firm, and TriStar Properties, for example, recently formed a joint venture to acquire 45 acres of land for the speculative development of a 673,000-square-foot bulk warehouse building at Gateway Center in Illinois' Metro East submarket.
“I don't know how long this construction cycle will last,” Tharpe says, “but it is generally on an upswing.”
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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.
