Efforts to position St. Louis as the core of innovation in commercial real estate and construction products are moving apace at Gateway South, according to Amanda Garrett, partner for design and construction at the Good Developments Group (GDG), in “Pushing Boundaries: Advanced Manufacturing in St. Louis,” an April 9 presentation to the St. Louis chapter of Commercial Real Estate Women (CREW) at Rung for Women in South St. Louis.
The session included an overview of services provided by Rung for Women, “a community of coaches, cheerleaders and supporters who are committed to seeing our members successful and fulfilled,” from president Leslie Gill. “We are a career accelerator for mid-level jobs,” Gill said. “We provide training, education, certification, healthy eating, a medical center (and more).”
Rung for Women launched in 2020 with 40 percent of its construction provided by women-owned companies, Gill said. Its third building opened in October 2023, and the CREW-STL event was one of the first to be held in that space.
“Gateway South is a master-planned redevelopment project on 100 acres south of the Gateway Arch that will be a cohesive home base for commercial real estate and construction,” Garrett said. “We are set to redefine the construction industry by 2026 and beyond. We are building a Building Industry Collaboration District.”
While small projects have gained efficiency in recent years, the “why” of Gateway South is the amount of time it can take for larger projects to come to fruition, Garrett said. “This is an opportunity for change.”
Because “you can’t talk about building without talking about sustainability,” the project includes that focus in every aspect. “We need to decarbonize buildings, but challenges still have to be met,” Garrett noted.
Labor is also a factor, given that there are currently 650,000 unfilled construction jobs around the country. Diversity is improving, “but we can and should do better,” she said. “We see this as a watershed moment for the construction industry to be a leader.”
Gateway South will be a center for componentized construction products that can be moved easily around the country, which will have its biggest impact on scheduling the progress of various projects. St. Louis is a “multimodal heaven” and a “huge benefit” to commercial real estate, thanks to its access to rail, highway, air, and water resources to move products. “There is no more connected location than St. Louis for logistics,” said Garrett.
Despite being in what Garrett called a “forgotten” part of the city, Gateway South “has an unbelievably beautiful fabric” and a wealth of historic industrial buildings that will be part of the project. It will be “a 24/7 mixed-use, walkable area that will “stitch the neighborhood back into the city” and “balance livability and productivity,” she said. “We can renovate and redevelop existing historic buildings.”
The focus will be on “pollination”: working with partners on research and development and adding smaller interstitial spaces that can provide opportunities for residential use. “We want this district to be alive and interactive.”
The nucleus or “heartbeat of the entire project” is the Crunden Martin Building, a collection of six buildings curated for food and beverage, a construction museum, flexible commercial spaces, and more, including “the first piece in creating a safe neighborhood.” The overall theme of the project is “Assembled for Better Building.”
GDG is partnering with AMICSTL, among others, to create a way to test new materials so builders and project owners no longer will have to go away from the central location of St. Louis or to another country for the products they need.
As evidence of the developer’s commitment to the neighborhood, the project is supported by the Gateway Decathlon (a design-build collegiate competition), a nonprofit organization to engage the community and create a new type of workforce,” Garrett said. It is “a unique opportunity to exhibit to the public exactly what innovation means” and is expected to bring 80,000–100,000 visitors to St. Louis.
The Decathlon involves 12 teams who are competing to create new products and approaches to construction and development. Most of the teams are local, but several are not only from outside St. Louis but international.
Decathlon partners include the Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis for permanent infill housing spaces; several teams have offered to donate their projects to that element of Gateway South. The HERS Index Score Sustainability measuring system, “a relatively new technology,” is being used in the competition.
The first Decathlon event will be in June 2024, with all teams in St. Louis; Garrett invited colleagues to consider getting involved as sponsors.
GDG is working with the city to integrate transportation into the project and will add daycare services as soon as possible, Garrett said. Wellness for those who will live and work in the project space will also be a focus.
Public art with an industrial focus will be another piece of the project, Garrett noted, along with green space.
GDG sees Gateway South as “a new opportunity to create new products” for the construction industry and is having conversations with unions and trades about their involvement, including training.
“What we’re doing is complicated,” Garrett said. “We will get there, but we are going very carefully” to respect both the community and the industry. The overall buildout is expected to take about 10 years, with tenants expected in the Crunden Martin segment by 2026 and some light industrial businesses possibly in place even sooner.
(Coming up: CREW-STL will hold a tour of Clayco on June 26. For info, go to www.crewstl.org.)
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Feature photo credit: Ruth E. Thaler-Carter | MWM STL