New $4.4 million guesthouse, lodge debut at Inns at St. Albans

A new 12-bedroom luxury guesthouse and meeting lodge will officially open its doors to the public on Memorial Day weekend at The Inns at St. Albans at the western edge of the St. Louis metropolitan area.

The $4.4 million, 11,000-SF lodge with a wraparound veranda and lake views will sleep up to 32 people in a range of room configurations featuring king and queen beds, mini wet bars and private baths.  Located within walking distance to all the historic attractions at The Inns at St. Albans, the new lodge also features a state-of-the-art meeting space for up to 25 people.

“Our new lodge offers excellent accommodations for a variety of guests and occasions, from individual travelers and weekend staycationers to larger groups like wedding parties, family reunions and corporate clients requiring an entire block of rooms,” said Schuyler Clark, general manager of The Inns at St. Albans. 

“We have nearly doubled the bedrooms available at The Studio Inn, the Old Barn Inn Cottages and The Farm House so more guests can experience our sought-after overnight getaway destination flavor. Later this summer we will be opening a three-bedroom renovated home called Link’s Cottage to keep pace with our overnight stay popularity with individual travelers, couples or groups.”

Destination event guests can participate in many nearby activities while staying at The Inns at St. Albans including access to 36 holes of golf and on top-rated courses nearby, weekend cooking classes, wine tastings and hiking trails.

Construction of the new lodge began in September 2019 on the site of what was once the Chesterfield Day School near the historic Heads Store, where guests can enjoy breakfast, lunch and dinner. New and renovated facilities added at The Inns at St. Albans in recent years include a larger event pavilion at the Studio Inn which can seat up to 180, a new tiered ceremony site at the Old Barn Inn, and a new pavilion in the Old Barn Inn gardens that can house outdoor cocktail events. The existing pavilion at the Old Barn Inn can accommodate up to 220 seated diners.

Nestled in scenic rolling hills first charted by Lewis & Clark near the Missouri River, The Inns at St. Albans is situated on what was once considered America’s western frontier. The rich history of St. Albans is steeped in Americana culture from the 1700-1800s including Osage Indians, Daniel Boone, Lewis & Clark, Mark Twain, the International Shoe Company and riverboat commerce.  The Studio Inn was built by renowned architect Theodore Link, the designer of St. Louis Union Station.  For many years, the area was the country retreat of some wealthy St. Louis families.

For more information on The Inns at St. Albans, visit www.innsatstalbans.com.  

New medical marijuana dispensary set to open in Pevely

Missouri’s passage of medical marijuana legislation has led to a growing commercial real estate development market for dispensaries that are licensed to serve customers.

CREW-St. Louis took colleagues on a virtual tour of the North Medical Group dispensary in Pevely, Mo. on May 11 to share the selection, design and other topics involved in the upcoming opening of the business. 

Connie Kroenung, a consultant with Working Spaces who worked with North on building design, outlined where Missouri is with medical cannabis (any marijuana product created for medical purposes). Patients require a doctor’s referral and license from the state for an ID card to purchase medical marijuana products.

Teri Samples, director of real estate & construction services, Mueller Prost, moderated the session. Panelists included Zach Mangelsdorf, president of North Medical Group LLC; Leonard Volner, vice president of North; and Neil Volner, director of marketing & procurement for North, along with Christi Johaningmeyer, president of Architextures Interior Design, and Geoffrey (Geoff) Crowley, principal with Verve Design Studio. 

North originated with Mangelsdorf’s experience as a cancer survivor for whom medical marijuana was the most-effective treatment. The name refers to “true north” as a symbol of the owners’ journey toward achieving their dream for the business.

Membership in the Missouri Cannabis Industry Association led the owners to Crowley, who was impressed that they already had a plan, logo and brand in place. The North building is just off Highway 55 at the Pevely exit, a site chosen to be easily seen and visible from all angles.

“It is in a position to draw attention to the site and the building,” said Crowley. “We wanted to make sure the building was very open and inviting.”

Glazing makes the structure look light, and windows tinted light blue match the logo and provide privacy. Utilities are hidden so the structure looks like one cohesive unit.

The owners chose Pevely because they all grew up in Jefferson County. They plan a second location in Hillsboro once they meet regulations there.

“The three essentials of the building are the security desk for patient check-in, secure retail floor and vault,” said Johaningmeyer, who worked on the interior with colleague Ashley Richardson.

Patients who don’t have to sign in can use an iPad station for pickup, and there’s a touchless process for actually receiving products. iPad stations also provide product information, and there will be “snuffer pods” where patients can smell different products before purchasing. There’s also an ATM in the building.

All product must come from Missouri providers.

“We’re working with anyone who has product,” Leonard Volner said. “We knew the supply scenario could be limited,” said Neil Volner.

Interior design elements in the 3,500-SF space include bright-white walls for a clean, light-intensive overall look; the company logo as a large lighting feature and used on the walls; bold, large graphics and a lighted vanity to make the ADA-compliant bathroom look cool; concrete floors in the public areas and luxury vinyl flooring in the staff spaces; Clipso acoustic ceilings to absorb reverberation from traffic or indoor noise; quartz desks; stainless steel in the production space; and product displays. North voluntarily incorporated high-end filters and a UV ionizer unit to control odors. The design conforms to state requirements for smooth surfaces through the space.

The building includes a drive-through, which Johaningmeyer said is unusual for this type of business.

Getting the business up and running has taken about two years, including applying for nine licenses for three aspects of the industry: growing/cultivating product, manufacturing, and dispensaries, and receiving approval only for their two dispensaries.

“The application process was flat-out brutal — the hardest thing we ever did,” Mangelsdorf said.

It involved 36-hour days and wading through hundreds of pages of documentation.

“We spent about $90,000 on application fees and about $150,000–$200,000 on various startup expenses, for $600,000–$800,000 before even beginning operations. The two buildings were about $1.7 million, but we felt that was essential for the marketing, customer experience and the brand — it’s how we differentiate from the competition.”

Because a medical marijuana business has restrictions on advertising on TV or the radio, North is using social media and their website, including a blog, to promote the business.

Initial working capital came from cash and leveraging resources of Mangelsdorf’s family for the build-to-suit process and leaseback, with bank accounts for product supply. Among the challenges is that under the 280E regulation, they can only write off the costs of goods sold or purchase of product as long as the business is not plant-touching.

Finding employees has been easy: “Everybody wants to sell weed,” Mangelsdorf said. “We had about 20 applicants for every position.”

The challenge is retention, as people discover that the sales process is only a small part of the job.

To build an employee pipeline while providing a community service, the North owners have worked with Jefferson College to develop a six-week certificate program.

Security elements

North has gone beyond the state requirements for site security, with cameras in and outside the building, intrusion detectors, panic buttons, constant lighting, vehicle-resistant bollards, a multipoint deadlock on the back door, bullet-resistant glass, and live feeds and silent alarms connected to the nearby police station (which has an expected response time of about 90 seconds), as well as staff training in security precautions.

Every aspect of the process has been challenging, the owners agree, especially getting through thousands of pages of documentation and maintaining patience for the inspection process.

“You need a strong sense of perseverance,” Mangelsdorf said. 

Getting their license approved and seeing product come in the door have been the best moments so far. Delivery and online ordering are in the works. The planned May 29 opening will be their ultimate reward.

To date, Missouri medical marijuana sales are more than $32 million; 90,000 ID cards have been approved; nine Missouri licenses have been issued and four approved for operation; 60 issued and 19 approved for cultivation; 85 issued and 10 approved for manufacturing; 192 issued for dispensaries and 89 approved; and 22 issued for transportation with 10 approved.

Currently, 192 medical marijuana dispensary licenses have been issued in Missouri and 89 approved.

Read related MWM article: http://www.metrowiremedia.com/news/lees-summit-medical-marijuana-shop-a-win-win

STL CREW and KC CREW team up to raise diversity, equity and inclusion awareness

CREW St. Louis and CREW KC recently co-hosted a virtual event organized by their diversity, equity and inclusion committees. 

The featured speaker was Adrienne Bain, a commercial real estate executive with Citizens Bank and CREW Network director.

Bain offered her observations as a black female who has been in the commercial real estate industry for nearly 20 years.  Bain was born and raised in a predominately white neighborhood in St. Louis where she was one of just a few black students in her class.

“I remember trick-or-treating on Halloween and knowing that there were certain houses that I had to avoid because the treats they gave the little black kids were very different from the treats that they gave the little white kids,” said Bain.

Bain recalled waking up one night to a cross burning on her family’s front yard.

“All that was years ago, but sometimes I wonder how much things have really changed,” she said.

After graduating college, Bain worked in retail sales management where she was one of just a few black store employees, then in retail advertising where she was the sole black employee in the department.  In graduate school, she was one of only eight black students in her class of approximately 180, and one of just two black females.

When she subsequently began her career in commercial real estate, Bain said she realized that the commercial real estate industry really wasn’t any more diverse than her previous experiences.

CREW Network has conducted benchmark studies every five years commencing in 2005 to measure the progress of women in commercial real estate, but Bain said little data exists regarding race within the industry.

“Despite research that suggests that a diverse and inclusive workforce leads to higher productivity, higher creativity, higher profitability, employee morale, stronger brand, you name it . . . . 46% of respondents in a Deloitte 2021 commercial real estate outlook reported that they were focused on increasing the level of diversity in hiring, development and leadership.  So that means that 54% were not focused on this,” said Bain.

Bain said it is difficult for her to look at the disparity between genders without also considering race. 

“I would also say being both female and a person of color is a disadvantage in this industry,” said Bain.

Bain said that there exists a lack of awareness in the commercial real estate industry.

“And one of the reasons for that is because being a member of a minority population, actually you stand out.  And you would think there would be more awareness because you stand out.  But there’s not,” she said.

Bain said she notices this when she attends events, and she is used to being one of the few women or one of a few minorities in the room. 

When Bain’s husband, who is white, attended with her the retirement party of the father of Bain’s friend, he did not know any guests other than Bain and her friend.   He immediately noticed he was the only white person and was uncomfortable.  Later that evening, he told Bain he now knows how she feels.

“It’s interesting when you are the minority and often times in environments where you’re one of a few or the only one, and there is an expectation of assimilation.   I think it’s very different when you are a member of majority population but then find yourself as a minority in a particular event or occurrence.  So yes, I hate to say it, but I actually had a little smile on my face that day when he said he understood what I felt like.  I say all that to say lack of awareness is huge,” Bain said. 

Bain said persons of color also have lack of access to sponsorship, mentorship and ally ship. This may explain why there are so few minorities in some of the upper echelons of the commercial real estate industry.

“People tend to sponsor and mentor and ally with folks who kind of look like them.  And in fact in many structured mentorship programs, they often consider both gender and race when they’re selecting mentors and mentees. . . . And so while it may be comforting to be mentored or sponsored by someone who looks like you, if you’re both black and female, that may not always be possible.  And it may not always be the way to get to that next job or next promotion,” Bain said.

Pandemic continues to have legal impact on commercial real estate

The legal aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic might be as difficult for business owners and tenants as the disease itself, judging by insights from Joseph Bealmear, a real estate attorney and shareholder with Polsinelli PC, at an April 14 meeting about “Navigating Commercial Real Estate Legal Issues through COVID” hosted by IREM-St. Louis at the Serendipity Labs location in Clayton, Mo.

The key issues for commercial real estate professionals to understand in coping with and responding to recent COVID-related legal issues start with the impact of force majeure contract terms, Bealmear said. This came up for hotels, retail businesses and leases for other types of tenants.

“It’s boilerplate that people rarely thought about but would include everything,” he said. “Most force majeure provisions didn’t include a pandemic — maybe 150 contracts out of 1,200 we’ve reviewed.”

Having the federal government and many state and local jurisdictions calling for a shutdown made the situation even more challenging.

“The first question across the board was ‘What can we do?’ Some tenants were trying to get out of their leases, but most wanted to stay and not pay rent if they couldn’t operation. The issue was location-specific.”

The rule of law came into play, Bealmear said, saying that “impossibility of performance” could be used to support such efforts. Many matters in this area were resolved through negotiation because that is easier than going to trial, and “the legal system is still not operating efficiently.”

There is still no standard language for dealing with force majeure related to a pandemic, he noted. “It’s acute in situations where you couldn’t close deals — it could be disastrous.”

Co-tenancy clauses also were, and could still be, a pandemic legal concern, especially for tenants in malls, who could walk away from leases is the main tenant closed. Such events have been triggered by stores going bankrupt, although Bealmear noted that many of those would have happened even without a pandemic.

“It’s a tricky issue for both; when anchors shut down, there’s a ripple effect among smaller shops in the space.”

Cash management provisions in loans are more of an issue if a commercial loan is not local, Bealmear said; local lenders might be more willing to negotiate terms. He suggested that commercial real estate professionals suggest that their tenants or clients “prioritize debts with the biggest hammer if you get over your head.” That approach helped keep a lot of operators in business in the early days of COVID.

It might be possible to renegotiate lease rates; hotels, for instance, used nontraditional equity to keep running and saw few closures. The retail sector saw a rise in percent rents instead of flat rates. Office buildings reduced rents in exchange for extended terms.

The medical sector, however, saw a “huge wave” of bankruptcies, mainly due to high fixed costs and employee levels rather than rents. The impact was more noticeable on the national level than local.

The impact has been less in the industrial/warehousing sector.

“There is some pain in working on such issues,” Bealmear said.

Because most states do not let landlords or commercial property owners take personal action such as changing locks or taking possession of a non-paying tenant’s possessions, the leverage for making a tenant pay their rent is lost.

The challenges will continue to evolve, including lawsuits over insurance. Coverage varies by company, with suits being settled but some still active.

Bealmear expects to see new policies that will take events such as pandemics into account, and that some insurance companies will be among those that go bankrupt.

Space-sharing should have an uptick, and there will be less interaction among or for employees as commercial properties adapt to the post-pandemic era. There will be “hoteling” of space: bringing people back into commercial space only on certain days.

Bealmear advised colleagues to keep an eye out for legislation relative to business liability for COVID exposure as employees start to return to work. If an employee were to sue, they would have to prove where they got the disease, and it can be hard to trace contact points, unlike with an issue such as asbestos.

One area catching the commercial real estate sector by surprise, Bealmear said, is “pre-bankruptcy”: when tenants threaten to file bankruptcy. “The first question to ask is whether the location is unprofitable versus the entire business is unprofitable,” he said. A little-noticed 2016 case in Illinois could now have an impact on Missouri real estate, because it found that the bankruptcy code overrides anything in a lease. “You can’t evict a tenant that files bankruptcy, or terminate their lease,” he said in part.

“COVID trends in the bankruptcy process are still evolving as a lot of tenants are insolvent but aren’t filing bankruptcy because they can’t pay for it,” Bealmear said. “People who work on bankruptcy also are not getting paid.” 

Because the overall situation is still fluid, commercial real estate professionals should review all of their contracts and consider sitting down with their attorneys to identify where they might be at risk or need to update language to correspond with the continuing effects and impact of the pandemic.

Other business included IREM-St. Louis president Liz Brown reminding attendees of upcoming events: a chocolate and wine tasting on May 20 and the annual golf tournament on May 27 at Missouri Bluffs Country Club. Sponsorships are still available for the golf event, as are raffle tickets for a Busch Stadium dispay, with proceeds supporting Friends of Kids with Cancer. (See the IREM-St. Louis website for details: https://iremstl.com/.)

Two colleagues were also inducted as new Certified Property Managers (CPMs): Cory Redman, CPM, US Bank, and David Harris, CPM, UMB Bank.

Holland Construction completes O'Fallon senior living development

Holland Construction Services has completed work ahead of schedule on the new Keystone Place at Richland Creek Senior Living Development in O’Fallon, Ill.

The $39 million development, located at the northwest corner of Frank Scott Parkway and Fountain Lakes Drive, offers independent living, assisted living and memory care services in one location.

The four-story building has 149 apartments; including 64 independent-living, 66 assisted-living and 19 memory care, plus one guest suite. The five-acre development also features a memory garden, a courtyard and a formal entrance lobby facing Fountain Lakes Drive.

“This development offers a much-needed, new rental housing option for older adults seeking a safe, secure, maintenance-free, service-rich lifestyle and we’re very excited that it was completed ahead of schedule,’ said Timothy Eldredge, president of NASCON Senior, LLC and co-founder of Keystone Senior Management Services, Inc.

The 170,000-SF development was constructed adjacent to Parkway Lakeside Apartments, which Holland completed several years ago.

“Our team has an incredible amount of experience handling multifamily and senior living projects that require different care levels and because of that background, we were able to ensure this development met the intended use for the building and the project ran smoothly,” said Holland project manager, Rob Ruehl.

“Keystone Place at Richland Creek’s ultra-inclusive service package provides meals, housekeeping, transportation, and life enrichment opportunities that allow residents to engage, explore and maximize their personal wellness, even in a time of social distancing,” said Jan Brenner, Keystone Place at Richland Creek’s Senior Living counselor.

“With residents and staff vaccinated at this point, people are really seeking opportunities to socialize and connect with others again, and that’s the idea behind the Keystone Place lifestyle,”

The community is hosting open house events on April 17 and 18 by appointment.  For more information about Keystone Place at Richland Creek or to schedule an open house visit, call (618) 576-6178.

Ready to rock-n-roll at The District in Chesterfield

Developers of The District commercial project are pumped up about Chesterfield, Mo's newest development, as expressed in a recent CREW St. Louis webinar and virtual tour last month.

More than 50 attendees tuned in to learn about the project, described by CREW-SL as a one-stop destination of entertainment — a hub for playing, eating and rocking [that] is powered by The Staenberg Group (TSG Properties), a local real estate development firm who designs, develops and manages shopping centers throughout the United States.

TSG Properties engages in communities through pro-bono consulting, direct philanthropic gifts and volunteering technical expertise to make neighborhoods stronger, healthier and more sustainable.

“Everybody remembers the flood with 11 feet of water that led to the project,” said Michael Staenberg, president of The Staenberg Group.

His company bought The Commons, then the longest strip mall in the U.S. at 2 miles and 2 million SF, from the Todman brothers.

“The Todman brothers realized that two outlet malls in Chesterfield wouldn’t work, so they had to come up with a new strategy,” added Timothy Lowe, TSG’s vice president of leasing and development. 

“The name came from early conversations about a music venue and entertainment district,” Staenberg said. “We’re keeping it simple and easy to remember.”

The project is proof that “retail is emerging, not dead,” he noted. The site encompasses 400,000 SF and the final built space will be 200,000–250,000 SF.

“We thought we could create something unique to St. Louis. There’s nothing like it anywhere in the country. It will have entertainment for all segments of the area.”

“We never intended to develop The District in one phase,” Lowe said. “It will start with Topgolf followed by Main Event Entertainment, with bowling, rope tag, pool tables, laser tag and more, as “barbells” or anchors.”

The Factory section will be a music venue, at 58,000 SF and a seating capacity of 3,000.

“We asked artists what they want,” Staenberg said. “This will allow artists to have an intimate experience and still attract a good crowd. It will be a multipurpose function without short-changing the music.”

Features include adequate parking, high security, easy access, comfortable seats, and top-notch sound and lighting. Events will be cashless, but ATMs will provide attendees access to cash so artists can sell their own merchandise at concerts.

“We’ve made great strides with the number of bars, restrooms, green rooms, truck access — every nuance we could think of,” he said. “We thought about everything to make the customer experience exceed expectations.” 

According to Brian Carp, COO of The Factory and moderator of the CREW-SL event, “The Factory will be a completely different experience. We’ll be able to use some of the existing buildings, which provides flexibility, and will have 2,100 to 2,500 parking spaces at a 7:1 ratio.”

Carp said the plan is to bring in restaurants that are new to the area rather than duplicate those at Chesapeake Commons.

To date, the exterior has been painted. Phase II involves building “that front door, a place to gather” called the Pavilion, with outdoor seating for surrounding restaurants and a stage.

Phase III will feature a 90,000 SF footprint for “experiences” or outdoor activities such as pickleball, sand volleyball and more.

In response to community input, the District will include a sit-down restaurant that will accommodate 650 for nonprofit organization events.

“We’ve been approached by 20 nonprofits to hold charitable events,” Staenberg said.

Phase III will depend on users and could take three to four years to complete.

The west side of the complex will feature parking.

The space would have already opened if not for the COVID-19 pandemic, and July 2021 is now the hoped-for drop date.

Other challenges included “a number of battles to get zoning in place,” recalled Michael Doster of Doster Ullom & Boyle, land use attorney for TSG.

“One problem was signage: Electronic message boards were prohibited, as well as lights and the height we wanted, but you need signage and it has to be big to be effective.”

“The electronic sign was important so people could drive by and see who’s playing,” Staenberg explained.

Lowe called The District and The Factory a chance to put all entertainment use into one place and create a dynamic area that can attract people from all around the area.

Among the decisions as the project evolved was not to include office space.

Looking ahead

Asked about the future, Staenberg said retail had changed even before the pandemic and that traditional huge malls will be torn down.

“People want experiences and a place to hang out. Malls don’t have entertainment and sociability. People like smaller shops. We’ll have to figure out what to with the rest of them, such as converting to residential use.”  

“We are being very selective and are patient — this is a 10-year project. It isn’t going to be sold and we won’t flip it. The District is just magnificent. We thank our partners — we have the A Team!”

Read previous, related MWM article here from October 2020: Current Chesterfield development on par with 2019

Vision for greatness ahead for St. Louis

St. Louis commercial real estate should be headed for great things in 2021, judging by insights provided in “Greater St. Louis and a Vision for Greatness,” a March 9 Retail Spotlight Shift webinar from the St. Louis CCIM chapter.

Tiffany Wiegers, 2021 president of CCIM STL, kicked off the event by thanking sponsors as critical to providing services and resources for the chapter and announcing that scholarships are available for upcoming courses (details are on the CCIM STL website).

Events hosts were Tony Kennedy of Colliers International and Tom Ray of CBRE.

“This is a timely and important discussion about the future of our region,” said Greater St. Louis, Inc. founder and CEO Jason R. Hall, in describing Greater St. Louis Inc. as a combination of five organizations (AllianceSTL, Arch to Park, Civic Progress, Downtown STL, Inc. and the St. Louis Regional Chamber) aiming to reduce historic fragmentation and create one united voice.

“We have to make a decision that we will be a community on the rise or on the decline. We need the same vision, same tenacity, same energy (as in the sports sector) to grow the region.”

“Greater St. Louis brought together eight key growth initiatives from day 1 (January 1, 2021),” Hall said. “It’s all about jobs — retain, attract and create; elevate our regional reputation; and advance common goals. The urban core is essential.”

Among the positive indicators,  St. Louis has seen $8 million in commercial real estate during the pandemic.

“And that has continued to grow. St. Louis can be a global leader in biotech and agtech,” Hall said.

An important example is the 1,400 new jobs coming with Accenture. Other encouraging signs are redevelopment of the Butler Building, which has been one of downtown’s largest vacant buildings, and Green Street Workforce Housing, a partnership for “one of the largest inclusive housing projects in The Grove.

Such place-making projects have a huge impact on bringing business and residential growth to St. Louis.

“We are coming together as a geospatial center of excellence, with a long-term plan in place,” Hall added.

Hall cited entrepreneurship as another incredible force in being re-energized.

“St. Louis is launching new businesses and is first in the country for women-owned businesses,” he said. “We are aggressively back in business.”

Hall quoted Entrepreneur magazine as recently saying that “St. Louis is on the precipice of leading the United States in 21st-century innovation.”

While the St. Louis area hasn’t had a basic jobs plan for more than a decade, “we are now the only metro area to develop one in terms of the pandemic and the new civil rights movement,” Hall said.

“We have to drive inclusive growth. We have got to focus on inclusive growth and close spatial and racial gaps.”

Greater St. Louis is funded by private sector business as investors, and “the business community has to be much more engaged to make (our vision) a reality,” Hall noted.

“We have to make St. Louis better overall and understand the perception of St. Louis in the country. We started STLMade as a way to shine a light on the positive and tell our own story. We will take the story national. It’s a people-centered, data-driven approach.” 

In line with such efforts, the AllianceSTL partnership aims to “accelerate growth by recruiting new jobs and business investments to the 15-county bistate St. Louis region,” according to Chief Business Attraction Officer and president Steven S. Johnson.

“We have an exclusive external focus on business and economic development,” he said. “Our key audiences are site selectors, real estate developers and companies in our main targeted verticals: manufacturing and production; financial and information services; bioscience and health technology; geospatial; agtech; transportation and logistics; and the aerospace, automotive and defense industries.”

Many of those targets are in local commercial real estate because of their current work in location services, Johnson noted.

The Alliance is using social media and related advertising along with traditional advertising to those primary key audiences, along with individual outreach and relationship-building. Marketing is essential — a lesson that St. Louis is learning from cities like Austin, Texas. “Many of the markets we admire have been marketing business attraction for decades.”

Typical projects for the Alliance include “straight-up business development to attract companies and headquarters to St. Louis,” which represents 80% of its focus. Such companies are generally new to the area or have no St. Louis presence yet. Cooperation is vital: “We work with economic development partners; we can do nothing by ourselves,” Johnson said.  “Our relationships and partnerships are as strong now as ever, and that is good for St. Louis.”

To build on those connections, “we ask businesses exactly what they’re look for.” The answer is usually “talent availability and sourcing, business continuity, and the cost of labor. “We are finding that location is as much about mitigating risk as anything else,” Johnson said.

Agriculture technology is another important business sector for St. Louis, thanks to its central location and accessibility to a huge resource of agricultural producers, according to Thad Simons, founder and managing director of The Yield and The Yield Lab Institute, a “cooperative network of venture funds to advance food and agriculture technology globally,” with companies in Ireland, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Singapore, France and Luxembourg.  The lab is the company’s nonprofit arm.

When he came to St. Louis in 2014 for a three-year assignment with Monsanto, “I was curious about the agtech space,” Simons recalled. “I realized the difficulty of getting projects off the ground. Part of the problem was understanding what ‘agtech’ means.”

With agriculture as one of the largest elements of the geospatial sector, the advantage for St. Louis is that it is “right in the center of agricultural production and distribution. The strength we bring is less the money that the connections,” Simons said. “The impact of the agriculture sector on St. Louis is tremendous.”

While many large organizations already have a local presence — the largest associations for farmers are all based in St. Louis, “we mentor smaller companies to come to St. Louis.” There is still a need to “find champions of St. Louis and stay in touch with them,” Simons said. He is encouraged by the expectation that “there will be lots of stories of companies coming here through word of mouth.”

Simons sees St. Louis as a “really hot space” that is “fostering research and technology.” Of the company’s 50 global projects, 12 are in St. Louis. Driving new investment and presence in the area are projects and innovations that go beyond traditional uses of agricultural products, such as a commercially viable indoor farm and “a small-scale project along Delmar to address food deserts” (the absence of grocery stores). “It’s intended to be for-profit, so we will sell products to restaurants, but also donate to the community,” he said.

Now getting started in St. Louis is a NASA Challenge to investigate “how growing food in space can relate to growing food on Earth,” Simons added.

While Simons is optimistic about business growth, he sees a need for expanded investment. “St. Louis is strong and getting stronger in human capital, but still not where we should be in financial capital,” he said. 

The hemp industry offers the prospect of growth as an alternative protein and in oils and nutrition, once regulation and legality are in place.

Looking ahead

For St. Louis business and commercial real estate to succeed, it is crucial “to be thinking five, 10, 20 years ahead to create self-perpetuating environment in geospatial and build up an innovation ecosystem,” said Hall. “That will give St. Louis a durable advantage.”

Asked about the impact of a new mayor on commercial real estate and business, Hall said the upcoming mayoral election is a “generational change; both candidates are speaking about growth  and the need for inclusional growth. It’s an exciting time for St. Louis. Magic happens when we have public and private alignment. There will be exciting opportunities to work together.”

“We seem to have two candidates who will be very hands-on and pro-development. We will work with everybody,” Johnson said.

“Whoever becomes mayor will have to realize that there is an urban-rural divide, and a need for much better understanding between those segments of the region,” Simons said.

A recording of the event is available at https://www.linkedin.com/company/ccim-st-louis-metro-chapter/ or

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCO2uJM-RnLRetiKTNvYAUVA.

S.M. Wilson breaks ground on Winfield Middle School

Construction has officially begun on Winfield R-IV School District’s $16 million building program in Winfield, Mo.

The project includes a new 50,000-SF middle school, a new Vo-ag building and football locker room addition at the existing high school, and minor renovations at the existing middle school, which is being converted into a primary school building.

S. M. Wilson & Co. is serving as the construction manager at risk (CMAR) for the district projects, which passed in a 2020 no-tax-increase bond issue, while incite Design Studio (iDS) is serving as the project architect.

"We have been working with the school board, superintendent, Daniel Williams, and his team for a few years now and we are very proud of the projects we are delivering for the district. Daniel and his team have been incredible to work with throughout the process, as every effort they have put forth has been absolutely student-focused. The phrase ‘what works best for the students’ is what we heard time and time again,” said Mike Hilmes, office director for the St. Louis iDS office.

Since Missouri adopted the CMAR delivery method in 2016, S. M. Wilson has created a strong portfolio of CMAR K-12 building programs for several districts, including Ladue School District, Hallsville R-IV School District and Francis Howell School District.

The Winfield R-IV School District construction will be complete by the start of the 2022 school year.

“We look forward to seeing these projects being brought to life, knowing that they will be making a huge positive impact on the students’ academic future,” Hilmes said.