NorthPark Partners, county officials make sales pitch for development.

From the Journals: North County, Northeast County, North Side.
Project could create 12,000 jobs
By Brian Flinchpaugh

What's being called the "greatest reinvestment project in St. Louis County" was unveiled last week to the people who may be doing the investing.

The NorthPark Partners held an "economic summit" May 16 at the University of Missouri-St. Louis to showcase NorthPark, a proposed $400 million real estate development.

NorthPark is on 550 acres at the northeast corner of Interstates 70 and 170 in the cities of Kinloch, Berkeley and Ferguson.

The daylong event amounted to the first public sales pitch for the project, which St. Louis County officials and developers say could have a $7 billion impact on the community and create 12,000 new jobs.

"It is the future of St. Louis County, period," said St. Louis County Executive Charles Dooley, to about 132 business and real estate representatives and developers, as well as local elected and regional officials.

Dooley and NorthPark Partners representatives stressed that the development is designed to generate jobs and new opportunities for business. They offered bus tours of the site that afternoon.

"Our goal is to create as much development and new jobs as possible to pay off the TIFs (tax increment financing) and other inducements," said Larry Chapman, principal of Clayco.

Clayco and McEagle Properties, another real estate development firm, form NorthPark Partners, which was awarded the project in 2005. NorthPark was created from property buyouts for noise abatement as part of the Lambert International Airport expansion over the last several decades.

Chapman said site planning and infrastructure work is already completed, allowing for quick development. He added that the partnership initially wanted to work closely with new developers to guarantee the quality and continuity of new projects with development plans.

But Chapman, Dooley and Chris McKee, president of McEagle, said they would listen to proposals.

"Bring us the deals; let's talk about them," McKee said.

The partners also announced plans Wednesday for a three-story, 150,000-square-foot office building. The building will be adjacent to the Vatterott College headquarters currently under construction.

The Vatterott headquarters joins the new Express Scripts headquarters, which is the first building completed in NorthPark.

NorthPark eventually could accommodate more than 5 million square feet of office, retail and light-industrial space.

Larry Salci, president and chief executive officer of Metro, who participated in a panel discussion at the summit meeting, said a MetroLink station might be constructed between the existing Hanley Road and airport stations. Bus service also might be developed within the tract.

Completion of NorthPark could take eight or nine years, Chapman said.