Delayed by cleanup, Wellston incubator will open in October

From the August 20, 2004 print edition of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
By Eric Heisler of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Project overcomes soil and pollution problems at old Wagner Electric site. Held up by soil and pollution cleanup issues, an incubator to help fledgling businesses in Wellston is set to open in October.

The incubator is part of a larger effort by the St. Louis County Economic Council to revive Wellston as a business and industrial hub. When finished, it will become the fourth St. Louis Enterprise Center, replacing one that closed in Pagedale several years ago.

"What we want to do is create job opportunities," said Jackie Wellington, vice president of the economic council. "This will hopefully help startup enterprises in an area that we're trying to rebuild and attract new business."

The building will house between 10 and 15 companies. It's being constructed for $2.5 million through a mix of public funding sources.

The incubator is part of a larger business and training complex set to rise on the former site of Wagner Electric Co. Wagner, which produced brakes for automobiles, once employed 6,000 workers in the area's northern inner-ring suburbs. But it closed in 1983, leaving Wellston with a hulking, vacant complex at its center. Even worse, the site was polluted with toxic chemicals.

The incubator is a middle step in the process to remediate the site and build it back up as a new commercial area. The region's Metropolitan Education and Training Center trains workers nearby. Next door, land is being prepared for two business parks that will be built through a public-private effort. Initially, the incubator was expected to open several years ago in the MET center. The economic council decided instead to construct a building because of a space shortage at the training center.

St. Louis County broke ground in late 2002 and hoped to have the next incubator open last year. But the project was slowed when remediation of pollutants at the site took longer than anticipated. Then, workers were surprised to discover asphalt, wood and concrete in the soil -- the apparent result of debris being dumped years ago from a nearby demolition. "There was a lot more junk than we thought would be there," Wellington said. It meant engineers would have to redesign the building's foundation to work around the debris.

The area's other enterprise centers are in Chesterfield, south St. Louis County and midtown St. Louis. In the centers, startup companies pay reduced rent. They're able to cut costs by sharing equipment and facilities. The businesses in the incubator receive mentoring and training through the program. Most companies stay for three to four years. Typically, the startups pay a higher rent each year in the incubator to ease the transition. "It's a program that's worked exceptionally well for us," said Jan DeYoung, director of the program for the county. "When the companies graduate from the incubator, they tend to locate in the communities in which they've been incubated."

Wellston's incubator will be 10,000 square feet, a bit smaller than its counterparts, DeYoung said, but the building is designed to be expanded.

Republished with the permission of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
2004 St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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