Edward Jones draws up $260 million expansion

St. Louis Business Journal - 10:44 AM CDT Wednesday

by James Goodwin



Edward Jones plans to create at least 1,000 jobs in the next decade and build up to $260 million worth of office space and parking garages in St. Louis County in the next five years in a move spurred by state and county incentives and projected company growth.



A formal announcement is to be made at an 11:30 a.m. news conference attended by Gov. Matt Blunt and company officials.



Half the jobs, which will include service and operations positions, will come in the next five years. The company plan, which is to be announced at a news conference today, centers primarily on Edward Jones' Maryland Heights campus but also includes the company's headquarters in Des Peres.



The state, for its part, has approved $10 million in funding to help reconstruct the Interstate 270/Dorsett Road interchange in Maryland Heights by 2011 and has tentatively approved the issuance of $7 million in revenue bonds that Edward Jones would buy for tax credits. Additionally, Edward Jones will receive almost $4 million in state jobs incentives.



The company also is negotiating with St. Louis County to receive $30.5 million in tax abatements for improvements made between 2007 and 2011. The county has already agreed to forego about $8 million worth of sales tax revenue on construction materials.



"This is a terrific partnership between government and private enterprise that will help Edward Jones accommodate anticipated continued growth while greatly enhancing the economic vitality of the entire St. Louis region," James Weddle, managing partner of Edward Jones, said in a prepared statement.



Edward Jones says state help was key to the expansion, which will include construction of:



* Three buildings totaling 650,000 square feet of office space, and parking garages at the company's North Campus, east of I-270 and south of Dorsett Road in Maryland Heights. The structures, which will replace buildings dating back to the 1960s, should be finished by the end of 2011.

* A 250,000-square-foot office building and a parking garage at the Edward Jones headquarters, aka South Campus, at Manchester and Ballas roads in Des Peres.



"We're expecting there will be significant growth in the next years as this big bulge of baby boomers gets into that retirement age," company spokesman John Boul said. "... It's fueling our growth, and we have a need to support it from our home office."



Edward Jones, which ranks 23rd on the Business Journal's 2006 list of largest employers, counts about 3,500 employees at its campuses in Maryland Heights, Des Peres and Creve Coeur. Another 500 employees work at area branch offices in Missouri and Illinois.



Boul said the new construction might impact the Creve Coeur site, located at Maryville Centre, but likely would not affect operation centers in Tempe, Ariz., Canada or the United Kingdom.



The new interchange at I-270 and Dorsett Road is expected to cost $30 million. Maryland Heights has committed $6.15 million between 2009 and 2011, and St. Louis County will give $5.1 million, according to Edward Jones. A federal allocation of $1.8 million is already in place. The state will fund the remaining $16.95 million.



Edward Jones would contribute $2 million to relocate American Industrial Drive in Maryland Heights for the North Campus project. Maryland Heights and Des Peres have yet to sign off on the respective components.



jamesgoodwin@bizjournals.com

This is kind of exciting for Maryland Heights.



I have a neighbor who moved to our street and school district with his wife and kids who commutes only three miles at most between Old St. Charles Rock Road and Dorsett to get to work at the Maryland Heights Edward Jones North Campus. This expansion in Maryland Heights may annoy many of you because it means more suburban jobs, but with a possible Metrolink expansion to Westport Edward Jones could run a shuttle with other businesses and City of Maryland Heights to the station.

This also continues to concentrate jobs in the 1970s Job center and not loose them to Chesterfield or O'Fallon. The housing-jobs ratio is more equitable because the jobs in Maryland Heights are closer to middle class workers than the Des Peres ones. Additionally, Maryland Heights has a supurb planning staff that is highly qualified for a small city of 26,000 and could incorporate a future 'town center' with Westport jobs area and a Metrolink extension.



Plus, I am happy that investment in my school district means more money and regeneration of our schools and communities with younger families.

Part of the expansion includes an additional building constructed on the parking lot of the Jones building across from West County Center. One bit of trivia is that Edward Jones used to be headquartered in the same downtown building as the Marquette condos before they moved to the county.

Good to see local companies expanding, but gosh darn it, why can't some of them come Downtown?

any idea on how tall these buildings are going to be? 650,000 sq ft is alot of space. It seems that the only way to create that space is to build upward. Hopefully, it will buildings of at least 12 floors or taller. I hate to see wasted spaces for something like a 5 story building.

I'm wondering what kind of company would turn down millions of dollars worth of free advertisement for the sake of....who knows what. Every time the image of downtown St. Louis is shown on t.v. and in printed media, that's potential free adverstisement. Imagine, the name of Edward Jones on a new tower, seen every time a baseball, football or hockey game is aired, to millions of people. What kind of business sense is this? What would drive a company to turn down that kind of free advertisement? This is one thing I really don't understand about 'corporate St. Louis'. Can someone explain this one to me, am I missing something?

Edward Jones already has what could arguably be called the largest advertising sign in the area on the Dome. Besides they probably gets seen by more people each day from 270 than any building downtown would.

Whoa, yep...forget that big one. But essentially what I'm getting at is the big companies that have left downtown, or new ones that chose not to go downtown. An impressive building with the company name on it is sure to be noticed, and there are only so many facilities that offer naming rights. Maybe the city should put restrictions on the size of lettering on those structures with naming rights.

I guess it's cheaper to buy naming rights and plaster your name all over it than to build a new tower...that way, the company doesn't have to suffer the indignity of moving downtown...so, they're having their cake and eating it, too.

Sort of off topic here, but don't most big cities have income taxes? Even ones with larger downtown business communities.

Maybe I'm getting off topic here a bit, but I've seen a coralation between the business sector leaving downtown and the nations view of us (a bunch of 'hicks'). I've seen downtown slowly decline, while the nations view of St. Louis as a whole declined likewise. Now....who's responsible for the decline??? Is it really that tax?

Sometimes I wonder if it's that when downtown/inner city began to decline our civic leaders saw this as a wave of the future and tried to act on it, resulting in a rut that they've gotten stuck in and can't get out of, or even possibly don't want to or know how to.

And, it may very well be the tax. I really don't know, but whatever, I wish SOMEONE would wake up already and address the situation.

Sorry to get off topic.

This is off-topic--- but, tt seems KC has a lot new interest in there downtown now.-- new Federal Reserve headquarters going up, new IRS complex by Penn Valley Park, and there is new interest in building a GSA building in their downtown loop.



I don't understand why the same is not happening for St. Louis. It saddens me that companies rather move to Maryland Heights rather than the downtown. Companies moving and building downtown offices or renovating current buildings is what would really help.

It saddens me that companies rather move to Maryland Heights rather than the downtown. Companies moving and building downtown offices or renovating current buildings is what would really help.

Edward Jones isn't relocating. They already have over 1300 employees in 18 buildings on this site. This project is replacing existing buildings with new buildings and parking garages. It's an expansion.

bry456 wrote:This is off-topic--- but, tt seems KC has a lot new interest in there downtown now.-- new Federal Reserve headquarters going up, new IRS complex by Penn Valley Park, and there is new interest in building a GSA building in their downtown loop.

One of us is confused... I thought the KC FR was being built somewhere outside of the KC downtown, and our own FR is currently undergoing an 80mill expansion DT... ??

I'm telling you guys, this 1% city tax is VERY UNATTRACTIVE for bringing in new business.

^For the love of god, please don't turn this into an earnings tax thread. Of cousre everyone knows earnings tax looks bad to prospective businesses. It's been said over and ovaer ad nauseum. Give it a rest. Point is it provides 30% of the city's operating budget and there's no easy way out of it. If you really want to talk about this, and you have something to add to the subject besides "Get rid of earnings tax it looks bad", then at least post in the earnings tax thread:

http://www.urbanstl.com/viewtopic.php?t=2152

How about this:

Move your business to the city, reside in it for 10, maybe 20 years, and you are EXEMPT from the earnings tax. I still doubt there would be a lot of takers, but it would help. Obviously, you have to address the existing businesses, maybe they get weaned off after so many years.

Secondly, the courts. One reason Express Scripts didn't move downtown is due to the jury's in St. Louis City. They are perceived as being "anti-business". What can we take from the "evil corporation" and give to the little guy..

Thirdly, more people live farther west, which is why people wanted to work where they live, which is why I'm all for expansion into Illionis; it recenters downtown.

The post reports today that teh city of Des Peres and Jones are still fighting over teh proposed expansion.

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/busine ... enDocument



If Des Peres doesn't allow it, what are their options. Could they expand even more in Maryland Heights? What about their West Campus, is there room there? Would they consider DT or Clayton?

ChrisInDownTown wrote:The post reports today that teh city of Des Peres and Jones are still fighting over teh proposed expansion.

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/busine ... enDocument



If Des Peres doesn't allow it, what are their options. Could they expand even more in Maryland Heights? What about their West Campus, is there room there? Would they consider DT or Clayton?

More likely O'Fallon.



Wouldn't it be cool if they told Des Peres to eff off and moved into a new 30+ story tower somewhere downtown?