urbanSTL

The developer of a planned new $1.2 billion construction innovation district in St. Louis has purchased a significant number of the properties required for its first phase and set a target date for the start of construction, while working to finalize plans with an anchor tenant.
Good Developments Group, the St. Louis-based developer behind the proposed Gateway South construction innovation district, to be located in the industrial Kosciusko neighborhood on the riverfront south of the Gateway Arch, revealed new details of the project in meetings with public boards this week.

The firm has a target date to start construction in the early second quarter of 2024, Good Developments Group's general counsel and partner, Michael Fletcher, said at at a Tuesday meeting of the city's urban renewal board, the Land Clearance for Redevelopment Authority. That’s dependent on whether the firm has received approval for a state brownfields tax credit that would help fund environmental remediation, he said. As part of the original redevelopment agreement for the project signed in April, the city had set a deadline of Dec. 31 for GDG to acquire all the properties for the project's first phase. But GDG requested that the deadline be shifted to June 30, 2024, which is also the deadline required in the redevelopment agreement for written financing commitments on at least 450,000 square feet of private development.
The firm also expects to finalize talks with an anchor tenant as soon as early 2024. GDG is "really excited about" the possible anchor tenant, which is an unnamed large publicly traded company, Fletcher said at the meeting.
This week, the developer received an extension to its master redevelopment agreement to June 30 from both the St. Louis Port Authority and the LCRA, along with an amendment to the agreement to change the boundaries of the project’s first phase, according to public documents.
The amendment swapped a few properties for different sites and is not a substantial change to the plans, a GDG spokeswoman said. A spokesperson for the LCRA said a copy of the amendment to the development agreement wasn’t immediately available.

The developer, led by CEO Greg Gleicher, has incentives in place for the project's first phase, in which the seven buildings of the Crunden-Martin factory complex would be adapted into manufacturing, a museum and office space. Future phases, as originally announced, would add an apartment building and a potential entertainment district to the roughly 90-acre project site along the Mississippi River from downtown to Soulard.
The first phase of the project consists of at least one company that would open a build-to-suit modular construction parts factory near the historic Crunden-Martin industrial warehouse complex. In another part of the first phase, the historic buildings of Crunden-Martin would be renovated into studios, offices or workshop spaces "for a wide range of tenants within the building industry ecosystem ... architects, engineers, contractors, tech companies, universities and research groups, community groups, product developers and makers, specialty material suppliers," the spokeswoman said.
Even before the changes to the redevelopment agreement approved by both boards this week, GDG had closed on at least nine of the 26 properties proposed to be acquired for the project’s first phase, according to a list that the firm showed in the LCRA meeting.
The project's first phase is in the 58-acre area known as Chouteau's Landing. The developer didn’t disclose the exact number of buildings or properties it has acquired to this point but noted that the acquisitions so far total 13 acres. In addition to the properties acquired for the first phase, the firm has bought some properties that are part of future phases, with a “number of others that are under contract or in negotiation,” Fletcher said at the meeting.

The developer also received a historic preservation tax credit for the project. To start construction, the company is waiting on approval of a brownfields state tax credit since construction will require environmental remediation, Fletcher said.
GDG has multiple letters of intent in place with small and mid-size tenants for the redevelopment area, a spokeswoman said. The developer will continue to work on that process after the new year and before construction starts, Fletcher said at the meeting.