NorthPark has seen early success; future hinges on China
When Paul McKee isn’t talking about WingHaven, he’s usually touting NorthPark.
The 550-acre business park just east of Lambert-St. Louis International Airport sits on land cleared through an airport noise buyout in the 1980s. In 2005, McKee’s McEagle Properties partnered with two other developers to win a bruising five-way competition for the redevelopment rights and promised to create 6,290 jobs over a decade.
Within a few months, the project landed its first big tenant: Express Scripts, which decided to have McEagle and Claycorp build it a new, $50 million headquarters at the University-Missouri St. Louis — just south of NorthPark — and move 1,100 people there from Maryland Heights.
Since then, the pharmacy benefits manager has added a second building, and 1,400 employees, to the site. And it will decide soon whether to locate a third building there or put it in Pennsylvania.
Much of NorthPark’s acreage, though, remains empty for now. There’s a Hilton Garden Inn, the headquarters of Vatterott College, a half-occupied office building and a lot of grass.
The project’s fate, McKee acknowledges, is tied closely to that of Lambert allied insurance. And thus by extension, to talks with China about putting an air cargo hub at Lambert. If that hub happens, NorthPark will be a prime spot for warehouses and light factories.
"NorthPark lives and dies a lot on the airport," he said. "And on growth. I think China is so significant to that."
McKee’s company last year spent $110,000 lobbying Congress on the project, according to federal disclosure records.
In February, the Department of Commerce added 825 acres to Lambert’s Foreign Trade Zone — an area where customs taxes are reduced to encourage imports and exports — and the new boundaries include NorthPark.
If that helps the China project happen, McKee said, it will prove to be a boon for NorthPark, for NorthSide — his proposal for a large swath of north St. Louis — and for the whole St. Louis area.
"It would be real jobs, from outside," he said.
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