BY ERIC HEISLER

Of the Post-Dispatch

Thursday, Mar. 17 2005

St. Louis County will announce a key agreement today to jump-start a 600-acre

business park near Lambert Field that the county hopes will be the next home of

Express Scripts Inc.

The park, which could attract an estimated 12,000 jobs and $500 million in

investment, will rise in a mostly abandoned area that was cleared in an airport

noise buyout.

Plans to draw commerce to the troubled site have sputtered at times over the

past decade. But an agreement signed Thursday commits a team of developers to

invest $38 million to get the park off the ground. The team, McEagle

Development, TriStar Business Communities and Claycorp, could begin site work

this summer.

The project may also be St. Louis County's best hope to keep one of its largest

employers, Express Scripts, which is based in Maryland Heights. The Fortune 500

company has been offered millions of dollars in incentives by other states to

move its headquarters and 1,200 employees.

The county hopes Express Scripts will be drawn by the park's prime location and

by the $29 million in public funding that will be used to help build the park.

For a built-out county, the park also represents a rare asset: open land suited

for industry. Even if Express Scripts commits to the park, hundreds of acres

will be left for other employers.

"People said this (park) would never happen because we couldn't get enough

people in this region to work together," said St. Louis County Executive

Charlie A. Dooley. "This park will be the key to creating jobs in St. Louis

County for years to come."

The park will be developed by three companies who are more often rivals than

partners. The three joined together last year to form NorthPark Partners. The

group's plans call for a mix of offices, industrial buildings and technology

labs. The team also has agreed to build a new MetroLink station at the park.

"From our standpoint, this is an opportunity you don't just get everyday," said

Christopher McKee, vice president of McEagle Development. "First of all, you

have to look at the location. It would be hard to find a better site anywhere

around here with that much available land."

In recent years, many U.S. cities have used land near their airports to draw

coveted employers and stoke job growth. But Lambert Field is mostly locked in

by older development. This park, and a smaller one on the western side of

Lambert, provide hope to change that.

Up until the early 1980s, the 600-acre site was mostly filled with modest

homes. At that time, the city of St. Louis began acquiring and demolishing

houses to prepare for airport expansion. But plans for the airport evolved, and

Lambert officials no longer plan to build there.

Despite its prime location, the site has seen several failed development

attempts. Those efforts were thwarted by fighting among Kinloch, Ferguson and

Berkeley, the three cities that each have a stake in the park. More recently,

the late County Executive George "Buzz" Westfall stepped in and pressured the

cities to instead work together.

The result of Westfall's effort is a commission of public officials overseeing

the development of the park made up of members from those three cities, St.

Louis County and other jurisdictions. Last year, five teams of developers

submitted plans for the park to that commission. St. Louis County will announce

in a news conference today that an agreement has been reached with NorthPark

Partners.

While the agreement marks the crossing of an important hurdle, developing the

park will be no easy task. The site was built to hold homes, not industry. Many

houses still stand, while foundations of demolished homes remain in the ground.

But county officials want to move quickly to nab Express Scripts - if they can.

Last week, it was learned that Nebraska, South Carolina and Illinois had each

made bids to land the company's headquarters.

The company says it has narrowed its choices to the St. Louis area, including

St. Charles County and southwestern Illinois. Of the $29 million in public

financing for the park, about half could be used to draw Express Scripts or

other employers to the site, said John Temporiti, chairman of the commission

overseeing the park's development.

Dooley has met with Express Scripts Chief Executive Barrett Toan to lobby for

the park. The three developers, meanwhile, have each agreed they won't be

involved in luring Express Scripts to any competing sites, Temporiti said.

Express Scripts could make a decision within the next month, he said.

"We know Express Scripts is going to ask for a lot," said Temporiti. "There's a

point where they might be asking for too much ... But we want to do what we can

to get them as an anchor for this site."

Plans for business park

NorthPark Partners has signed an agreement with a public commission to develop

the 600-acre business park east of Lambert Field. NorthPark is made up of three

local developers: McEagle Development, Claycorp and TriStar Business

Communities. The team's plans tentatively call for the following types of

buildings:

Office: 680,000 square feet

High-tech labs and retail: 400,000 square feet

Service center and office-light industrial: 433,000 square feet

Warehouse: 1.6 million square feet

Warehouse-light industrial: 2.4 million square feet

Retail-restaurants: 20,000 square feet