 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Shopping Centers Today -> February 2004
 PRINT THIS STORY: |
  CHANGE TEXT SIZE: |
APRÈS LA DÉLUGE ST. LOUIS SUBURB GETS RETAIL
BY BENNETT VOYLES
 |
Chesterfield Commons, the 1.2 million- square-foot shopping center built since the 1993 flood, is fully leased and generating more than $400 million in sales annually, according to Michael Staenberg, president of THF Realty, the center’s St. Louis-based developer. Late last year the two-mile-long center was into its second phase of development; THF (it stands for “to have fun”) plans to add an additional 800,000 square feet of retail and 400,000 square feet of offices over the next two years.
Maybe 380 acres of flooded cornfield some 400 yards from the mighty Missouri isn’t everybody’s idea of a great location for a strip center, but Staenberg is of a different mind. In fact, he’d been keen on the place for some time, he says, but for its lack of access to Interstate 40. He intuited, however, that the flood would ultimately change that.
“I knew there’d be money for infrastructure,” he said. Local bonds have paid for the interchange; to date, those bonds, financed in part by retailers’ property taxes, have bought about $50 million worth of levee, highway and storm-drain improvements.
Staenberg says Chesterfield Commons was easily the most complex deal of his career. For one thing, the project was much bigger than the 79 other centers the firm has developed across 20 states. Those centers, most with Wal-Mart as an anchor, measure between 300,000 and 600,000 square feet.
Chesterfield Commons also presented an unusual number of regulatory challenges, chiefly because of the logistics involved in replacing the levee breached in the flood and creating the freeway interchange. Staenberg says he needed the approval of no fewer than seven entities, including the Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. Congress, to get the deal off the ground. “It took me from 1995 to 1998 — almost four years — to get everybody on board.”
Local business and economic development people say the business community played an important role in getting the project off the ground and that there was no significant local opposition. Joan Schmelig, executive director of the Chesterfield Chamber of Commerce, cites the project as a great convenience for Chesterfield residents.
Lee McKinney, a local consulting engineer who helped steer construction of the 500-year-protection-quality levee through official channels, holds the redevelopment out as a case in which government worked the way it’s supposed to. “When everybody pitches in and does their part, there’s no end to what you can accomplish.”
Staenberg says the center has five major anchors and ten minianchors. Among the major tenants are The Home Depot, Michaels, Target and Wal-Mart, while others reflect the I-40 corridor’s upper-income demographic, and those include Hummer and Bentley dealers. Average annual income in Chesterfield is about $80,000 per household, and Staenberg says the center draws shoppers from some 10 miles around.
In all, 60 retailers and 15 restaurants now call Chesterfield Commons home. The center also has two medical office buildings, two regular office buildings and two industrial buildings. A 14-screen multiplex theater will be among the second-phase tenants. But when that’s finished, THF will be down to its last 40 acres. As Staenberg puts it, “We’re really kind of running out of ground.”
 | Current Issue November 2008 |