BRENTWOOD, Mo–The Board of Aldermen in this St. Louis County suburb voted unanimously Monday night to move forward with a development group that has designs for a $400 million Manchester Road corridor redevelopment project.
The vote did not approve the development itself, which includes almost two-dozen buildings between Hanley Road and Brentwood Blvd., or the financial incentives which will be necessary to build it. The vote gives Green Street, a St. Louis firm, preferred developer status for the Manchester Road project.
Green Street has laid out a multi-phase development plan that wouldn’t see construction start on phase one, which includes a microbrewery, office space, a 175-room hotel and a 170-unit senior facility, until 2023.
But nothing will happen without first negotiating a development agreement.
City officials said they engaged more than 40 developers but said Green Street was the only developer to answer the city’s request for proposals about redeveloping the Manchester corridor. The RFP came prior to the COVID pandemic. Since then, for example, the office space market has changed dramatically due to more flexible working environments. If the city and Green Street reach the redevelopment agreement, Green Street Managing Director Joel Oliver told aldermen Monday that the parties could then come together to see what parts of the project still make sense, and potentially readjust.
Oliver said his company would usually wait until the development agreement is signed before negotiating with existing businesses in the corridor.
“No one can reasonably expect that redevelopment will not come to this stretch of Manchester Road. It is impossible to sit here and honestly think that things will go on as they have before,” said Alderman David Plufka, citing the investments made in the corridor, including street improvements, flooding mitigation and plans for a destination playground. “What’s really on this decision is whether or not we can come to some agreement with regard to a comprehensive developer as opposed to some other comprehensive developer or waiting for piecemeal redevelopment of that area to take years and decades to accomplish.”
According to the initial Green Street Plan, the remaining phases would be built out by 2028.