Developer TriStar Properties and tenant World Wide Technology (WWT) will work together to develop a 176-acre campus valued at more than $115 million at Gateway Commerce Center, a 2,300-acre logistics and bulk distribution park located outside Edwardsville, Illinois, in the St. Louis market.
Founded in 1990, privately held WWT is an international technology solution provider with $10.4 billion in annual revenue and more than 4,600 employees. With headquarters in St. Louis, the minority business enterprise (MBE) operates more than 70 offices worldwide.
The lease calls for TriStar to develop two equally sized buildings totaling 2.025 million square feet, supported by parking for nearly 2,000 vehicles. It is believed that the WWT lease is the largest industrial property transaction executed in the history of metro St. Louis.
The deal, inked on March 9, represents the culmination of a seven-month competition involving many of the top commercial developers in the St. Louis market, said Bobby Klucker, director of development for TriStar.
“What tipped the scales in our favor was our ability to provide a campus environment that is expandable by 1.4 million square feet and that has direct access to an interstate highway interchange,” Klucker said in a written statement. “There was also a high level of confidence in the ability of TriStar and its construction partners and vendors to complete the 1-million-plus square foot buildings on an extremely aggressive construction schedule.”
Work will begin later this month on WWT’s first building, a Technology Center devoted to the production and assembly of technology equipment. It is to be completed in April 2019. A Logistics Center, for product storage and distribution, is to be completed in August 2019.
Both buildings will be formed from tilt-up concrete panels and have 36-foot clear-height ceilings plus dock doors and truck courts.
Long-time partner, PCCP, LLC, a national real estate finance and investment management concern based in Los Angeles, is teaming with TriStar on the WWT project. The buildings will be the sixth and seventh joint-ventured by the duo.
Currently offered at the development is newly completed Gateway East 594, a 593,940-square-foot cross-docked facility with 36-foot clear-height ceilings, 570 feet of depth, 66 dock doors and two drive-in doors. Standing on a 54-acre site, it is expandable to roughly 1 million square feet.
In addition to WWT, Gateway tenants include Amazon, Dial Corp., GENCO ATC, GEODIS, The Hershey Company, Ozburn-Hessey Logistics, Proctor & Gamble, Save-A-Lot, Saddle Creek Logistics Services, DB Schenker, Schneider National, Unilever, USF Logistics, Walgreens and Yazaki of North America.
