A year after rejecting Bob Clark plan, SLDC still seeking bids for north St. Louis site
St. Louis Business Journal
By Samir Knox – Reporter, St. Louis Business Journal
Feb 26, 2025
More than a year after rejecting a plan from Clayco founder Bob Clark, the St. Louis Development Corp. has still not received a proposal that would bring its desired retail to a long-vacant former manufacturing site in north St. Louis.
The request for proposals (RPF) for the 16.45-acre site at 4800 Goodfellow Road opened in October of 2023, with a suggestion that a “retail-anchored, multiple-use development” would be most appropriate given the site’s visibility, size and accessibility.
Now 16 months later, the RFP remains open, with the scope expanded to two adjacent parcels of land, 4690 and 4700 Goodfellow Road, last August. The RFP was taken down briefly but reposted in December 2024 while SLDC was working to remediate environmental contamination and demolish buildings on the 4700 property.
SLDC declined to comment on how many responses the RFP has yielded since it opened.
Clark responded to the request in January 2024 with a bid to relocate the headquarters and manufacturing operations of Clayco subsidiary Concreate Strategies to the Goodfellow site. At the time, Clark claimed he was told that he was the only response to the RFP at the time. His proposal was denied, with SLDC head Neal Richardson citing concerns that the proposal lacked community engagement and didn’t have an adequate retail component.
Clark eventually relocated the Concrete Strategies headquarters to Hazelwood in north St. Louis County.
Deion Broxton, SLDC’s vice president of communication and public affairs, said the RFP would remain open for submissions until SLDC “finds one that meets our and the community’s objectives.” He added that the SLDC wanted “to get this right” and didn’t want a timeframe to “limit” SLDC’s options.
John Sheahan, a principal with Clayton-based commercial real estate firm NAI DESCO, said he looked at the property when he was helping a client find a location for a service station. He was told by SLDC that they were “holding out for retail” and passed on a tentative proposal to put a station there.
An RFP that’s unfulfilled after more than year could be a suggestion that a market doesn’t exist for SLDC’s criteria, Sheahan said.
“I would like to see the site developed at some point; I think a lot of people would,” Sheahan said in an interview Monday. “If they could have found (the right) retail developer or retail user right now, I think it would have probably emerged. And if it hasn’t, then … they may want to start looking at more industrial-type uses. I think then you’d probably see some action on the site. … Clearly, there’s somebody like a Bob Clark that knocked on the door. If there’s no retailers knocking on the door, then I think, you know, the city’s kind of got their answers where the market is for that property.”
The 4800 Goodfellow Road location used to house the now-demolished manufacturing facilities for the St. Louis Ordnance Plant and the St. Louis Army Ammunition Plant. The city made two prior attempts to develop on the property. One, in 2004, sought a commercial or light industrial development on the property but failed. In 2012, real estate developer G.J. Grewe proposed a $30 million retail development, but it’s unclear what happened to that proposal.
SLDC is looking to acquire the nearby site of the U.S. Department of Agriculture food safety laboratory at 4300 Goodfellow Road, which the U.S. General Services Administration announced would move to a new property on Natural Bridge Road this year. A 2019 government audit said the current facility had high levels of lead and cancer-causing chemicals.
“The City’s Board of Public Service commissioned a civil engineer to design roadway improvements along this Goodfellow corridor. We are hopeful that this work gets completed by the end of 2026,” Broxton said Monday via email. “We are continuing to discuss the federal complex at 4300 Goodfellow, and will seek to acquire the 65-acre site when it is fully vacated later this year. We are taking a holistic approach to developing this corridor to ensure that we create the maximum potential for quality jobs and sustainable investment.”
Clark, who previously claimed that city officials personally targeted him when denying his proposal, said it was unusual for an RFP to be open for this long without a response. He garnered criticism from Mayor Tishaura Jones’s campaign last month when he donated $111,330.25 to the mayoral campaign of Alderwoman Cara Spencer. He called the move his “$111k message to city hall,” claiming that sum equaled the amount of money he “wasted” on his response to the Goodfellow RFP last year. A spokesperson for Jones’s campaign requested that Spencer return the money.