PCCP, TriStar Build $115M Warehouse in St. Louis

By Barbra Murray

World Wide Technology project, Gateway Commerce Center, Edwardsville, Ill.

PCCP LLC and TriStar Properties continue their partnership at Gateway Commerce Center in Edwardsville, Ill., with the establishment of a joint venture for the development of a build-to-suit industrial project on 160 acres within the 2,300-acre suburban St. Louis park. The real estate companies will develop two warehouse and distribution facilities, totaling 2 million square feet, to be fully occupied by World Wide Technology.

Gateway Commerce Center, where the joint venture will erect the two industrial facilities, is located in the thriving Metro East submarket. The development is a prominent undertaking, as the build-to-suit lease agreement TriStar inked with WWT for the project in the first quarter of 2018 marked the largest industrial lease, by square feet, ever completed in metropolitan St. Louis. Industry experts anticipate that new industrial buildings, super-size and otherwise, will continue to pop up in the area for the foreseeable future. 

“Speculative construction starts, build-to-suit offerings and significant leasing and sales activity will continue across the metro, as new deliveries to the market are either pre-leased or swiftly leased by the area’s constant demand,” according to a first quarter 2018 report by commercial real estate services firm Newmark Grubb Zimmer.

PCCP and TriStar are on schedule to complete the two Gateway facilities in the second quarter of 2019. WWT will consolidate operations from other locations in the area at the new buildings, which will be utilized as the company’s U.S. distribution center.

The power of partnership

With the completion of the WWT build-to-suit, PCCP and TriStar will have partnered on the development of seven industrial facilities totaling 5.1 million square feet at Gateway. One of the partners’ earlier projects was Gateway 717, a 717,000-square-foot speculative warehouse now leased to Amazon. Earlier this year, they completed a 594,000-square-foot facility, the partners’ fifth and most recent speculative development at the park. 

 Image courtesy of PCCP LLC