Press Release

Developer Takes on BioBelt Wet Lab Building Project

Wexford Science & Technology will build a $40 million structure next to Danforth Center

Thursday, July 12, 2007

By Rachel Melcer
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

In the BioBelt, it takes a village to raise a commercial wet lab building.

Wexford Science & Technology LLC, a Baltimore-based developer, hopes to break ground this fall on a nearly $40 million, 100,000-square-foot structure next to the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center in Creve Coeur. Wexford will seek approval at a Creve Coeur Planning and Zoning Commission meeting on Monday.

"We're committed … and we're moving forward," said Vice President Louis Kiang.  Wexford will lease eight acres from the Plant Science Center for 65 years to house the facility.

If the project succeeds, it will be a showpiece for civic and business leaders who conceived of the St. Louis region as the BioBelt, a national hub of life science research and industry.

The project also will represent hard work and financial commitments by leaders including Dr. William Danforth, father of the overall biotech initiative; Sam Fiorello, chief operating officer of the Plant Science Center; and Monsanto Co., a global agribusiness with headquarters across the street. Bob Calcaterra, president of the Nidus Center for Scientific Enterprise biotech business incubator located on Monsanto's campus, also played a role.

Four years ago, leaders identified the need for a commercial building offering affordable wet labs — specialized and expensive facilities used for scientific research — for Nidus Center graduates and startup firms that could be lured from out of town. Wexford is the third developer to take a crack at it.

Several elements are converging to make it work this time, supporters say:

  • The Nidus Center, funded by Monsanto, will fill one of the building's four floors, Calcaterra said. Monsanto will reclaim the facility it built to house Nidus on its campus.
  • St. Louis Community College is seeking federal grants to fund a life science work force training program that it would house in the Wexford building.
  • Wexford hopes to get government incentives and philanthropic contributions.

"Those things aren't deal breakers — that's just money and we'll find it somewhere," Kiang said. But based on "tremendous

support" Wexford has received from government, university and civic leaders, "I would be shocked if we can't make it happen."

With Nidus at its heart and the Plant Science Center offering researchers' expertise and specialized scientific equipment to tenants, the development is more than just another commercial building, supporters said. It continues growth of a node of industry that they see as important to the region's economic future.

Wexford committed to the project after the recent announcement that the Taylor family is funding a $25 million Enterprise Rent-A-Car Institute for Renewable Fuels at the Plant Science Center, Fiorello said.

"That showed a continued involvement by community leaders in the BioBelt and that they're willing to put in not just heart and soul, but dollars" to make it happen, he said.

rmelcer@post-dispatch.com | 314-340-8394

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