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Expanded Brown Shoe HQ would affect school, community center
(by Mitch Schneider - June 25, 2008)
Brown Shoe Company has unveiled preliminary plans for a new headquarters project that would involve not only their offices but several other prominent Clayton facilities as well.
On June 12 and 24, the Clayton Plan Commission held a pair of public hearings in which Brown Shoe and its development team presented conceptual plans for its new headquarters. The project cost is estimated at $400 to $500 million.Brown’s team includes Clayco Inc., Hutkin Properties and U.S. Equities.
Brown currently owns a trio of buildings along Maryland Avenue, near Clayton’s western border with Ladue. Brown is proposing a two-phase project. In the first phase, which the company hopes to break ground on in September, two connected office towers would be built, as well a 2,100-space parking garage.
Brown’s current headquarters would remain open during construction and would be torn down during the second phase of the project.
In addition to the towers and parking spaces, the project would also include improvements to several infrastructure features in the area, including a new storm-water detention vault and sewer and electrical upgrades. This phase would also include work on Gay Avenue and the addition of a new street in order to improve access to, and safety at, the Center of Clayton community center and Clayton High School.
Gay Avenue, which provides access from Maryland to the Center of Clayton, currently has a large bend in it, limiting visibility of the center as one approaches it. Under the proposal, the street would be straightened in order to improve visibility, and a new road would be created to connect Gay Avenue with Topton Way to the east.
Currently the Center and Clayton High School share what is essentially one large parking lot. According to Bob Clark, chairman and CEO of Clayco, some drivers currently use the parking lot as a way to travel between Gay and Topton, which runs in front of the school.
“Some of the challenges for the project are antiquated facilities [for Brown], failing infrastructure, the alignment of Gay, lack of visibility to the Center and safety issues at the high-school lot. You can drive through the high-school lot to get to the center, so people are going 40 miles an hour through the lot, from Topton to get to the Center,” Clark said.
The second phase could begin in mid-2010. That phase would include two additional office buildings, 70,000 square feet of retail, a garage with approximately 2,170 spots, an additional surface parking lot and three residential buildings along Topton. This phase of the project would be completed in 2012. According to Clark, the exact mix of the residential development — possibly lofts, apartments, condos, or even a hotel — would be determined nearer the time of construction.
Clark said that it is intended that the new facilities qualify for environmental certification through the LEED system, but it has not yet been determined what level of certification would be pursued.
“By no stretch of the imagination is this in its final form,” Clark said. “It is a very dynamic project, but nothing is fixed. The main catalyst is to keep Brown Shoe Company where it has been since 1952.”
Brown Shoe was formed in St. Louis in 1878 as Bryan, Brown & Company. The company’s name was changed to Brown Shoe Company in 1883, and it has been located in Clayton since 1952.
“We have been working on this for about two years, and it is not just all about the buildings, it is about people,” said Brown Chairman and CEO Ron Fromm. “Our vision for this place is for it to be a vibrant part of the community, an exciting front door for Clayton, and we have already started to move people into the complex.”
Brown intends to move about 270 employees from a facility in Madison, Wis. At the first public hearing on June 12, Fromm said that about 75 of those employees had begun working in Clayton in the previous two weeks. According to Brown’s figures, just over 600 people currently work at the Clayton headquarters. By the end of 2012, the company expects to have more than 1,300 employees working at the site.
Under the terms of the plan, the development team would buy some of the involved property from Brown, and then lease it back to the company.
“This is a win-win situation financially for the school district and the region to keep Brown Shoe here,” said Harold Sanger, chairman of Clayton’s Plan Commission. “With the separate street from the Center to Topton, we get the parking lot straightened out — it’s a school parking lot, not a street. All of the components are there, and this team has the financial capability to do it.”
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