1.4M-square-foot business park proposed on farmland in Maryland Heights

MARYLAND HEIGHTS, Mo. — Another business park could be built in Maryland Heights, this time on farmland next to an apartment complex on Creve Coeur Lake being proposed by the same developer.

Sunset Hills-based developer KBG Inc. is proposing to build Maryland Heights Commerce Center, a business park with 1.4 million square feet of office flex and distribution buildings or warehouses on at least 121 acres spanning both sides of Sport Port Road along the Maryland Heights Expressway.

The proposal at sites around 3351 Sport Port Road would add four buildings with 351,000 square feet of office/flex space and 806,500 square feet of warehouse or distribution space to the many industrial projects underway in Maryland Heights. Those projects include three warehouses built at one time for NorthPoint Development’s new 50-acre Riverport Trade Center and the more than 1 million square feet of speculative space at Westport Commerce Center that is being built by a joint venture of Earth City-based TriStar Properties and PCCP LLC.

The city granted approval to KBG for the latest business park in 2019. KBG started grading in anticipation of construction, but developer Doug Jones of KBG last year asked for an extension, citing “circumstances beyond our control,” including the construction of a nearby stormwater pump station.

The developer is now requesting that a neighboring 104-acre property at 12535 Sport Port Road, currently agricultural land, be included in the zoning district for the commerce center, which the Planning Commission will review at its meeting Feb. 22. Fill is still being imported onto the original site, the city said.

Development costs were not disclosed in filings with the city. The original parcels along Sport Port were last sold in 2017 for $4.6 million, according to St. Louis County records. Developers in the past had proposed large-scale developments at the site that were never built.

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