Testimonials

What I like to say as a site selector, is it’s basically 70 miles of beachfront property.

Doug Rasmussen
Site Selection Consultant, Steadfast City Economic & Community Partners

We’ve seen a significant increase of new tenants, new users to St. Louis. We used to quote that 17% of all deals were new to St. Louis, meaning they didn’t have a presence here. That’s doubled. It’s in the 30, 30-plus percent range.

Ed Lampitt
Vice Chair, Cushman & Wakefield

Finally, we’re able to compete [with incentives] and challenge other states. If it’s a multi-city search, St. Louis now looks a lot better compared to where it used to be just five to 10 years ago.

Matt Hrubes
Senior VP, CBRE

Rail has been the backbone of the economy for a long time, and we are confident it is here to stay.

Timothy Luchini, PH.D.
Co-Founder and CEO, Intramotev Autonomous Rail

I think it’s important to understand just how big of a role the waterway system plays and the impact it has on our everyday life. The Mississippi River system alone serves 23 different states – export, import, and a lot of other stuff. We live in a good time to do maritime innovation, and we’ve seen unprecedented money and grants being allocated for the ports community in the U.S., and for general logistics and supply chain with the infrastructure bill. There’s just so much potential right now.

Uri Yoselevich
Founder and CEO, DockTech

We utilize dredging to provide safe, efficient, and reliable movement to keep commerce flowing on the Mississippi River in support of the nation’s economy. Over 500 million tons – half of all U.S. grain exports – transit the Mississippi River at some point annually.

Lou Dell’Orco
Chief of Operations, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

Despite some recent low runoff years, I think it’s important to note that these are really exciting times for navigation on the Missouri River. The most recent numbers from 2020 show that over 5.4 million tons were moving on the Missouri River, which is a significant increase over the 2019 number of 3.9 million tons. And that’s a mix of sand and gravel being the largest piece, in addition to fertilizer, petroleum products, grain and a lot of other things as well.

Shane Kinne
Executive Director, Coalition to Protect the Missouri River

I think it’s important to realize that our farmers are going to continue to adopt new technologies, which are going to continue to allow us to grow more and more volumes of grain, and exports are critical to the profitability of our farmers. We’re going to be demanding and needing more transportation of all modes. When we look at what mode is somewhat underutilized, I’d say there’s room for growth on the river, so we’re excited about that. Our waterways give us a strategic advantage and we need to leverage that.

Chris Klenklen
Deputy Director, MO Department of Agriculture

We’ve also invested over $600 million in rail facilities so that every one of our marine terminals has on or near dock rail, and we have capacity for over one and a half million lifts of rail cargo alone. It’s our view and our vision that rail cargo and intermodal cargo to places like St. Louis is what’s going to help us grow and continue to grow and be a major port gateway, not just on the East Coast, but in the country into the future.

Mike Bozza
Deputy Port Director, Port Authority of New York & New Jersey

I don’t know if there’s ever been a better time to invest in St. Louis than now. It’s a unique city. There’s a ton of character. You constantly hear small city, big town. So as outsiders, we’ve been welcomed with open arms, and the support just continues to pour in from groups wanting to collaborate in any way and people listening to your ideas, even if they seem ambitious. I’ve never seen anything like it.

Alec Jadacki
Partner, Good Developments Group

As we went through the project and evaluated where we wanted to be and what might be the optimal location for us, we started out by just looking at every county, literally, in the continental U.S., over 3,000 counties. And we eventually narrowed it down to 25, then 10, then three, and eventually landed on Warren County. And we just felt that the infrastructure, natural resources, workforce, the cattle inventory, and Interstate 70 (I-70) played nice contributing factors to that selection. We’re excited about the location. It’s really at the crossroads of the U.S.

Scott Willert, CTP
President, America’s Service Line / America’s Logistics

Incentives and commitment from the local, state and federal government agencies helped us ultimately choose Missouri. Our experience with working with the government officials in Missouri has been nothing but positive.

Sean Parks
Senior Capacity Manager, James Hardie Building Products

We’re strategically located in the central part of the country so that helps us meet the needs of our customers more efficiently, particularly with the latest robotics and automation. There’s a strong community base here with an appetite for job opportunities. And our facility is an excellent place for those individuals to work and have a rewarding career and provide for their families.

Christopher Rogers
Plant Manager, Tyson Foods

All this funding that’s been coming for our port facilities has just been tremendous, and I just can’t thank enough those who are now realizing the importance of ports throughout the country. The Port District, like many other ports in the region and throughout the country, are economic development generators. We are here for the purpose of creating jobs, and we do that through a lot of investment in our property that tries to attract companies.

Dennis Wilmsmeyer
Executive Director, America’s Central Port

I think it’s important for people to realize that we are by far the busiest inland port. We have approximately 130 facilities in our harbor on both sides of the river. We just have so many different options, and we have ultimate flexibility and last mile in and out options for people.

Susan Taylor
Port Authority Director, St. Louis Development Corporation

Kaskaskia Regional Port District is poised for significant growth. With these upgrades, we’re going to have great capacity within our terminals to move cargo to any tenant that wants to locate there.

Ed Weilbacher
General Manager, Kaskaskia Regional Port District

This is a really exciting project for us and is the culmination of 12 years of technology history in the transportation industry and is one of the most impactful projects we’ve worked on in our lifetime. When we started this project, we were calling it the data visibility tool, and Noel and his team came up with the moniker, the Supply Chain Information Highway. I thought that was really insightful because a highway is simply infrastructure and, by itself, doesn’t provide value. It is value transiting along that infrastructure that is the really important element for the nation. And so as we continue to build out the Supply Chain Information Highway, usage is what brings value.

Jason Carter
Founder and CEO, UNCOMN

The IL Route 3 Corridor is clearly in the path of progress, and the excellent market connectivity and road access of the RTE 3 Industrial sites make this large-scale development area the perfect spot for manufacturing. Being part of the Freightway’s pipeline of rail-served sites helps to ensure a higher level of visibility for the opportunities this site presents for the right user.

David Branding
Senior Managing Director, JLL

This continuing public and private sector collaboration is essential to the ongoing efforts that are helping to transition vacant abandoned industrial sites into developable, ready-to-market sites.

Mary Lamie
VP of Multi-Modal Enterprises, Bi-State Development

The Port of New Orleans is proud to be a global gateway to the middle of the United States and into Canada through the St. Louis corridor of the Mississippi River system. Port NOLA’s continued collaboration with the St. Louis Regional Freightway plays an important role in the continued success of our container-on-barge service which expands shipping options to inland markets while honoring our commitment to sustainability.

Brandy D. Christian
President & CEO, Port of New Orleans

We need to be moving more containers via the Mississippi River in order to take advantage of barge transportation as the most cost-effective and environmentally friendly mode of transportation. As the Port of New Orleans grows, so, too, does our hope that the container-on-barge service at our Madison Harbor in the St. Louis area can ramp up and achieve its full potential.

Dennis Wilmsmeyer
Executive Director, America’s Central Port

Leveraging the competitive advantages with Port NOLA’s supply chains is key to strengthening the nation’s global competitiveness. Projects like the Louisiana International Terminal project will further benefit freight volume efficiency for agricultural commodities for regions like St. Louis and other inland ports.

Mary Lamie
VP of Multi-Modal Enterprises, Bi-State Development

The St. Louis region’s central location in the U.S. and its logistics capabilities has made the metro area a coveted destination for industrial users. As consumers demand faster shipping times, the St. Louis region becomes very attractive to e-commerce users.

Katie Haywood
Vice President, CBRE

The amount of river business in the St. Louis region has disproportionately increased over the past three decades. This region is a rail and interstate highway gateway. It is more cost-effective to move commodities into, out of and through St. Louis by combinations of truck, rail and barge than points upstream on the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers. Barge loading and unloading capacity has expanded in the St. Louis area to take advantage of these train rates and barge freight rate adjustments.

David Jump
President, American Milling

The St. Louis region remains primed to take its place as a global hub for logistics and the movement of goods throughout the United States and internationally. This list of [priority] projects goes a long way toward achievement of that goal.

Chester Jones
Supply Chain Operations, True Manufacturing Co.

The I-70 reconstruction and expansion between St. Louis and Kansas City is a game changer. The St. Louis region is a distribution metro, and distribution relies on trucks and those trucks rely on the smooth, safe movement of freight. Chicago is a big competitor and is fed by two major east-west interstates, I-80 and I-90. If we are going to remain relevant and competitive, we have to have good connections on I-70. It is our major east-west corridor. That project is crucial to the region and will be a big part of our future successes.

David Branding
Senior Managing Director, JLL

A project I think that could give the region the same strategic advantage [as KC or Indianapolis] is the expansion of the Union Pacific Intermodal Yard in Dupo, Illinois. It could put us on par with our rival cities by giving us cost competitive connectivity to the major West Coast ports.

David Branding
Senior Managing Director, JLL

Private industry representatives with first-hand knowledge of the bi-state St. Louis area consistently reinforce that availability of space and speed of delivery; an available, job-ready workforce, and exceptional freight assets are continuing to drive the growth we’ve been seeing in our region. As a result of that growth, as supply chains continue to shift in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the St. Louis region has all the ingredients in place to accommodate those shifts.

Geoff Orf
Senior VP – Industrial, Colliers International

Why the St. Louis region for site selection? And what makes us different from our sister cities? The answer is the St. Louis bi-state region can support one system or the entire supply chain from a company’s headquarters, research and development, warehousing and manufacturing to suppliers and logistics. We have the infrastructure, both vertical and horizontal, and the talent. Our workforce has a can-do attitude with a heritage of making things, enabling companies like World Wide Technology, Bunge, General Motors, Progressive Recovery and many others to compete in the global market, elevating our ranking as a global logistics hub. Our supply chain ecosystem is unique and has adapted to and stands ready for COVID-19 shifts in terms of shortened supply chains and a local workforce that supports each system of the supply chain.

Mary Lamie
VP of Multi-Modal Enterprises, Bi-State Development

Regions best positioned to win site selection projects are ones that, for the foreseeable future, are deep regionally and highly accessible globally. This means a region, that from a real estate, infrastructure, and talent perspective can accommodate multiple aspects of most any company’s supply chain, with access to talent to support each of the functions required to run a global business, and with transportation modes that provide global access to markets. The bi-state St. Louis region performs magnificently by this standard.

Doug Rasmussen
Site Selection Consultant, Steadfast City Economic & Community Partners

The St. Louis region is able to supply all of that labor, and I don’t think every metro in the U.S. could make that claim. That’s a critical part of why World Wide Technology is here and remains here, I believe. It’s estimated there are 5,000 employees at Amazon facilities in the St. Louis region, and you have to have a deep labor pool to support that. We have that in St. Louis.

David Branding
Senior Managing Director, JLL

The St. Louis to New Orleans barge route is one of the most efficient logistics export steams in the U.S., and there typically is an abundance of corn in the region. St. Louis is directly tied to U.S. export markets, including China, so any increase in trade volumes would improve operational conditions.

Tim Power
President, SCF Marine

The list of current and future infrastructure projects occurring across the Bi-State St. Louis region will not only allow freight to move more safely through the region, but also enable strategic advantages for companies looking to reduce costs and run leaner supply chains. Once these [priority] projects are completed, these improvements will benefit not only the companies located in the Bi-State region, but companies throughout North America that use the St. Louis region as a corridor for moving their freight.

Ryan Krull
Sales Manager, Watco Companies

This type of progress doesn’t happen overnight. We continually invest the time and effort and lay the foundation to make sure that all necessary parties are familiar with our priorities and understand why they are priorities, so they can advocate for funding for them. It’s tremendous validation to see projects on our list move forward and contribute to the enhancement of our region’s freight network.

Mary Lamie
VP of Multi-Modal Enterprises, Bi-State Development

The epicenter of this construction boom is along the I-70 bi-state corridor, including I-70 and portions of I-170, I270, and I-370 running from Missouri to Illinois. This is a major logistics corridor supported with more than $600 million of roadway infrastructure investment, which will help to foster continued growth among the national manufacturers, suppliers and distributors choosing to locate in the corridor.

Mary Lamie
VP of Multi-Modal Enterprises, Bi-State Development

When you put it all together, the sum of this [St. Louis] region is much greater than the individual parts of the sub-region. Areas that can present the entire menu and the entire platform and that are going to work together collaboratively to attract certain investments will win.

Doug Rasmussen
Site Selection Consultant, Steadfast City Economic & Community Partners

Now, more than ever, companies are really going to want to have a great handle on where their people and where their assets are, and also, where their future pipeline of talent exists, and generally just being more compact and more focused geographically. Supply chains are going to shorten, and the areas that are going to do well are the ones that can effectively serve the world from one location.

Doug Rasmussen
Site Selection Consultant, Steadfast City Economic & Community Partners

The city’s location in the middle of the country positions it to better handle loads from either coasts than from a logistics hub like Chicago, especially in the wake of new federal legislation that caps the number of hours drivers are allowed to be on the road. Drivers from California, for example, will run out of hours before they can make it to Chicago — giving St. Louis, and its close proximity to more destinations, an advantage in the $9.6 trillion global logistics industry.

Angelina Twardawa
Founder, Angie’s Transportation