CORTEX Embarks On Growth Projects

February 3, 2012

CORTEX Embarks On Growth Projects

By Tim Bryant
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

CORTEX life-sciences campus' big expansion in the Central West End will include a public plaza and perhaps a new MetroLink station.

Final agreements on projects totaling $140 million should be reached by March with construction soon afterward, said Dennis Lower, president of CORTEX. The projects will double its office and lab space to about 800,000 square feet.

"It's all coming along in nice fashion," he said.

The work will represent the second phase of development at CORTEX, which stands for the Center of Research, Technology and Entrepreneurial Exchange. It is a nonprofit venture by area universities, BJC HealthCare and the Missouri Botanical Garden. The long-range goal is to turn 240 acres of small factories and warehouses into a bustling hub for medical research.

Its first phase, which includes a lab building on Forest Park Avenue and the headquarters of plant science firm Solae Corp., is almost fully occupied.

CORTEX plans to develop labs and offices in a rehabbed industrial building and a new 200,000-square-foot building. Most of the space is already committed to BJC and Wexford Science and Technology - a Baltimore-based developer of science labs.

Wexford will rehab for 10 to 15 tenants a plant Western Electric built on Duncan Avenue in 1947 to produce telephones. BJC is designing a 200,000-square-foot building to be built at Boyle and Clayton avenues. June Fowler, BJC's vice president of communication, said construction will begin this year.

Lower said completion of the BJC building is scheduled for the summer of 2013 with the Wexford project to be ready that fall.

Private funds will cover much of the expansion's cost, but the state is contributing $10 million in tax credits. On Jan. 17, the Missouri Development Finance Board approved new credits and reinstated previously approved credits to CORTEX and the Center for Emerging Technologies, which CORTEX took over in 2010.

A centerpiece of the expansion is a nearly three-block plaza along the east side of Boyle. Plans refer to the landscaped area as CORTEX Commons.

The plans also show a MetroLink station at Boyle. Part of a $90,000 transportation study will determine whether a station there could be needed. H3 Studio of St. Louis is doing the study funded by CORTEX; Missouri Botanical Garden; a $35,000 federal grant; and St. Louis Development Corp., the city's development agency.

The key will be whether the CORTEX expansion would produce lots of new MetroLink riders at a Boyle station or merely split weekday ridership of about 6,000 at the existing Central West End station less than a mile to the west. Lower said he believes the study will document the necessary ridership potential for a CORTEX station to serve his campus and spin-off commercial and residential development in nearby neighborhoods.

Dianne Williams, spokeswoman for Metro, said transit officials are happy CORTEX officials are exploring the possibility.

"Let's see what the study tells us but we're really excited that CORTEX is thinking about the transit needs of the people who would be in those buildings," she said.

If the current study, to be completed by June 30, shows big ridership potential, more studies could be done. Money for a station, however, would be a question mark.

What is certain are plans for a $23 million traffic interchange at Interstate 64 and Tower Grove Avenue. CORTEX and Washington University are cooperating with the Missouri Department of Transportation on the project, meant to provide freeway access to CORTEX and reduce congestion at the busy Kingshighway interchange. Lower said the Tower Grove interchange construction should begin in a year, with completion by March 2014.

A third CORTEX phase, projected to get under way in 2014, calls for more buildings for Wexford and BJC, plus a parking garage. Lower said completing CORTEX might take 25 to 35 years.

"When you're building a research park, patience is a necessity," he said. "We're in a marathon. We're not in a sprint."