Photo courtesy of Google Earth
The Missouri River runs parallel to Interstate 64 in Chesterfield Valley, which has seen a growth spurt in recent years.
Word came over the walkie-talkie around 10:20 p.m.: “The levee broke.” It was July 20, 1993, and Barb McGuinness had just finished sandbagging to fortify the levee protecting Chesterfield Valley from the Missouri River, which was nearly 15 feet above flood stage. “I remember driving out of there and thinking, ‘This looks so peaceful,’ and thinking about the deluge that was to come behind me,” says McGuinness, a Chesterfield City Council member who was then chairwoman of the city’s planning and zoning commission.
Muddy water slowly filled the valley as if it were a giant swimming pool. Businesses got washed out. Homes were ruined.
Twenty-two years later, the silt has settled and hundreds of millions of dollars in developments have sprouted. Chesterfield Valley today is an economic engine for St. Louis County, home to more than 1,000 licensed businesses and generating nearly $800 million in retail sales in 2015. And with plans announced for a massive youth sports dome, a golf entertainment complex, and a new ice arena, the valley’s development boom appears far from over.
In 1995, city leadership looked to spur redevelopment in the blighted valley, so it turned to creating a tax increment financing district to fund infrastructure projects. The $72.3 million raised by the tax district paid for major upgrades to the levee, improving its flood defense capability from 100-year to 500-year floods. Two years later, the federal government recertified the repaired Chesterfield–Monarch Levee, allowing new construction projects to begin.
Chesterfield Commons, a half-mile strip mall, opened in 1999 as the first major new development in the valley. Soon, more retailers popped up along Interstate 64. Two major outlet malls, St. Louis Premium Outlets and Taubman Prestige Outlets, opened in 2013, with about 150 stores combined.
Then, last year, details of several potential developments began floating around. The largest was a nearly $75 million proposed project to build a nonprofit youth sports megaplex, backed by St. Louis Cardinals manager Mike Matheny and the nonprofit executive Dan Buck. Preliminary plans include a 450,000-square-foot facility with two domes, office space, a 220-room hotel, medical services, restaurants, a theater, a zipline, and a climbing wall. The complex would be built on nearly 50 acres north of I-64 that the city would lease to Buck-owned Big Sports Properties, which would manage the facility. The footprint includes 30 acres beside the Chesterfield Athletic Association fields that the city purchased in 2009 and an adjacent lot that the city is proposing to buy for about $2 million with reserve funds from its parks department.
Buck says Chesterfield Valley was an obvious location, what with its hotels, restaurants, shopping, and access to tourist attractions. “There are just a plethora of geographical reasons why it is a mecca for so many companies,” he says, “and why it’s one of the sites that we’re entertaining because of that central location.”
Other prospective developments include a Topgolf entertainment complex to be built on 22 acres north of I-64 where the Hardee’s Iceplex now stands. The driving range would house three stories of hitting bays, a restaurant, a bar, and a corporate meeting space. Plans to replace the Iceplex with a three-rink $25 million facility in the west end of the valley were announced in August by Chesterfield Ice Arena. Depending on funding, construction could start in 2018.
In the meantime, shoppers continue flooding the valley.
