ST. LOUIS — QuikTrip has purchased from 50ȻƵ University a tract of land at the southern entrance of the university’s campus, a sale seemingly at odds with recommendations in the university’s own redevelopment plan for the Midtown area that called for “signature development” on the site.
QuikTrip operates six gas stations within 2 miles of the property, located at South Grand Boulevard and Interstate 44. The company runs some 60 locations throughout the 50ȻƵ area.
50ȻƵ in 2017 granted broad redevelopment powers to SLU so the anchor institution could guide redevelopment in the Midtown area, just as over $1 billion in investment was poised to flow into that part of the city as SLU and SSM built a new hospital there.
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The redevelopment authority gives SLU wide latitude to control the type of redevelopment in that swath of the Central Corridor and the power to offer up to 25 years of property tax breaks to developers without going through the normal city-approval process.
The redevelopment plan justifying the entity’s new powers called for “signature development” at the intersection South Grand and I-44.
Asked if the university considered QuikTrip a “signature development” at what the city-approved plan calls a “key entry location to the redevelopment area,” SLU spokesman Clayton Berry confirmed the sale but said the university had no further information.
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Brooks Goedeker, who leads the 50ȻƵ Midtown Redevelopment Corp., the redevelopment corporation 50ȻƵ approved in 2017 and which SLU controls with three of five board seats, did not respond to a request for comment.
Urbanists and sustainability advocates have been fuming for months as it became clear SLU was considering a sale of unused parking lots along Grand to the Tulsa, Oklahoma-based convenience store chain.
The university sought in the spring to distance itself from the potential sale, saying only it had told the company to work with the adjacent Tiffany Community Association on the potential for a QuikTrip and referring questions to the company.
But documents filed with the real estate sale in September show QuikTrip has had the SLU land under contract since February 2019.
The gas station chain, which dominates the market here, is known for large, highly efficient stores. Those familiar with the market say it offers premium real estate prices for key locations in order to get ahead of competitors. It has hired some of the city’s most high-profile lawyers in disputes with other municipalities, recently winning a judgment overturning a Creve Coeur City Council vote denying a plan to build in that suburb.
Goedeker told the newspaper in May that QuikTrip has not asked for tax abatement from the SLU redevelopment corporation and has indicated it has no plans to do so. The gas station’s agreement with the SLU-controlled redevelopment corporation does not appear to reference any tax abatement for the project.
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SLU’s real estate transactions have long stirred controversy in the area. The university demolished the last historic Pevely Dairy building in 2017, shortly after winning its redevelopment rights. And some criticized the university’s former leader, the Rev. Lawrence Biondi, for buying and sitting on swaths of land for years.
The redevelopment corporation has offered tax breaks to help spur new apartment buildings and a hotel in the area, but another, major redevelopment plan it was pushing just north of the new hospital fell apart this year.
If it’s any consolation to those who hoped for a less suburban use at the site, SLU has agreed to not let its Salus Center at 1640 South Grand be developed as a gas station. It signed a restrictive covenant with QuikTrip running with the land where the university building now sits, a covenant that becomes void if QuikTrip doesn’t finish the gas station by September 2023.
A QuikTrip representative said there is no timeline for construction.