St. Louis and Its Companies
Also Redeploy Resources

Some might say the only facility news worth mentioning in St. Louis is the $387-million baseball stadium being developed, primarily from private funds, to replace the St. Louis Cardinals' storied 1970s-era Busch Stadium. Of course there are many more corporate projects of note, but the Cardinal project does represent one noteworthy trend: out with the old and in with the new.
        For most corporations these days, a new facility is not only replacing an old one, but several old ones. That's the case with soy processing company Solae, which will invest $25 million in a consolidation that will retain 375 jobs in the city and add a handful more over the next two years. The company had considered locations in Illinois and Indiana, but instead will bring its Fort Wayne, Ind., R&D and marketing operations onto its existing location at the Nestle complex in St. Louis. The joint venture company, an alliance between DuPont De NeMours and Bunge Ltd., employs some 3,000 worldwide.
        The Missouri Department of Economic Development has approved up to $2 million in Development Tax Credits for the St. Louis Local Development Company to offset a $4 million donation the not-for-profit agency will receive from Solae. Made in the form of equipment, will be leased back to the company for the next five years. If certain job and investment targets are met, an additional $2.2 million in enterprise zone benefits could come available.
        Before it was bought by German concern Henkel in late 2003, Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Dial Corp. an-nounced it would invest $6 million to upgrade its downtown St. Louis manufacturing facility, retaining almost 300 jobs in the process. Dial spokesperson Natalie Violi confirms that the upgrade will proceed as planned. Dial established an 812,000-sq.-ft. (75,435-sq.-m.) distribution operation at TRiSTAR's Gateway Commerce Center across the Mississippi River five years ago.
        While not biotech-related, the Bio-based Manufacturers Association (BMA) recently moved its headquarters from Memphis to St. Louis in part because of the area's associated agricultural and science infrastructure. BMP President Kim C. Kristoff, president of Arizona-based Gemtek, says the organization was forced into the move by the disbanding of its original Memphis-based sponsor Agrotech. The next big city up the Mississippi appeared quickly on the radar, but a thorough search was conducted.
        "While we realized that St. Louis would be our choice early on, we considered elsewhere in Memphis and also Phoenix, Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Chicago and Minneapolis/St. Paul before resolving to move to St. Louis," he says. "While the state has always had an ag culture of educators, farmers, brokerage and government centers, it is relatively recently that they began to stand out as leaders in the bio-based arena."
        Kristoff gives due credit for the location to such entities as the RCGA, the Danforth Center and Doane Agricultural Services, which serves clients like the National Agricultural Marketing Association and offers a wide variety of informational support products that will enhance BMA's efforts as well. Such complementary organizations have enhanced the city's international stature in life sciences too, most recently catching the eye of the Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO), which is calling the city "a core part" of its efforts to foster economic relationships in biotech between Japanese and U.S. companies.
        The city's continuing reputation as a life sciences capital took a slight hit recently with the closing of the recently expanded Wyeth Pharmaceuticals ReFacto plant (see Site Selection, March 2003). But that bruise healed quickly with the help of increased employment at the Pfizer biologics research center in Chesterfield, a booming suburb some 30 minutes west of downtown St. Louis.
        The Pfizer biologics facility, focused on protein-based drugs, was built in 2002 by Pfizer acquisition target Pharmacia at a cost of some $55 million. Since the acquisition in April 2003, Pfizer took consolidation measures with Pharmacia's 25 R&D sites, but at the Chesterfield site, drug development staff has been steadily growing, and is projected to more than double to 250-300 by the end of 2004, according to a St. Louis Post-Dispatch interview with Rick Rutter, global biologics site director. He went on to project that more work would head to St. Louis pursuant to another Pfizer acquisition: the December 2003 purchase of Michigan-based Esperion Therapeutics for $1.3 billion.
        The various moves in the merger's wake have left some employees in other area Pfizer operations looking for new positions: A downtown St. Louis chemical plant closed, and some IT jobs were cut. In Michigan – which counts some 9,000 residents as Pfizer employees – the company took a pass on a huge expansion-related incentive package offered by the state in April 2003, choosing instead to announce the cutting of some 2,000 jobs worldwide, and the shutting down of three R&D centers.
        Pfizer once hoped to realize consolidation savings from the $57-billion Pharmacia acquisition on the order of $2.5 billion by 2005. In fact, according to its year-end financial report, Pfizer overshot its 2003 merger-related cost synergies target of $1 billion, realizing $1.3 billion for the year. Now even the ultimate goal has changed, as the company expects to realize an additional $3.4 billion in synergies in 2004, and some $4 billion worth in 2005. The three-year expense for realizing that synergy grand total of $8.7 billion is projected to be between $5 billion and $5.5 billion.
        All of which bodes well for the company's Chesterfield abode. The view gets even clearer with a glance at the actual property: the company occupies only 25 percent of its 200-acre (81-hectare) site.