ST. LOUIS — The Express Scripts headquarters at 1 Express Way has been sold for $36 million at the same time the company renewed its lease.
Colorado-based Arsenault Holdings purchased the 316,541-square-foot office building on a 6.66-acre site in unincorporated north St. Louis County for $36.5 million, according to a report from commercial real estate firm Cushman & Wakefield. The sale does not yet appear on St. Louis County records.
The seller was One Express Way LLC, an entity formed in 2014 whose registered agent is National Registered Agents of Clayton, according to state records. Los Angeles-based National Asset Services (NAS) had marketed the building since 2018, when Express Scripts previously had renewed its lease.
NAS took over asset management of 1 Express Way in 2014 on behalf of a tenants-in-common ownership group, which NAS helped transition to the limited liability company, NAS said in a news release. That change helped in refinancing the property before the loan matured in 2015, according to the release.
NAS credited the building’s marketability, in part, to the sole long-term tenant, pharmacy benefits manager Express Scripts, which renewed its lease for about 310,000 square feet of the office building, also in the fourth quarter ahead of the sale, NAS said.
Terms of the lease were not disclosed.
The Express Scripts campus at the University of Missouri-St. Louis also includes HQ II, the 8455 University Place building that connects to 1 Express Way by a walkway.
Express Scripts was a public company until its 2018 acquisition by Bloomfield, Connecticut-based health services company Cigna Corp. for $54 billion. Express Scripts is part of Evernorth, Cigna's health services brand, which also is based on the Express Scripts campus, according to Cigna regulatory filings.
The increased marketability of 1 Express Way due to Express Scripts’ lease renewal, along with cooperation from the lender, allowed NAS time to find the right buyer, the company said.
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