GLEN CARBON, Ill. — Big-box retailer Meijer has signed an agreement to open its first store in the St. Louis area, replacing home improvement retailer Menards as the anchor tenant for a new $70 million Metro East retail development.
Meijer has signed a deal with Olivette-based real estate firm The Staenberg Group, which is developing the Orchard Town Center project in Glen Carbon. The 52-acre development is a rare case of ground-up retail that when completed will surround an anchoring big-box store at the corner of Troy Road and Governors Parkway. Following The Staenberg Group's purchase of the former orchard for $11 million last year, site work is underway throughout the future shopping center ahead of the eventual construction of individual tenant buildings and outlots.
Menards originally signed on as the anchor of the development with plans to build a 250,000-square-foot store, but the Wisconsin-based home improvement chain dropped out after disagreeing with The Staenberg Group on the timeline for closing, said Tim Lowe, senior vice president of leasing and development for TSG.
After Menards dropped out, Michigan-based grocery giant Meijer, which operates at least 259 stores throughout the Midwest but none in the St. Louis region, quickly signed a deal to anchor the development with one of its supercenter stores. Meijer stores range from about 150,000 square feet to 250,000 square feet, according to published reports, and combine groceries with general retail. The chain’s closest store to St. Louis is in Springfield, Illinois.
“It’s a great market, they knew it, and they’d been trying to get in the market a long time,” Lowe said of Meijer. “We had a site that worked and was ready moving forward. We had municipal entitlements, and we had rezoned it. It was ready to go, and we made a deal with them relatively quickly.”
Representatives of Meijer and Menards did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Read the full story on the St. Louis Business Journal website.
