ST. LOUIS — Square will move its local employees into the St. Louis Post-Dispatch building in what could be the start of a new "innovation district" for the city of St. Louis.
On Monday, the San Francisco-based payment processing firm (NYSE: SQ) announced it signed a 15-year lease to move all 500 employees from the Cortex tech district in Midtown to the Post-Dispatch building at 900 N. Tucker Blvd. in downtown St. Louis. The Business Journal first reported on Square's interest in the building in November, after co-founder Jim McKelvey's investment firm, StarLake Holdings, acquired the property for $3.5 million.
The Post-Dispatch, meanwhile, will move to its new home at 901 N. 10th St., also owned by StarLake, on Aug. 1.
“St. Louis has been an amazing home and partner to us. This city has so much energy, and we’re thrilled to be a part of it," Square co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey said in a statement. Both McKelvey and Dorsey, who is also the CEO and co-founder of Twitter, are St. Louis natives.
Square's move to downtown could be the first in an effort to create more growth for the area north of Washington Avenue.