Senator Blunt Visits Bannister Federal Complex
Missouri U.S. Senator Roy Blunt praised the progress in demolishing the former Bannister Federal Complex and cleaning up all contamination during a May 29 visit to the site.
Blunt was a leading advocate for transferring ownership of the vacant property to a private owner that would be responsible for demolition and cleanup at the site and would redevelop it for industrial and commercial use.
“We have fixed the contamination problem instead of just fencing it off and telling people not to worry about it,” Blunt said.
Kevin Breslin, a principal owner of Bannister Transformation & Development (BT&D) that now owns the 227-acre site, told Blunt and media attendees that the entire project is about a year ahead of schedule, and redevelopment of the western half of the site where there was much less contamination is almost two years ahead of schedule.
He said the western half of the site should be ready for redevelopment by this fall or early 2020 and is large enough to accommodate two approximately 450,000 square foot buildings plus a 230,000 square foot building as part of the company’s plans to redevelop the vast majority of the site as an industrial park for light manufacturing, warehousing and shipping.
Altogether, Breslin said, the site should be able to accommodate 2.5 to 3 million square feet of industrial buildings that are expected to generate 1,500 to 1,600 jobs plus a much smaller number of possible retail/commercial jobs on the relatively small portion of the site on the east side of Troost outside the flood wall.
He said the entire site should be ready for redevelopment by 2021.