A Kansas City company wants to take over and begin construction this summer on developer Paul McKee’s long-dormant Hazelwood Logistics Center.
But Paul McKee is fighting back in court.
The Hazelwood Logistics Center is in a prime location near Interstate 70 at Lindbergh Boulevard and Missouri Bottom Road. The 151-acre site was to become an industrial and logistics park, but it’s been plagued by lawsuits.
That includes a suit brought by BancorpSouth in federal court over millions of dollars in defaulted loans. Back in 2011 the bank won a nearly $32 million judgment against McKee and Hazelwood Logistics Center.
There was little movement until last month when an entity called NP Hazelwood 140, LLC, took over the judgment and quickly announced an auction of Hazelwood Logistics Center’s land and assets, scheduled to take place May 29.
As it turns out, Kansas City-based NorthPoint Development has a stake in NP Hazelwood 140 and has big plans for the Hazelwood site. CEO Nathaniel Hagedorn said if the foreclosure takes place as expected, they will build a distribution center similar to what McKee originally envisioned.
"Really it’s a continuation of the same sort of vision for the property, which was a Class A industrial distribution park," Hagedorn said.
NorthPoint has about 10 million square feet of industrial space in eight states, according to Hagedorn. He said they’re looking to move further into the St. Louis market and liked the Hazelwood location.
"We like the location from a logistics standpoint, and we like the St. Louis industrial market," he said. "We’ve started to invest in St. Louis, and it’s just kind of a continuation of what our goals are, to hopefully become a major player in the industrial development scene over in St. Louis."
Hagedorn said if NorthPoint gets the land in the foreclosure sale, construction would begin this summer on a 200,000 square foot warehouse. He said eventually the site could have up to 2.5 million square feet of warehouse space.
That won’t happen if Paul McKee can help it.
On Wednesday, McKee and Hazelwood Logistics Center filed suit against NP Hazelwood 140. The lawsuit claims NP Hazelwood blocked a settlement McKee and Hazelwood Logistics Center could have reached with BancorpSouth Bank and several environmental companies, which are also involved in litigation over the site.
McKee’s suit seeks $31 million plus punitive damages from NP Hazelwood 140.
An attorney for McKee said the suit does not seek to stop NP Hazelwood’s planned auction of the site but that more motions would likely be filed.
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