Save-A-Lot’s corporate headquarters is the latest tenant at The Crossings at Northwest.
The grocery retailer made the decision to move its headquarters from Earth City to St. Ann in April. Kevin Proctor, the chief investment officer at Save-A-Lot, said the purpose was to create space that better fit the company’s needs.
“We had outgrown the existing office,” Proctor said, “but we also lack in the existing offices a lot of the facilities that we have here in the new office, which we need as a business going forward.”
The roughly $20 million facility includes a fitness center, test kitchens, a model test store, a cafe, a sensory lab and an IT innovation lab. Save-A-Lot invested $8 million into the project, while the developer, Raven Development, brought in the remaining $12 million.
The 162,000-square-foot space that once housed JCPenney’s was also the source of contention between County Executive Steve Stenger and the St. Louis County Council, after Stenger moved some county operations into The Crossings at Northwest.
Proctor said Save-A-Lot was focused on what location would best serve the company and its employees. He said ultimately they decided staying in St. Louis was the best move.
“We have a lot of great people in our business and we wanted to retain those people, but we also felt that St. Louis has an abundance of great colleges and schools,” Proctor said. “It has a lot of big businesses. It has a very skilled workforce. And it offers us the facilities and amenities we need for our business.”
The company is retaining 500 jobs and will bring add 60 corporate-level positions. In addition to numerous open work spaces for collaboration, the multi-level building will also serve as an in-house training space for employees.
“We have folks out in the regions in 38 states,” Proctor said. “So we will bring those people into our corporate offices on an ongoing basis and train those people here. But we will also train our corporate folks. So it’s really a center of excellence and a training and development center for our entire business.”
Save-A-Lot, which has been based in the St. Louis region for more than 40 years, operates more than 1,300 stores throughout the nation.
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