ST. LOUIS – There is optimism Friday morning that major projects planned for north St. Louis county could transform and revitalize the area.
One of the projects involves a big-time expansion of the University of Missouri-St. Louis’ south campus. The money for all of the projects came from federal funds allocated in the new state budget recently signed by Governor Mike Parson.
Renderings of the UMSL project have been shown. $40 million is set to be spent on the south campus. The goal is to create a campus of the future through the redevelopment of the north St. Louis county business and workforce district on the south campus.
$6 million is slated to go toward demolishing the old Jamestown Mall. Redeveloping that area has been an ongoing challenge for county officials since it closed back in 2014. Demolishing what stands there now could clear the way for new development in the future. There is also money set aside to help what’s called the Met Center. That’s a workforce development facility in Wellston.
Trending: FOX 2’s Molly Rose says goodbye on her last day
State Senator Brian Williams said a total of $93 million of federal funding has been secured in the new state budget for these projects. The St. Louis County Council is set to hold a special meeting Saturday, July 9 to talk about matching some of those funds. Here is what Senator Williams and County Council Chair Rita Heard Days said about the projects.
“This part of the region has not seen any investment since the 60s,” Williams said. “So it’s been several years since they’ve had any type of investment and we’re really proud to get the funding.” “We don’t want to leave this money on the table,” Days shared. “The governors already said that this is what I’m committing to you. So if there’s some kind of a match that we need to do I think it’s important that we do that and move forward with the various projects that are affecting our district particularly.”