A long dormant stretch of industrial land along the Wellston MetroLink tracks is finally getting a new storyline. St. Louis County officials say they have reached a deal to sell the long-vacant Wellston Industrial Park to a developer that plans to build a logistics center on the property. The roughly 28-acre site sits next to the Wellston MetroLink stop and has been in public hands for decades as part of county redevelopment holdings. The planned project marks a new chapter for a tract that once hosted heavy industry and later became entangled in a county corruption scandal.
As reported by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the county's Land Clearance for Redevelopment Authority and the county economic development agency have a deal to sell the former factory site in Wellston. Public documents and the LCRA’s redevelopment materials list the Wellston Industrial Park at 1335 Ogden Avenue and describe the property as roughly 28.33 acres that the agency has controlled for decades, according to the St. Louis Economic Development Partnership.
A fraught history
The Wellston parcels were carved from the remains of early-20th-century heavy industry and needed extensive environmental cleanup funded by public dollars, leaving a complicated legacy for the neighborhood. That history, along with a high-profile corruption probe that touched county economic officials in recent years, has made redevelopment a politically sensitive subject for local leaders and residents. St. Louis Magazine has detailed how past deals and guilty pleas helped fuel public distrust around Wellston land sales.
Deal details
Reporting describes the buyer as a logistics and industrial developer that plans distribution and warehouse facilities on the site, although specifics such as tenants, a construction timeline and any tax-incentive package have not been released. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch notes that the sale will move the property out of long-term public ownership and into private redevelopment, a goal officials have pursued since issuing an RFP for the site in late 2024.
How this fits into Wellston's comeback
County and city leaders have been pushing a bundle of projects around the Wellston MetroLink stop, from housing to training facilities, aimed at turning public land into jobs and neighborhood services. The Laborers’ union has announced plans for an Urban Training Center at nearby Plymouth Industrial Park, a project local leaders and the St. Louis Economic Development Partnership say is intended to feed construction and trades jobs into the area. The St. Louis American reported on the training center and county statements about workforce development.
What happens next
The property sale is technically part of the competitive redevelopment process the LCRA outlined in its RFP, which set expectations for the site and made an informational package available to potential bidders. Final sale documents, local approvals and standard closing steps still need to be completed before construction can start, and the county has signaled it will continue to oversee the redevelopment terms. The St. Louis Economic Development Partnership maintains the RFP records and the informational package used in the selection process.
For Wellston residents, the deal is shaping up as an early test of whether large-scale industrial redevelopment will translate into stable jobs and neighborhood benefits instead of quick land flips. County leaders say more details will be released as agreements are finalized.
