A group of local developers has put in a bid to buy Fenton's empty Chrysler assembly site, St. Louis County's top economic development official said Wednesday.
Details were few, but the offer is from a "legitimate" group that wants to build an alternative and renewable energy business park at the 300-acre site on Interstate 44, said Denny Coleman, president of the St. Louis County Economic Council. And they're partnering with companies that work in the industry.
"It's very early in the process. This is just an offer," Coleman said. "But this is a legitimate development team. They've got experience in taking old properties and finding new uses for them. And the potential users are legitimate, too. They are companies that are trying to expand."
Coleman wouldn't say who the developers were, or how much they're offering to pay. But it is the first significant bid for the plant, which closed more than a year ago and is one of several unwanted manufacturing sites nationwide which a Chrysler subsidiary is trying to sell in bankruptcy court.
Coleman said he didn't know the timeline for a deal. That's up to the developers and Capstone, the restructuring firm which is managing the bankruptcy proceedings. And any sale must be approved by the bankruptcy judge.
Dan Hayes, the real estate broker who's handling the Fenton sale for Capstone, declined to comment Wednesday afternoon.
Fenton Mayor Dennis Hancock said he hadn't heard about any specifics, but said he'd been told that the deadline for bids was at the end of September, so he expected offers to start trickling in soon.
"It's not surprising," he said.
Hancock said he'd been told that Capstone hoped to close a deal by year's end, though Coleman said he knew of no firm timeframe. Wednesday's offer was a step in the right direction, the mayor said, but just a step.
"There's a lot of stuff that has to be done here," Hancock said.
Meanwhile, St. Louis County is moving ahead with plans for a $2.1 million study - announced earlier this year - on best ways to re-use the plant. They hope to turn it into the kind of alternative energy park now being proposed. It's the sort of thing that might best be able to replace the thousands of jobs lost when Chrysler shut down.
"This is the first proposal that we're aware of that would bring the kind of investment and job levels to this former Chrysler plant that we need there," Coleman said.
