Kadean Finishes Its Third Building in Aviator Business Park on the Site of the Former Ford Motor Plant
Nearly 10 years to the day, when the last Ford Explorer rolled off the assembly line in Hazelwood, Fenton-based Kadean Construction has completed Aviator 7, a 535,500 square foot light industrial facility forPanattoni Development.
Aviator 7 is one of six massive buildings planned for the expansiveAviator Business Park, located in Hazelwood, MO, about a mile north of Lambert-St. Louis International, on the site of the old Ford Motor Co. plant that closed on March 8, 2006. Another half-dozen smaller commercial facilities also will be located in the business park, which covers 155 acres.
“In working with Panattoni Development, we constructed Aviator 7, which is ideal for light industrial and commercial use,” said John Piedimonte, vice president of Kadean Construction. “We’re very proud of the quality and workmanship that went into this tremendous building, which has 12.3 acres under one roof.”
Aviator 7’s first tenant is Chesterfield-based Silgan Plastics, which leases 327,750 sq. ft. for production, warehousing and mechanical space, and another 7,500 sq. ft. area for a quality control lab, offices, training and conference rooms, a cafeteria, and other uses. Silgan’s portion of the building also has six hydraulic docks (leveler systems) and seven standard docks.
Silgan Plastics is a leading manufacturer of plastic containers in North America for a variety of industries, including personal care, food, health care, household, and industrial chemical sectors.
It leases nearly two-thirds of Aviator 7, and eventually plans to employ as many as 120 men and women at the facility, said Silgan Plastics President Jay Martin.
In late January, St. Louis-based Weekends Only Furniture and Mattress Co. also opened a huge distribution center in an adjoining 133,500 sq. ft. space with 40-foot ceilings and 22 loading docks.
It will serve as the main distribution center for Weekends Only’s five stores in the greater St. Louis area and another in Indianapolis, said Dionne Dumitru, the company’s chief operating officer.
“When the new offices are completed, our Distribution Center will support over 60 employees in warehouse distribution, home delivery, call center and furniture repair functions,” she said. “We took this opportunity to bring all of our supply chain and service operations into a single facility, so that we will be able to meet our customers’ needs seamlessly while saving them money – which is our company’s mission.”
The new distribution center will be used to keep the Weekends Only stores fully stocked with a wide array of furniture for retail sales. Customers also will be able to pick-up purchased furniture at the Aviator 7 building, if a local store is out of a specific item.
The company also has moved its Repair Center to the new facility and plans to relocate its Quality Care Center to the Hazelwood facility later this month after completing construction on adjoining offices. Both operations have been based in nearby Bridgeton.
Privately-owned International Food Products was the first tenant in the business park, and occupies a 227,500 square foot production facility also built by Kadean Construction, adjacent to Aviator 7.
With operations throughout the United States, IFP manufactures custom formulations for the food, beverage and dairy industries throughout the U.S., Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean.
“Panattoni Development has done a great job with this site, and we’re excited about the future of Aviator Business Park, where we’ve now built Aviator 3, 4, and 7,” Piedimonte said. “But, we construct more than quality buildings.
“We enable jobs to flourish and dreams to come alive, and that’s our goal. We want our customers and their tenants to succeed and to make a real difference, and we see it happening here,” he said.
Kadean Construction is a St. Louis-area based construction company that specializes in pre-construction, design-build, construction management, and general contracting at the regional national level.