This Week: ICL’s Half-Billion-Dollar Expansion in North St. Louis Creating Jobs, 2024 STLMade Campaign Encourages the Metro to Love Local, and More
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ICL’s Half-Billion-Dollar Expansion in North St. Louis Creating 150+ Jobs
ICL Group, a leading global specialty minerals company, announced this week that its planned expansion into the North American battery materials market will be built in north St. Louis City. The company is investing approximately a half-billion dollars and creating more than 150 jobs to build a large-scale commercial production plant that will manufacture the active material destined for the energy storage and electric vehicle end-markets. ICL Group will also establish a supporting nitrogen plant.
“This next phase of ICL’s expansion in St. Louis adds to its already robust presence in the metro,” said Maggie Kost, Chief Business Attraction Officer for Greater St. Louis, Inc., which worked alongside partners Missouri Department of Economic Development, St. Louis Development Corporation, and Ameren Missouri to support ICL’s expansion. “Its commitment of more than a half-billion dollars here, home to its North American headquarters, will not just grow high-quality jobs but expand the depth and breadth of our manufacturing capacities and grow key industry sectors in the process.”
Ameren Illinois Breaks Ground with New Solar Farm in East St. Louis
A 3,000-panel solar farm in East St. Louis will power 650 homes in the region. The Ameren Illinois renewable energy project is one of the first approved under Illinois’ Climate and Equitable Jobs Act. “Many solar projects that we see are in farm fields or throughout the county in rural areas,” said Mark Kern, St. Clair County Board Chairman. “But it is intentional that Ameren came to the City of Champions, a city of firsts and a city that now is the proving ground for Ameren to be able to build these facilities inother communities.” Ameren Corporation is an executive-level member of the GSL Chair's Council.
Advantage Solutions Gives Urban League Program a $500K Boost
St. Louis’ newest Fortune 1000 company is already impacting the community. Advantage Solutions, an executive-level member of the GSL Chair’s Council, will invest a half-million dollars into Save Our Sisters, a women’s empowerment program of the Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis, a member of the GSL Investor Council. “Economic mobility is in our company, but also we can support it in the communities where we live, operate, and work,” said CEO Dave Peacock.
Gateway Arch Park Foundation has released a Request for Proposals for the former Millennium Hotel site. Submissions are due Jan. 13, 2025. See the RFP.
2024 STLMade Campaign Encourages the Metro to Love Local
In advance of the upcoming holiday season, Greater St. Louis, Inc. — through its STLMade initiative — has kicked off its 2024 Love Local campaign to promote shopping at local small businesses throughout the St. Louis metro. The campaign, which runs through the weekend of Small Business Saturday, includes paid broadcast media, social media, outdoor, and print advertising.
“The goal of Love Local is to rally the support and dollars of everyone in our community behind our small businesses and showcase the role we all play in growing St. Louis,” said Jason Hall, CEO of Greater St. Louis, Inc. “Every dollar someone spends at a small business in their community not only helps that business grow, it also helps that business support local parks, youth sports teams, and any number of initiatives and organizations in their community that strengthen the very fabric of our region.
“We want to make sure people across the 15-county bi-state St. Louis metro know that when we spend here, it stays here.”
St. Louis biotech startup Varro Life Sciences announced recently that it’s making its pathogen detection technologies open source. The move could transform the way public health officials handle pandemic responses around the world and allow innovators to ideate on the technologies — all while showing off why St. Louis is a place that can turn big ideas into reality.
A vaccine developed at Washington University in St. Louis — an executive-level member of the GSL Chair’s Council — will help people battling triple-negative breast cancer, significantly diminishing the cancer’s chance of returning. Groundbreaking research like this advances public health as well as St. Louis’ reputation as a hub for science and technology.
Forbes: For All It Offers, St. Louis Is Undervalued
Forbes recently revisited St. Louis’ role in shaping the United States, and how the city’s position as the “Gateway to the West” continues to shape the city today. Calling St. Louis “underappreciated,” the piece extols its food, music, art, neighborhoods, and more.
“A visit to St. Louis today offers the chance to revisit [transformative] eras in American history, and to see how its food, art, and music scenes have been shaped by influences from the south, arriving slowly but surely on the riverboats.”
L-R: Dr. Linda Ogbah Faas, Marvin Steele, and Arinola Solanke
African and Heartland Black Chambers Partner for Economic Growth
A new collaboration between the St. Louis African Chamber of Commerce and the Heartland St. Louis Black Chamber of Commerce aims to strengthen and empower the communities they serve through shared resources, mentorship, and economic development. The “We Are One” initiative leverages shared resources to uplift Black-owned businesses and foster economic resilience.
Advance STL Brings Leaders Together to Discuss Regional Collaboration
GSL CEO Jason Hall joined leaders from around the metro for a conversation about regional collaboration, part of the Advance STL series from the St. Louis Business Journal. The morning’s panel also included Steve Ehlmann, St. Charles County Executive; Megan Green, President of the St. Louis Board of Aldermen; and Michael McMillan, President and CEO of the Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis.
With his bootcamp, Mvstercamp, St. Louis artist, producer, and songwriter Mvstermind is elevating creativity and collaboration — and the city’s music scene.
