Hazelwood, Missouri

and around Hazelwood as the area became corporate headquarters to aerospace juggernaut McDonnell Douglas. The industrious city hasn’t looked back since. “That resulted in a lot of our housing stock being built,” Zimmerman continues. “The capsule that went to the moon - that was built at the McDonnell Douglas facility right here, adjacent to Hazelwood, in unincorporated St. Louis County. Many Hazelwood residents worked on it.” McDonnell Douglas, along with the Boeing Company and the aerospace and defense units of Rockwell International, built all the major components of the Apollo spacecraft, as well as the giant Saturn V moon rocket used on most of the manned lunar missions. “You either worked at Ford, or you worked at McDonnell Douglas,” Zimmerman quips. From those two seeds, Hazelwood, today a town of just under 26,000 people, was able to prosper and expand into multiple industrial parks and facilities. “We’ve got a couple of redevelopment projects currently going on,” shares Ahlvin. “We’ve got Village Square, which is one of the main shopping centres in Hazelwood.” Conveniently situated at the entrance to the city, northwest of the intersection of I-270 and Lindbergh Blvd., the property was, during its heyday, the commercial heart of a quasi-downtown area for the residents of Hazelwood and North County. “It had a community pool, a grocery store, restaurants, a stationery store—everything you’d typically see back in the 1950s, before it all turned over to big box retailers,” adds Zimmerman. “Those were all right in Village Square.” “The new owners are undertaking a pretty big redevelopment of that property,” says Ahlvin. “They’re looking at turning Village Square into a mixed-use center, leasing retail, offices, and medical—destination-type uses that should revive the area for the city. It’s an ongoing project, but we’ve already completed parking lot HAZELWOOD , MI SSOUR I Community & Economic Development Coordinator, Becky Ahlvin