Business View Magazine | April 2020

250 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE APRIL 2020 that call Hazelwood home include the American Red Cross, Bunzl, International Foods, Quiet Logistics, and Siligan Plastics. “Then there’s Weekends Only, which is a local furniture chain,” Ahlvin continues. “Wayfair also has a facility here.” “24/7 Wine and Liquor,” adds Zimmerman. “They’re growing into the region. I believe they’re from California.” “They market themselves as the Amazon of wine,” Ahlvin recalls. “They’ve taken up a pretty good square footage, about 95,000,” says Zimmerman. “You can sip your wine as you’re picking up your Amazon package.” “It doesn’t quite work that way,” Ahlvin counters. “I’ve asked.” Hazelwood also boasts a 1.3 million-square- foot outlet mall that’s being redeveloped with the help of Big Sports Properties. “It’s a public/ private partnership,” says Ahlvin. “They’re hoping to turn it into what they’re calling the POWERplex—a large youth sports recreation destination. It’s going to have volleyball, beach volleyball, pickleball, basketball, baseball, and softball venues, along with several eateries and hotels that will get built up around the complex.” While the city has been both visionary and supportive in getting these developments underway, those projects have increasingly featured three major and somewhat interconnected shortfalls: traffic, inadequate city planning, and low housing stock. “We have terrible traffic backups,” admits Zimmerman. “We have relatively little housing compared to our neighbors. We’ve got industry instead of stores. Basically, our housing stock supports the industry. We’re part of somebody else’s circle, if you get what I’m saying. Our residents go into other towns—Florissant to the north, Bridgeton and Maryland Heights to the south—to go grocery shopping, restaurant dining, or to Wal- Mart. It’s funny because you open a newspaper and read ‘Oh, Florissant is getting a (insert big- name chain store).’ Then, the following week, Bridgeton’s getting the exact same thing. We’ve