Serco Sets Up Shop with 90 KSF Office Lease in Suburban St. Louis

By Barbra Murray, Contributing Editor

The 343,000-square-foot multi-use office building at 100 Mall Parkway in Wentzville, Mo., just landed a 90,000-square-foot tenant. Serco Inc., armed with a $1.2 billion government contract to provide processing services for the implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, recently signed a five-year lease in the suburban St. Louis building that formerly housed the headquarters of the now-defunct vehicle contracts seller U.S. Fidelis.

Cassidy Turley orchestrated the lease transaction on behalf of the landlord, Mepco Finance Corp.

“Serco was looking for space that was ready-to-go, and only a handful of buildings could accommodate their needs,” Keith Schneider, senior vice president and principal with Cassidy Turley, told Commercial Property Executive. “It was the right building, the right space and the right labor force that they needed.”

Commercial real estate services firm Jones Lang LaSalle represented Serco, a provider of professional, technology, and management services, in the lease transaction, which was executed in short order.

Time was of the essence for Serco, as the company needed to hire 600 new employees to begin working November 1. Negotiations for space at 100 Mall, built in 1983 and extensively renovated in 2006, commenced August 1 and wrapped up just three weeks later.

Serco’s neighbors at 100 Mall will include Element Church, which occupies approximately 55,600 square feet, and Roberts Marketing Group, which staked a claim to 15,000 square feet in the building for its national headquarters in 2012. Not that Serco’s commitment is in place, the building is 47 percent leased, with the remaining vacant space sitting unfinished.