ST. LOUIS – The governor and elected officials from the St. Louis area will hold a public meeting to show their support for a proposed National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) site Thursday evening.
While the meeting will largely entail the Army Corps of Engineers’ Draft Environmental Impact Study of the proposed facility on the expected site, a 99-acre parcel of land at the intersection of Jefferson and Cass in North St. Louis, those speaking about the project will also use the opportunity to continue championing it to the general public.
Gov. Jay Nixon believes the NGA has a perfect spot for the facility in St. Louis.
“Working closely with local elected officials and community leaders, we have coalesced around the north St. Louis site and put together a proposal that meets all of NGA’s criteria,” Gov. Jay Nixon said in a statement. “Today, NGA has a unique opportunity to draw on the tremendous assets of this great city, while revitalizing a community with economic challenges. St. Louis has the land, the infrastructure, the amenities and the highly-skilled workforce NGA needs to continue carrying out its vital mission.”
Nixon, St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay, state Sen. Jamilah Nasheed, St. Louis County Executive Steve Stenger, and Congressman Lacy Clay will be in attendance at the meeting.
The meeting comes the same day that Nixon, Slay, Clay, and Executive Director of the St. Louis Development Corporation Otis Williams released a video explaining how the project would benefit the city and how the city would make the facility a success.
The construction of the new facility is estimated to cost $1.6 billion, and it is expected to have a positive economic impact on the region. The campus is designed to replace the NGA’s current, aging facility in downtown St. Louis. Three of the four proposed sites for the new facility are in Missouri, but elected officials from Illinois have been vying to move the facility, and its 3,100 jobs, to an area just outside Scott Air Force Base across state lines.
Republicans and Democrats in Missouri have united on this issue, actively fighting to keep the NGA’s largest campus outside the main facility in Springfield, Virginia through extensive letter writing campaigns and other lobbying efforts.
However, those from St. Louis have been most vocal.
“When I was a young man; I used to visit my great-grandmother who lived near the proposed new site for NGA,” Clay said in a statement. “It was a vibrant neighborhood, every home was full, every corner had a store, and we had a real sense of community.
“That’s not the way it is today… but if we win this competition, we can return the Northside to a vibrant center of jobs, new housing, new economic development and reconnect it to the larger community as a place of pride and accomplishment.”
