The renovated office building at 2351 Market St. in St. Louis's Downtown West neighborhood had long lacked a marquee tenant to occupy much of its 84,370 square feet. In real estate parlance it was a "white box," a minimally finished space primed for someone to come and make it their own.
That finally happened when Ponce Health Sciences University, a private nonprofit institution in Puerto Rico, decided to open a satellite campus in the city and agreed to lease 56,743 square feet, closing a transaction that earned the deal a 2023 CoStar Impact Award, as judged by real estate professionals familiar with the market.
The new campus offers graduate degrees in medical sciences and clinical psychology as part of a program designed to create career opportunities for students from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds.
"The addition of Ponce Health Services University's medical training for minority students and the occupancy of a large block of office space in Downtown West will have longtime ripple effects for St. Louis through its citizens, institutions, and neighborhoods," wrote Tom Ray, first vice president for CBRE in St. Louis and an Impact Award judge.
About the property: The campus includes classrooms, lecture halls, labs, open study space, a recreational area, a library and more. It sits on the new Brickline Greenway, a regional bikeway connecting many underserved neighborhoods to the more developed ones.
What the judges said: "Not only is the tenant filling a long-vacant building, but Ponce Health Sciences University will also be an additive use for the surrounding neighborhood, as well as for the St. Louis region as a whole. This lease materializing will also bring opportunity for minority students to pursue careers in the medical field, who will, hopefully, decide to make St. Louis their permanent home," wrote Rachel Siegert, associate director of commercial real estate for Washington University's office of real estate.
They made it happen: The property owner is Green Street Real Estate Ventures. Cushman & Wakefield Senior Director John Warren represented Ponce Health Services University.
