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Twenty-five years ago, fast-growing Monsanto Co. christened a new research campus in Chesterfield. On Monday, a reincarnation of the same company reclaimed the property for $435 million. Monsanto's plans to buy the Chesterfield Village Research Center from Pfizer Inc. helps ease a space crunch at the company's Creve Coeur headquarters and paves the way for the biotech giant to further expand its research and development arm, which will invest about $1 billion this fiscal year developing new corn, cotton and soybean seeds. "St. Louis is already a home to a large percentage of our R&D activity, and this allows us to consolidate our capabilities here and eventually expand them," Robb Fraley, Monsanto's chief technology officer, said in an interview. "That is a huge saving grace with the prospect of significant growth in the future from the Monsanto side of the ledger," said Dick Fleming, president of the St. Louis Regional Chamber and Growth Association. |
