Spotted by the Airport: Lots of Vacant Warehouses

Supporters of the Aerotropolis proposal say that warehouses are necessary to expand Lambert’s cargo capacity, and that state subsidies are necessary to build the warehouses.

Audrey Spalding, Tom Duda, and I spent yesterday afternoon driving around the area north of Lambert airport. We spotted quite a high number of empty warehouses. 

However, given the number of vacant warehouses and “Will build to suit” signs on empty lots, it seems to me that there is already a lot of capacity. I wonder: Where’s the demand for warehouses? If the ones that are currently near the airport are empty, why do legislators want us to spend $300 million on more of them?

It reminded me of downtown Saint Louis, actually — despite all of the “space available” signs on the office buildings, government officials still want to subsidize new construction downtown.

We’ll release a video soon about our trip, where we’ll talk more about this issue. We’ll try to get it edited and uploaded to the blog as soon as possible. Stay tuned to the Show-Me Institute!