Tony Messenger | Post-Dispatch
Metro columnist
Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!
Your notification has been saved.
There was a problem saving your notification.
{{description}}
Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
Followed notifications
Please log in to use this feature
Log In
Don’t have an account? Sign Up Today
CHESTERFIELD — Early last year, Bob Nation came across news that didn’t pass his smell test.
Nation was mayor of Chesterfield at the time, and he and the city council were reviewing the annual goals of City Manager Mike Geisel. One of them was to complete the purchase of an office building near the city’s Central Park.
Nation had heard nothing of the potential purchase of the Mass Mutual office building. It didn’t make sense to him.
“For the mayor to not even be aware of that is completely inappropriate,” Nation told me in a recent interview.
Nation’s tenure as mayor ended in April. But he and other critics of the purchase — which was approved by the council in August — are putting on a full-court press before the deal is finalized, trying to convince council members to change their minds. Nation and others believe the purchase would be a big mistake.
There are several reasons the critics point to. Start with the $17.3 million price tag, which is $3 million more than the most recent appraisal. There are questions about the stated needs — a parking garage and space to expand city offices. There are questions about whether the city should be in the commercial real estate business.
Among the most important arguments: the plans have been brewing longer than most folks in Chesterfield realize, leaving a dark cloud of suspicion.
“It looks to me like they’re ramrodding it through,” says Jim Regna, a Chesterfield resident and retired banking executive.
He started paying attention to city council actions during the process to create a tax increment finance district, which will provide incentives for the redevelopment of the Chesterfield Mall site.
“They’re not being transparent with the citizens of Chesterfield,” Regna says.
That’s been true since he was the mayor, Nation said. The council started discussing the purchase of the building and its parking garage in closed sessions last summer, Nation said. Among the biggest cheerleaders was Councilman Dan Hurt, who is now the mayor.
Nation didn’t believe the city needed to buy a Class A office building. The owners weren’t actually marketing it for sale. The initial appraisal seemed too high.
In January 2025, Nation raised another objection. In an email to city attorney Chris Graville, Nation said discussions about the purchase shouldn’t be held behind closed doors. Missouri’s Sunshine Law includes an exception for some real estate matters. That allows city councils in some circumstances to discuss the issues behind closed doors, particularly when “public knowledge of the transaction might adversely affect the legal consideration thereof.”
In this case, the only potential buyer of the building, Nation said, was the city. Public discussions wouldn’t change that. He told Graville and the council he wanted the discussions to take place in open session. The attorney disagreed.
At that point, discussions of the potential purchase slowed down until Nation was out of office and Hurt took over as mayor in April.
“They were slow-rolling me,” Nation said. “Nothing happened until I was out of office.”
Hurt did not return calls seeking comment.
It wasn’t until recently that Nation realized the discussions had been going on “for some time.” That’s what a memo written by Giesel on July 13, 2023, indicates. The memo outlines a meeting between multiple city officials and the building’s owners that took place the day before. The owners “expressed concern about confidentiality,” the memo says, in fear that tenants would leave after hearing about a potential sale to the city.
“They had been talking about this for more than a year, and I had no knowledge of it,” Nation said.
The secrecy is one reason why a watchdog group called the Holy Joe Society sent a letter to city leaders warning of potential legal action if the purchase goes through.
The “process by which the acquisition was approved and by which funding is to be accomplished has been opaque, and there seem to have been violations of the Missouri Sunshine Law,” says the Sept. 15 letter from Robert Dierker, a former circuit court judge in the city of St. Louis.
There is still time to stop the sale, says Kenny Kott, a Chesterfield resident who once managed commercial real estate. He has sent a series of letters to council members, urging them to look more carefully at the idea of turning themselves into commercial real estate managers at a time when the market “is soft.”
“There is no financial benefit to the city whatsoever,” Kott says. “Hopefully we can get them to stop before it’s too late.”
Be the first to know
Get local news delivered to your inbox!
* I understand and agree that registration on or use of this site constitutes agreement to its user agreement and privacy policy.
Tony Messenger | Post-Dispatch
Metro columnist
Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily!
Your notification has been saved.
There was a problem saving your notification.
{{description}}
Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items.
Followed notifications
Please log in to use this feature
Log In
Don’t have an account? Sign Up Today