Drury’s plans for Tindle Mills site slow to progress

In July 2005, ADM Alliance Nutrition Inc. announced it was donating to Drury its Tindle Mills property, 701 E. Chestnut St., valued at $10 million. ADM Alliance Nutrition made the gift chiefly because it is consolidating operations at its 1300 W. Locust St. plant.

ADM Alliance Nutrition was slated to move from Chestnut Street this year, but that has been pushed back through at least 2008, said Ken Johnson, vice president of administration for Drury.

As a result, Drury is leasing the land back to ADM Alliance Nutrition. Johnson wouldn’t disclose the lease amount, though he said it’s enough to cover Drury’s cost of ownership. The two sides are currently negotiating a lease extension into 2008 or 2009.

Johnson wouldn’t speculate why the relocation has stalled. Calls to public relations for ADM Alliance Nutrition’s parent company, Archer Daniels Midland, were not returned by press time.

Active discussion of what to do with the donated land – about three acres of which is floodplain – have been shelved. Drury officials haven’t moved past six basic strategies that were announced in early 2006, which include options for use by Drury and the public. The preliminary redevelopment ideas also considered razing some or all of the site’s century-old mills.

Johnson estimated five years could pass before a plan is decided upon. Five more years could pass before redevelopment begins, he said.

However, Drury has taken some small steps forward. Between Central and Brower streets in the northern half of the donated property, Drury has converted a former 10,000-square-foot Tindle Mills retail store into an indoor baseball training facility. Also, the university is selling equipment from a former liquid feed plant, which it will likely tear down within two years, Johnson said.

Any plan will probably include greenspace and greenway trails, eventually connecting to Jordan Valley Park under Chestnut Expressway. That delights Terry Whaley, executive director of Ozark Greenways.

Whaley said he’s OK with the land’s slow conversion.

“It’s nothing that has to happen today,” he said. “It’s not low-hanging fruit, but it’s not high-hanging fruit – it’s kind of somewhere in the middle of the tree.”[[In-content Ad]]