With the assistance and encouragement of many great partners and associates, Paul McKee has not only grown successful entrepreneurial businesses and passed them onto the next generation, but also assisted in real job growth in St. Louis.
As chairman of M Property Services (MPS), McKee has helped bring in more than 35,000 jobs as well as much-needed healthcare services to the region. Through it all, community has been at the core of his focus.
After graduating from Washington University as a civil/environmental engineer, McKee went to work at Tarlton Contracting, where he built a 13-year career. Then, in 1979, he co-founded the Paric Corp, a design/build construction firm. From there, he helped establish Environmental Management Corp (EMC), a company that operated and managed water and wastewater plants in more than 60 cities.
Next, in 1989, McKee established McEagle Development, which eventually became MPS, a full-service real estate development organization. Since its inception, MPS has provided development assistance for over 3,600 acres and over 3.5 million square feet of commercial and residential space.
MPS began WingHaven in O’Fallon, Missouri, a 1,200-acre mixed-use project that became home to the operations headquarters for Mastercard International. MPS then partnered with Bob Clark of CRG to develop the 550-acre NorthPark Logistic Center, which is the home of Express Scripts. In 2002, he began purchasing land in north St. Louis which today is the 1,500-acre development called NorthSide Regeneration, home to NGA West’s (National Geospatial Agency) $1.75 billion project.
Jobwise that’s more than 8,000 employed in WingHaven, 9,000 new jobs in NorthPark and presently over 5,000 jobs in NorthSide Regeneration, projected to reach 15,000 over the next eight years!
“MPS’ strategy has always been to ‘regenerate community,’ and our pathway has been through job growth,” McKee said.
McKee, as chairman of MPS, is developing the Ponce Health Sciences University (PHSU) Academic Building in Ponce, Puerto Rico, and is also assisting the PHSU expansion to St. Louis within the NorthSide Regeneration Project. PHSU St. Louis will lead to the first doctors graduating in 2024-25, with the goal of recruiting doctors to stay within the north St. Louis community and provide much-needed healthcare resources.
McKee is also one of the founding board members of the soon-to-open Homer G. Phillips Memorial Hospital (HGPMH), the only hospital to locate in north St. Louis in over 50 years. HGPMH is within NorthSide Regeneration and on the same academic healthcare campus as PHSU. HGPMH will open for business in spring of 2023.
Of all the accomplishments above, McKee says he is most proud of his faith and family, especially his 56-year marriage to Midge and his wonderful children and grandchildren. He said, “They’ve all been raised in the tradition of fierce independence under the phrase, ‘Eagles don’t flock, for they fly high and independent.’”
