Hot property: Oak Hill II, St. Louis Park

Oak Hill II 3340 Republic Av., St. Louis Park

Type: Office Size: 21,432 square feet Developer: Anderson-KM Builders

A St. Louis Park development firm is set to develop its own new headquarters building after receiving a city subsidy to set up shop at Hwy. 7 and Louisiana Avenue.

Anderson-KM Builders received unanimous approval from the St. Louis Park City Council last month for $300,000 in tax increment financing assistance to help cover the costs of building on a lot in the reclaimed former Reilly Tar & Chemical Co. Superfund site.

The 80-acre site was used to produce creosote, mainly used to coat railroad ties, from 1917 to 1972. Wastes from the operations were pumped into a network of ditches and a nearby wetland. Contaminants from the plant were found to have spread to underground aquifers.

Since then, billions of gallons of water have been pumped from the aquifers and treated with special filtering equipment.

Anderson Builders, which has been based in St. Louis Park since 1999, previously built the Oak Hill office building at 3501 Louisiana Avenue within the Superfund area and acquired the nearby second site at 3340 Republic Avenue in 2008.

Now the company, which merged with KM Building Co. in July, is ready to try again. This time it is proposing Oak Hill II, a 21,432-square-foot facility that would house a new headquarters for the merged development firm, now known as Anderson-KM Builders.

Under plans submitted to the city, the company would occupy about half of the structure with the remaining space to be leased to one or more office tenants, perhaps targeting medical users wishing to be near Methodist Hospital.

A call for comment to Anderson-KM Builders officials wasn't returned.

A timetable cited by city officials indicated the company proposes to get the project underway in March and have it completed by the end of the year.