Passion Projects

The New $23 million “Factory” Opens in Chesterfield Valley to Rave Reviews

Written by Craig Kaminer / Photos by James Cooke

In the music world, few cities have as many outstanding performance venues as St. Louis. Artists regularly praise St. Louis from the stages of Jazz St. Louis, The Touhill, The Sheldon, The Pageant, Powell Hall, The Stifel, The Muny, The Fox...the list goes on. Each venue surprisingly fits a unique niche for music genre, audience size, acoustics, technical capabilities, and location. And just when you thought St. Louis didn’t have room or need for another, Michael Staenberg and Steve Schankman just opened The Factory in Chesterfield Valley to offer what no one else has offered before.

You can’t have too many business conversations in St. Louis where the names Michael Staenberg and Steve Schankman won’t come up or go many places where their names don’t appear on a building or piece of public art. Each has had a brilliant career in their chosen fields of real estate development and entertainment respectively, and while they have been longtime friends, until now their spheres of business influence have never really overlapped.

But as luck would have it for St. Louis, Staenberg had an idea for how to transform the former Taubman Prestige Outlets in Chesterfield Valley, across from Chesterfield Commons which he developed in 1997, into a regional entertainment district. Adding to the success of Top Golf and Main Event off Interstate 64-U.S. 40 just east of Boone’s Crossing, Staenberg envisioned bringing a multi-use performance venue to what is the emerging demographic center of St. Louis. With more than 89,000 cars passing by the site daily, Staenberg was convinced this would be the perfect spot for live entertainment, not to mention the best way to draw thousands of people to the area for shopping, dining, and fun.

Schankman admits when he and Staenberg first talked about this idea, he wasn’t sold. But over time, Schankman realized its location, highway access, proximity to pre-and post-event nightlife, hotels, a private airport, and Gateway Digital Studios were the components of a seriously successful entertainment operation. So Staenberg jumped on a plane with Brian Carp, formerly with the 11-location House of Blues live entertainment venue chain and now Chief Operating Officer of The Factory, looking at the latest and greatest venues in the country to figure out what would work best in St. Louis. They all collaborated on the business plan, the design, and technical requirements, and soon had a roadmap for something that would help attract more nationally touring shows to St. Louis.

When the two men met again, Staenberg says he told Schankman, “If I’m going to do this, I’m going to build the best thing I can build. I want to build things architecturally that are timeless. I want to make something that is cool, functional, and that’s different from anything else out there. I said, ‘Where are the best green rooms?’ When we found them I said, ‘Brian, copy those green rooms.’ Then we met with the top artists’ production managers and asked, ‘What do you like? What don’t you like?’ So we built three truck docks which makes loading in and out much easier. We built a party area so when it’s nice weather guests can just hang out like at Ballpark Village. We also have an outdoor venue planned for smaller acts.”

Schankman chimes in proudly, “Every concertgoer and performer will tell you The Factory has the best sound they’ve ever heard in the United States. As a performer myself, I wanted to create a place where everyone wants to play. From the stage, you can’t see the recessed bars on both sides so people can get drinks without distracting the performers. And that amazing, galactic chandelier was commissioned from the best in the business. We carefully thought through everything from the stage, sound and lights, restrooms, free parking, catering, restaurants, bars, and shopping. Michael is a lover of art, so he commissioned artists to fill the space. And we’re not done.”

Schankman continues, “We don’t want to use The Factory just for music. What about a play? What if we want to do a comedy show? What else do we want to do? If we have an event, a gala, a banquet...what aren’t we going to do?”

When asked whether St. Louis needed another performance venue, Schankman explained, “When we were doing our due diligence to see if this was a feasible concept to create something with more than 2,000 tickets, we learned there really wasn’t a venue that didn’t have fixed seats. The Stifel has fixed seats. The Fox has fixed seats. So bands were jumping from The Pageant to filling half the house at other venues with 5,000-6,000 person capacity. And a lot of bands were just skipping the market because there wasn’t availability at The Stifel and The Fox because of their Broadway schedules and The Pageant was booked. Our plan isn’t to take shows from the other venues. Our plan is to create a new environment for bands to be able to have another opportunity to play in our market. And I think that’s really what distinguishes us... the flexibility that we have with the flat floor for dancing and moving around and doing the types of things that not only the fans want, but that the bands will look for in the future.”

From Staenberg’s retail standpoint, “There’s $800 million of sales at Chesterfield Commons. If people are coming here, they’re going to say, ‘there’s this store across the way or restaurant I want to go to.’ This is a win-win for everyone. And one of the things that concert-goers don’t often see is the type of parking we have. Nobody in town has this type of parking. And nobody will have this kind of easy access and security. The Chesterfield police are our partners. So you want to go to a concert at The Factory? You don’t have to worry about getting your food, traffic, parking, or security.”

Initially, there will be four restaurants that anchor The District of which The Factory is the live music element. There also will be a gathering area in between for local artists and outdoor events. “We can show a football game. We can show a baseball game. It’s a cross between Ballpark Village and the Streets of St. Charles,” says Schankman. Eventually, Staenberg hopes to open 10 restaurants.

Despite the current shortage of staff in the service and hospitality industries locally and nationally, Schankman says they found many people available on a full-time and part-time basis from all different parts of the industry for The Factory. “That has been a terrific way for us to build our team,” he adds. “A lot of those people have deep roots in St. Louis and had connections with people that they’ve worked with in the hospitality industry. We have built some great partnerships with companies like Securitas for security and Logic Systems for our lights, sound, and engineers for the shows. We have in-house production people who are helping with our stage setup, and we are utilizing Klancy to help us with stagehands. We will have about 70 people at a sold-out show, working for us here at the venue, in addition to the part-time labor and third-party groups that will be supporting them.”

Other than one out-of-town specialist Abe Sustaita who is a well-known architect of music venues, all of the suppliers are local. “Royal Banks is our lender. Keystone is our contractor. George Stock from Chesterfield was our engineer. Traffic engineering was done by Julie Nolfo,” Staenberg said, “I wanted to use local people.”

According to Schankman, “When COVID happened 18 months ago, 43,000 shows were canceled nationally. That would have been right at the end of March 2020. So, the concert business was gone overnight. And what we thought during that period of time is that it would come back within two months. Obviously, two months became a year and it’s just now coming back. And what’s happened is instead of a little comeback, it’s like a fire hose compared to a garden hose. Everybody’s out on tour. Live Nation, AEG, Mammoth...everybody’s booking shows, getting replayed shows that are supposed to go this year. Some have moved to next year. The business has come back with a huge number of shows everywhere. There are 30-35% more shows on sale right now than during normal time in the middle of July.”

To say Staenberg and Schankman have a Midas touch is an understatement. The pandemic could have killed many other ventures, but it gave these two friends the time, talent, and resources to build a world-class venue with a strong leadership team and come online just as business resumes. And for St. Louis, we’re lucky it’s in our backyard. Literally.