Chesterfield Swaps Land with Town and Country, Creve Coeur

Three cities surrounding the new Highway 141 construction project between Ladue Road and Olive Boulevard are negotiating a land swap to streamline their city boundaries.

Just under 100 acres will be exchanged surrounding approximately two miles of highway (see the maps in the PDF portion of this article). Most parcels are narrow strips of land and none are occupied by businesses or residents. Actual ownership of the land will remain the same, they will merely be inside different city limits and then be patrolled by that city's police department and served by that city's fire and ambulance services.

According to Michael Geisel, Chesterfield’s director of planning, public works and parks, Chesterfield will give 42 acres to Town and Country and another 42 acres to Creve Coeur. In turn, Town and Country will give a different 23 acres to Chesterfield.

Geisel said they are primarily cleaning up the three cities boundaries where new Hwy 141 passes through Chesterfield, Town and Country, then north to Creve Coeur.

Prior to the construction, Hwy 141 north of  followed Woods Mill Road, a two lane county road built in the 1930s. The new six lane highway veers east about one-third of a mile into a formerly undeveloped area owned by a patchwork of entities, from private owners to St. Louis County. Some of the land was also right of ways for a large Ameren UE power line and an MSD sanitary sewer, according to Geisel.

Officials from all three cities want the new boundary to smoothly follow the eastern edge of Hwy 141. The current city limits cut a zig zag pattern following property lines. After the land swap, Hwy 141 will fall inside Chesterfield from just south of Ladue Road all the way north to Olive Boulevard.

If the lines are not moved, drivers heading north from Manchester Road will enter Town and Country, pass through Chesterfield, pop momentary back into Town and Country then return to Chesterfield. The highway does not currently run through Creve Coeur and the changes would not put the highway into Creve Coeur, but the changes would have the road then border Creve Coeur, just north of Town and Country.

The change in boundaries here are to simplify the city limits of Chesterfield and Creve Coure, which are needlessly complex, according to city officials.

Town and Country will still have jurisdiction on Hwy 141 south of Ladue Road to about Dutch Mill Drive, according to Captain Patrick Kranz of the . Dutch Mill Drive is located near

“It’s very confusing,” Kranz said of the current city limits. “It zigs in and out.”

Geisel said the changes are mostly to benefit emergency services who will no longer need to examine a map to determine which city should respond to accidents on the highway. For example, Town and Country’s city limits currently fall in the middle of the new intersection of Hwy 141 and Ladue Road, which construction has moved to the east and widened to accommodate more lanes.

Andrew Gates, a community relations specialist for the Missouri Departmen of Transportation, tells Patch this portion of Hwy 141 is scheduled for completion on July 14.

Geisel said he did not know when the city boundaries will be finalized, though he hopes the matter will be settled within six months.

“It’s already taken twice as long as I thought it would,” he said. He believes the three cities will be able to move their city limits without a need to go through the St. Louis Boundary Commission.