CREVE COEUR, Mo. – A longtime campus for a St. Louis-based Fortune 500 company is seeing a change coming to west St. Louis County.

For decades, it was the home to Monsanto. But after the purchase by German-based Bayer AG, the sprawling west county campus was no longer in use or needed.

On Thursday, shovels stuck into dirt near the intersection of Olive and Lindbergh.

"This is the largest deal in Creve Coeur and really the whole area," Creve Coeur Mayor Robert Hoffman said. "Really, 96 acres and a billion dollars is a huge deal."

Located in the rolling hills of Creve Coeur on Bayer's West campus, Olia Village will be a live, work, play, and shop experience.

"The site has a lot of topography changes," Matt Pfund, project overview for Jack Matthews Development, said. "We had a lot of dirt to move. New sewers. The former campus was fed with private utilities. We're changing that to a public utility, so we're changing that to all public utilities as well."

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The $985 million project is expected to take eight years to complete, with the projected "walkable community" to begin opening in 2027. All in a part of west county, home to more agricultural science PhDs than any other location in the country.

"Twenty-five years ago is when I got my start on the Creve Coeur City Council," St. Louis County Executive Sam Page said. "They were just putting up the first development, the Danforth Plant Sciences, which is now the 39 North Development. So, it's going to be really neat to see how this comes online in the next five years. It's a really big crown jewel for Creve Coeur."

Jack Matthews Development also had to work with the City of St. Louis, which has water lines that come through the west county property.

"We really wanted to save the buildings that were here and came up with a plan to do that, and really the location is the key," Pfund said.