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ST. LOUIS – Longtime St. Louis area company Emerson announces that it is selling its headquarters in Ferguson.

The move is raising big questions about Emerson’s future in the St. Louis region.

Nearly 1,300 people work at the Emerson headquarters on West Florissant, at least for now. The headquarters announcement is part of a massive deal with a private equity firm valued at $14 billion.

A section of a release from Emerson reads, “As part of the transaction, Emerson will be right sizing its corporate and platform cost structure and will sell ownership of its St. Louis, Missouri campus to the joint venture. Emerson will enter a three-year lease on the headquarters, with an option to extend a further two years. During that time, Emerson will undertake a comprehensive assessment of potential headquarters locations.”

The changes to the headquarters were revealed in Emerson’s announcement that the company is selling its majority stake in its climate technologies business to the private equity firm Blackstone.

An Emerson spokesperson told us that Emerson will consider the St. Louis area in its search for a new headquarters.

We talked with Nathan Rubbelke, the Innovation Editor for the St. Louis Business Journal, about the move to sell the Ferguson headquarters.

“They had this new CEO come in last year, said Rubbelke.” “It’s really him putting his imprint on the company in many ways. They say it’s a team effort, and they’ve done this as a team, but this is something they’ve been working towards for 18 months. It’s not like they woke up yesterday and said hey, let’s sell this off, or sell the headquarters. The headquarters thing was certainly a surprise.”

As for how the sale will impact current Emerson employees in St. Louis, the Emerson spokesperson said that Emerson officials are very early in evaluating the company structure and for now it’s business as usual.

Jason Hall, the CEO of Greater St. Louis Inc., shared that he has already talked with Emerson’s CEO trying to convince him that the St. Louis metro continues to be the best location for Emerson’s future.