It had been awhile since I’d checked in at the site of the former River Roads Mall, and the contrast between 1962 and 2025 cannot be greater. But perhaps it also reflects the changing pattern of suburban shopping; large, anchor-based shopping centers are being demolished and replaced with single parcel stores, each with their own…
Tag: Crumby Run-Down Malls of St. Louis
Sears Demolished, Chesterfield Mall
The former Sears has been demolished at the Chesterfield Mall site, which culminates the clearing of the buildings for redevelopment. The former Macy’s and eventually reopened Dillard’s buildings will remain.
Theaters Demolished, Chesterfield Mall
The last expansion to Chesterfield Mall, the AMC theater with a food court, Borders and Cheesecake Factory, was demolished in the last couple of weeks.
Chesterfield Mall, Demolition, March 2025
Demolition is proceeding rapidly at Chesterfield Mall, and the target of finishing in May seems like it will be easily met. We last stopped by in December of last year and interior demolition was still occurring, and now the entire mall portion has been torn down, leaving only the anchors. Presumably the old movie theater…
The Crossings at Northwest, Former Northwest Plaza
I thought I would swing by the “Crossings at Northwest,” or what I called Zombie Northwest Plaza, which apparently was the largest outdoor mall in the United State when it opened in January 24, 1966. Supposedly. The last time I was by was back in 2017. The Famous Barr, designed by Raymond Loewy and William…
Stix, Baer and Fuller, Crestwood Plaza
I thought the former Stix, Baer & Fuller department store at Crestwood Plaza deserved its own post, considering its shear size and accompanying enclosed mall which attached to the strip mall to the west of the original development from 1957. Opening on January 23, 1967, the new department store represented a substantial addition to the…
Requiem for Shopping Malls?
The announcement that Macy’s will be closing the store at South County Center raised the specter that there will be another round of mall closures after an initial wave that struck the St. Louis region earlier this millennium. As Toby Weiss at B.E.L.T. St. Louis documented so well at Northland Shopping Center and River Roads…
Town and Country Mall
Tally ho! Just when I thought I knew of every defunct and demolished mall in the St. Louis region, life throws a curveball. I just learned about the existence of the Town and Country Mall, at the southeast corner of Woodson Road and Page Boulevard in Overland. Opening in November of 1960, two years before…
Chesterfield Mall, Under Demolition
While demolition officially commenced on October 15, exterior signs of the deconstruction of the almost fifty year old Chesterfield Mall have only just begun to show on the exterior. Completion is set for an ambitious deadline of April of 2025. Much of the material is marked for recycling, including grinding up the concrete, etc. Two…
Looking Back, Chesterfield Mall
Chesterfield Mall officially closed forever on August 31, and I was told by management that demolition will begin earlier than planned. The mall originally opened on September 1, 1976, so it made it 48 years. Back when it was built, the area was largely fields, as can be seen above and in an aerial photo…