The fight to save a dying mall
ST. ANN — She had to take a photo. Too shocking not to.
Pat Sarantites had just walked down a nearly empty wing of the Northwest Plaza mall. Eighteen vacant storefronts in a row. Window after window covered by the black plastic veil of retail mourning. The scene gave her chills. She wanted a photo to show others who, like her, remembered when this place bustled as the region’s premier mall. As Dionne Warwick’s "Walk On By" poured from the mall speakers, Sarantites pulled a digital camera from her purse.
"It’s desolate. It’s spooky. It’s like science fiction," said Sarantites, 65, who drove from University City to shop at the Sears here a few days before Thanksgiving. "It is unbelievable."
Northwest Plaza once was billed as the world’s largest shopping center. It is the region’s largest mall. More than 1.7 million square feet. An Edward Jones Dome worth of shopping. It opened in the mid-1960s as an outdoor mall with gardens and sculptured water fountains. The region’s only mall with four department store anchors. It went indoors in 1989 under a massive new canopy. Sales boomed.
But in recent years, Northwest Plaza has slipped. Once home to 210 stores, there are now fewer than 40. One of its biggest tenants, Steve & Barry’s clothing, closed two weeks ago. And next month, another major tenant, Dillard’s, plans to shutter.
Across the nation, the golden era of the massive shopping mall seems to be dimming. And in the St. Louis region, no mall represents that once-proud time better than Northwest Plaza.
QUIZ: Try your hand at our interactive mall quiz Get more business news, blogs and opinionBut this is the mall that refuses to die. Dismissed before, each time it has turned the corner. Reborn. And the mall is trying again — a reinvention other area malls hope to follow.
But the challenges facing indoor malls are huge. The economy is faltering. Shopping habits are changing. Outdoor "lifestyle centers" with a cityscape feel are the trend. Or big box stores create their own miniature malls around them.
Last year, a new indoor mall did not open anywhere in the country for the first time in a half-century. In 2006, just one mall opened. That is a steep drop from the mid-1990s when malls opened at a rate of 140 a year, according to Georgia Tech professor Ellen Dunham-Jones, co-author of the new book "Retrofitting Suburbia."
Retail analysts warn some big malls could fail, going the way of the vanished River Roads Mall in Jennings and the silent St. Louis Centre in downtown St. Louis. Or Northland Plaza, also in Jennings, which was torn down and rebuilt as a neighborhood strip mall.
Some malls in St. Louis appear to be holding their own — the Galleria, Plaza Frontenac, South County Center, West County Center.
But others are plainly struggling, such as Jamestown Mall, Crestwood Court and Northwest Plaza. These malls have suffered from changing demographics, decades of people moving to ever-more distant suburbs. North County, home to Northwest Plaza, has suffered especially from the flight of middle-class families and jobs. Some malls centrally located in the 1960s and 1970s no longer sit in the best retail spots.
"We’re going to lose a bunch," said Bob Lewis of Development Strategies, an economic development consultant in St. Louis.
Even cities such as St. Ann, which for years depended on its big mall for tax revenue, see the need for malls to change. St. Ann’s sales tax revenue, most of it flowing from Northwest Plaza, has plummeted by half in six years to about $1.6 million annually. The city has cut back, trimmed staff, stopped free trash pickup.
"It is a very depressing process," city administrator Matt Conley said, adding, "The day of the shopping mall is going the way of the dinosaur online payday loan."
Websites such as Deadmall.com and Labelscar.com chart the demise of malls across the country. Local blogs, such as Ecology of Absence and Built St. Louis, track some changes closer to home. Lamented one commentator on Label Scar (the name refers to the faint image left on buildings by removed signage), "I can well remember Northwest Plaza as the best place to shop in St. Louis."
The new mall owners remember it, too.
Signs inside the mall allude to this vibrant history while apologizing for the present state of affairs. "Our loyal shoppers may recall that Northwest Plaza was once the area’s most popular shopping destination," the signs read. "We are dedicated to recapturing this wonderful shopping experience again."
The plan to save Northwest Plaza involves a new name and an old plan.
It will be called Lindbergh Town Center, playing off nearby Lindbergh Boulevard. And the mall again will turn outward, with individual store entrances facing out onto the parking lots. The mall’s footprint will be slashed by 500,000 square feet. Office space will be added.
"We’re taking the mall back to what it was," Conley said.
St. Ann has approved $96 million in tax incentives.
But the plan hinges on locking in Wal-Mart. The mega-retailer has announced plans to build a new Supercenter in the space now held by Dillard’s. Land surveys were conducted this fall. A Wal-Mart located a short walk away in Bridgeton would close. The goal is to open the new store in 2010.
Wal-Mart and a mall owner, Zelman Development, did not respond to calls for comment. The mall’s general manager declined to comment. But Conley said city leaders believe the deal is still on track.
Other malls in the St. Louis region are drawing up plans similar to the one for Northwest Plaza.
It is part of a national trend of finding new uses for indoor malls, "under-performing asphalt that is getting attention for redevelopment," said professor Dunham-Jones.
At Jamestown Mall in Florissant, the goal is to turn the mall into a mixed-use center. Developers have intentionally emptied shops in one wing, pushing them into the center. The wing, which leads to a massive Dillard’s store vacant since 2006, will be closed. The empty space will be turned into offices, said Rick Murphy, general manager for Jones Lang LaSalle, which manages the mall.
And while Jamestown struggles, it evokes considerably more life than Northwest Plaza. Christmas decorations and a giant tree stand in the hallways. Most of the storefronts are filled. The movie theater is open. Yet the Sears there is set to close next year — another anchor store gone. A petition to save Sears sits inside the mall manager’s office.
Intentions to transform Crestwood Court also are on the table. New owners earlier this year said the mall — previously known as Crestwood Plaza — would be partly torn down and turned into open-air mall with stores facing outward. Currently the mall is pockmarked with vacant spaces, most notably a Dillard’s that closed in 2007.
Back at Northwest Plaza, Mike Bartel used a knife to pry off a boot heel at his shoe repair shop, Heel/Sew Quick.
Now 73, Bartel has worked here almost two decades. He recalled the condition of the mall shortly after it was enclosed. A lavish charity ball was thrown to celebrate the new beginning. And shoppers followed.
"It was marvelous," Bartel said.
But Bartel was less certain about the mall’s future. Over the years, he has lost about a third of his business as the Ford plant and TWA workers have disappeared along with their jobs from the North County area.
So far he has held on. But the future is not certain.
"We’re coming into the holiday season," he said, "and who knows."
He dug the knife back into the boot and got back to work in a nearly empty mall.
tfrankel@post-dispatch.com | 314-340-8110