$280 Million Face lift Planned for Downtown Mall in St. Louis, Missouri
The shopping scene in St. Louis was markedly different when I was growing up. There was a shopping district down on Cherokee street that included a JC Penny, Woolworth’s, Boxer’s, and the forerunner of today’s K-Mart; a variety store called Kresge’s. These stores were also called “five and dime stores” or just “dime stores.” Of course, even back in those days, you couldn’t get much for a nickel or a dime, maybe some penny candy. You would walk a couple of blocks up to Lafayette and catch the bus that took you right to the corner of California and Cherokee, then you could use up the rest of the day spending your meager allowance. Instead of walking around a mall, everything was laid out in a two-block area. First there was the Woolworth’s, right on the corner where the bus stopped. Sometimes, if you were hungry, you walked across the street before you began your shopping adventure, and got something to eat at a place that sold “broasted chicken.” To this day, I really don’t know what broasted chicken is, but I think it fell somewhere in between fried and roasted.
After the Woolworth’s, it was on down the street to look at the latest fashions in either the Boxer’s or the JC Penny’s. Then you went across the street to the Kresge’s and then to another dime store whose name has long been forgotten, to finally end up at the Globe drugstore in the far corner of the district. Beyond that lay the no man’s land of Jefferson Street, which was not a good place to venture into, even in broad daylight.
Sometimes, if you felt really adventurous, you stayed on the bus all the way to downtown where there was another Woolworth’s and a neighboring Kresge’s at the stop right before Washington Avenue, where the bus had to turn before it came to the river. A few blocks away from the five and dimes were the two giant department stores Famous Barr and Stix, Baer, and Fuller. The best time of the year to go shopping downtown was around Christmas time. You could look at the moving displays in the department store windows and ride the old wooden elevator at Famous to the seventh floor and Santa’s Magical Kingdom. It was usually window shopping and never stopping to buy, but you might just get an idea or two about what you wanted for Christmas. After you finally got tired, you walked back to one of the dime stores and either had a cherry coke at the counter or bought some peanuts or cashews from a glass box where they were kept warm. Years later, I read where a woman was arrested for refusing to stop eating peanuts on the bus, but I can’t tell you how many times we violated that law.
Over the years, shopping centers and mega malls began popping up all over the county, and the shopping downtown slowly dwindled. In 1985, a group of developers decided to build a state-of-the-art shopping mall around the two flagship stores of Famous and Stix. It would be called St. Louis Center. It was filled with sparkling shops and wide-open spaces, and the expectation was that it would revitalize downtown shopping and compete with the suburban malls. They even built a sky bridge from the mall over to Famous Barr. People who worked downtown could have lunch at the mall and do a little shopping, even come back after work and avoid the rush hour traffic. But nobody came; or at least not as many as expected. It died a slow death and today only a very few shops remain.
Now a company called Pyramid has plunked down $9.1 million to purchase the mall. It plans to close the mall by Sept. 15th and spend some $280 million more to renovate it. They hope to turn the mall into a successful mix of condos, shops, restaurants, and office space. “We plan to create a jewel for downtown St. Louis and a vital center of activity for the area.” Says the company spokesman.
Retail stores are planned for the first floor and the upper floors will be reserved for condominiums and recreational space. The sky bridge will be taken down and the old Stix/Dillard’s store will be renovated as well as the Jefferson arms hotel on Tucker Blvd. We’ll wait and see as it’s all been done before.
