urbanSTL

F--- him. If he wants to avoid taking shots from the media, he should be more open in communicating his plans for the mall.

This doesn't sound good at all. I think Slay is doing the right thing by putting pressure on Cohen, but the mayor shouldn't take it any further - for now. Cohen is clearly struggling to come up with a plan, and if he can goad the city into a pissing match over the skybridge, or whatever, then he can use that as an excuse for delaying the whole project.



i vaguely remembering lots of wrangling ages and ages ago between the city and the developer - was it Don Lipton? - on the Gateway Mall project, and look what that achieved for downtown - the hopelessly misguided Gateway One. Lucky for us he never built the other buildings he wanted to.

TheWayoftheArch wrote:I don't think a gym takes a huge amount of finshing...and you may be able to open some of the space while the rest is finished out.



If you look at their current space, its a front desk and office and one huge room...locker rooms and showers would be the only major component.

Looks like it may be going in the space Office Depot previously occupied.

This was in the Business Journal today:

Developing story

St. Louis Centre owner Barry Cohen says the nearly empty, enclosed mall is not up for sale. "That is just another rumor that is floating around," he said Oct. 11. Cohen purchased St. Louis Centre last fall for $5.4 million. He said he is working on plans to redevelop it, but will not disclose his plans until he's ready. Cohen confirmed that he has talked to developers around town. "We have been approached by several developers over the last few months. We're talking to a few developers and may partner with one of them."

More of the same old response from Cohen..

This better be one hell of a plan he's working on. With all the time it's taking to develop it, and all the secrecy involved, we better be blown away when it's released (if it ever happens).

Hopefully the plan is to blow away the centre.

^Likely

It's sad too!



I walked into the centre on Saturday while downtown browsing... and boy, talk about depressing! You know, I walked through thinking about the fact that this place was really cool at one time - you can see that - and overall - is not greatly ugly per say - just EMPTY! I think I counted 7 stores - including Walgreens. Now why Walgreens has allowed that store on the third floor to remain in there is beyond me. Wouldn't they do better with a street level store - like they use to have in the Century Building? It just doesn't make sense. The rest of the 7 stores were pretty much "ghetto" store - parden the expression - overpriced pager shops and fake gold jewelry. Then of course I see two families walking into the mall - obviously tourists/visitors, and I get sick in my stomach... I even stopped the one family and told them that the mall was closing and there wasn't any stores left - to take the METRO to Union Station or walk around downtown. The signs that read MALL SHOPS RESTUARANTS above Wash. ave. make me so P/O!!! Get that crap down already. What can we as citizens and STL advocates do to deter people from entering this crap hole?



IN ADDITION;



Federated needs to just close the entrances to the mall when MACY'S takes over Famous. Just cut the access off NOW!

If Federated will now have negotiating powers with the mall, then I think Macy's parent company should threaten Cohen to put up a revitalization plan or risk cutting off their access.



Even if agreements transferred from May to Federated, despite the takeover, perhaps the new owners in town can still temporarily close their end of the bridges over Locust, in the event Cohen isn't cooperative. There must be at least some renovations loop hole for restraining access. Plus, I think the south ends of the bridge belong to the department store.

It is very sad how fast the Mall declined.



When I used to work downtown, as of mid '98, it was always busy during lunch hours. The food court was alway extremely busy and often it was difficult to find a place to sit. I remember waiting 10+ minutes in long lines for the very popular Mongolian BBQ shop.



But, a year later in late '99, I took some out of town family downtown and they wanted to visit the Mall to eat lunch there. We found half of the food court locations empty, it was dark and dirty and saw no more than 30 people eating lunch on the weekday.



I understand the difficulty for retail stores to survive in a Mall that closed at 5-6PM, but I would of thought the food court with what used to be tremendous lunch time business could of faired better.

james wrote:It is very sad how fast the Mall declined.

You can thank the owners of the mall for the last ten years - both parties.



They ran everything out of that mall for overpriced storefronts and poor environment conditions and management - THAT is why the stores stopped coming and closing!



If that mall was properly run and kept up and was competetive - they would hold their own - like they did through the 90's for the most part. Thank the owner(s) for running that place into the s-hole!



No it sits empty. and the owner is wishy washy about what to do or is going to be done. He's waiting until someone buys it up.



HOW ABOUT EMINENT DOMAINING THIS PLACE - IT TRULY IS DESERVING OF THAT!!!!

The city is doing right, giving Cohen time to come out with a plan. But if Cohen stalls and keeps needed projects, like keeping Macy's downtown, rehab of the Dillards building, from moving forward, it will go back down the possible road of condemnation. I would guess that Cohen has untill say... next August, before pressure comes and condemnation starts. That would ahev given Cohen two years to get something done, which is more than enough time.

I'm confused. This is the guy who fixed up the Jefferson Arms and that turned out well. I'm thinking more and more Barry Cohen is just waiting to flip the building for a quick profit.



Good idea Matguy, Eminent Domain this clown. I'll take it a step farther and after its taken by the City they should just give it to a reputable developer like the McGowans. They'd be much better off just getting taxes out of the place and Gundaker could start tearing down that damned bridge.

The city should start by offering nice incentive packages to the current businesses to move out. Start with Walgreens. Give them a tax break to get out of the Center, and into a vacant storefront, maybe something with two stories...different, but on the street. Then move on to the other places that still reside there. There is plenty of store front areas around downtown that would fit these places.



If the Center loses all sources of revenue, then the city can put the pressure on Cohen to move on his 'plans'. If he doesn't have anything, we'll know it, and it'll cost him money to keep the building open.



If he fights back by closing the doors, and sitting on it, you can easily claim eminent domain, because that huge structure wouldn't be generating any tax revenue. Cohen would be stupid not to sell, or at least proceed with any 'plans' he might have.

Though I think it would be a little ironic if Walgreen's became the major tenant of the "Ninth Street Shoppes," it certainly would eliminate the last major thing generating foot traffic in the Centre, leaving really only the virtually vacant food court as cause for office workers to enter the empty atria.

Anyone up for some St. Louis Centre history?



Between 1970 and 1980, St. Louis suffered a 27 percent population decrease and a 22 percent employment decrease. Its only competitors in the losing game were fellow Rustbelt cities Detroit and Cleveland?and St. Louis more than doubled employment losses in either city.28 Even with highways, housing projects, national monuments, civic centers and other 50s and 60s era renewal projects, St. Louis had to admit its downward spiral. In the 1970s, redevelopment plans for downtown retail began. Specifically, St. Louis, as the heart of the region, began to contemplate how it could plug the gaping hole and stop the bleeding. Downtown was always the area of focus for redevelopment, as it continued to pump suburbanites in and out of the dying city whose nearby residential neighborhoods were beginning to take on the character of a bombed out wartime Europe. Remaining downtown businessmen, retailers and city leaders studied methods of attracting people back to the center?to the ?heart of it all??in downtown.



St. Louis Centre rode in on the heels of successful downtown redevelopment projects in other areas of the country known as ?festival marketplaces? in the later 1970s. Festival marketplaces grew popular with the Faneuil Hall in Boston, developed by the Rouse Company, veterans in profitable suburban shopping malls. The festival marketplace?in reality, a mall adapted to a more ?urban? crowd?was seen as a retail destination that lacked an anchor store and replaced it with a vital public life and connection to an area?s history and culture. The Rouse Company?s unabashed success in downtown retail revival led to the ?Rousification? of America, generating innumerable imitators. Though St. Louis?s festival marketplace would arrive in the form of the restored St. Louis Union Station in 1985, Faneuil Hall provided Americans something which they had long abandoned in regards to downtown?a sense of optimism?and it inspired developers to pursue the path of mall-based downtown retail redevelopment that spawned the St. Louis Centre.29



The St. Louis Centre, as it turned out, was not the original plan of downtown redevelopers. In fact, the original redevelopment plan for downtown St. Louis was proposed thirteen years prior to the mall?s completion. Developed by Mercantile Trust Company, a major downtown employer that was dedicated to rebuilding the urban core, the $150 million project was supposed to include office space, shops, restaurants, entertainment and hotel facilities, open landscaped plazas, enclosed gardens, and pedestrian malls. In typical Modernist fashion, the project, dubbed Mercantile Center, would be built upon two superblocks, necessitating the closure of several alleys and streets. It would include four modern office towers, the signature of which would be the Mercantile Bank corporate headquarters. Connecting the towers would be a system of enclosed malls, filled with two levels of shops, restaurants, and entertainment facilities. These facilities would be built in a circle, surrounding a giant enclosed garden containing sculptures, fountains, flowers, and trees. Skylights would allow lights to enter the enclosed interior areas. The final touch was an 800-room hotel that would be located across the street from the towers and connected to the retail and entertainment center by a pedestrian bridge.



In the style of Le Corbusier, at each street corner would be open plazas. In fact, 34 percent of the property area was devoted solely to outdoor open space. Parking too was a necessity and would be offered on grand proportions. One large garage would be built on the east end of the complex and would be connected by a pedestrian bridge, requiring workers, shoppers, and tourists to walk through the common space under the towers. And, since the project was viewed as a rebirth of downtown, historical buildings occupying the six-block project area, bounded by Locust Street, Broadway, Washington Avenue, and Eighth Street, would be razed. The existing Stix, Baer and Fuller and Famous-Barr stores, which were located to the direct north and south of the proposed site, were to be connected to the new facility by enclosed bridges. Business leaders thought that this would only accommodate the department stores and improve their business. As a result, the May Company entered the downtown redevelopment arena.



Mercantile Center was a six-stage, ten-year project, the first phase of which was completed in 1973?the 35 story tower called Mercantile Tower (now US Bank). However, the project stalled in the late 1970s until May pressed forward with redevelopment plans, this time scrapping the project?s latter phases in favor of the creation of a regional retail attraction for downtown St. Louis.30 In 1978, May Department Stores converted Mercantile?s original plans to emphasize retail development. The amended plan included a four-level enclosed suburban-style shopping center, a 21-story office tower and a 250-room hotel atop the Stix building, with Stix as a limited partner in the project. May received an $18 million Federal Urban Development Action Grant. However, the money was not enough to offset the grossly underestimated costs of the project. Thus, in June 1980, May transferred the primary responsibility of the development to Melvin Simon and Associates of Indianapolis, a leader in major retail development. After many years of planning, the $175 million mixed-use development was ready to go in 1981. Mayor James F. Conway formed a public finance package, including $42 million in revenue bonds.31 When Melvin Simon and Associates submitted a loan application to the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association (TIAA) of New York, the New York Times ran an article on its front page offering its own necropsy of an apparently deceased downtown St. Louis. The TIAA loan officer, having read the New York Times expos?, attempted to delay the loan application by removing it from the day?s agenda. Simon?s executive president, Randy Foxworthy, angry at the unsympathetic reporting of the Times, remarked, ?The person who wrote that story didn?t know what was going on. We brought a Teacher?s executive out to St. Louis, showed him evidence of a recovery, and convinced him the Times article was wrong. Then we resubmitted the loan and got it approved.?32



In January 1982, the bulldozing began by way of the St. Louis Land Clearance for Redevelopment Authority. Meanwhile, limited partner Stix, Baer and Fuller was purchased by Little Rock, Arkansas-based Dillard?s in early 1984.33 Dillard?s subsequently spent $8 million refurbishing the Stix building, reducing its floor space to the first four floors (down from the first seven in the old Stix). Famous spent 15 million on its 10-level department store operation. While both department stores shared in the decline of downtown in general, each believed the return to former glory would arrive in the form of the St. Louis Centre?s success. Indeed, the branch stores of downtown department stores, once considered subsidiaries and less profitable than the flagship store downtown, now held the standards for quality of its products. Only now did Dillard?s Vice-President of Marketing Paul Cavalli apologetically state of its revamped store that its merchandise was, ?comparable with the upgraded merchandise we carry now in our branches.?34



St. Louis awaited the opening of the shopping mall that would redefine downtown, or, in the words of Mayor Vincent C. Schoemehl, Jr., ?the beginning, not the end, of efforts to make [St. Louis] the premier city in the country.? Unbridled optimism swirled around the opening of the St. Louis Centre like the chocolate on the golf ball sized strawberries that were served to partygoers at its ceremonious grand opening. On August 8, 1985, a crowd of 70,000 dumbfounded city officials who expected only 10,000.35 They had all come to the forsaken downtown to witness a revival that Rouse had taught them was possible. Though St. Louis Centre would forego the festival marketplace motif, it seemed nevertheless a lively addition to a downtown the New York Times labeled ?in its death throes.?



The St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the St. Louis Globe Democrat appeared ecstatic about the Centre?s opening?and so was veteran comedian Bob Hope, emcee of the Centre?s extensive opening celebrations. ?The Centre seems to me to be something that hasn?t been done before,? Hope said at the grand opening.36 And it hadn?t been done before. St. Louis Centre became the country?s largest enclosed downtown shopping mall, at 350,000 square feet of retail in its four level mall and over 1.5 million including the attached Famous and Dillard?s.37



Though the Centre claimed to be ?the heart of it all,? the imagery thrown around by journalists seemed to focus on one theme?the Centre?s ostensible disconnect from downtown. Many even referred to the St. Louis Centre as if it were some sort of shiny seafaring vessel fortuitously floating amidst a sea of decay and despair. Bill Smith, a reporter for the Post-Dispatch, went so far as to deem the St. Louis Centre ?reminiscent of a gigantic luxury ocean liner??never mind the obvious post-Centre-mortem reference to the notorious Titanic disaster. Reporter Charlene Prost for the Post declared the Centre ?a polished white shopping pearl in the heart of downtown? as if to suggest the mall?s being a hidden treasure in a shell of a downtown.38

Wow, good stuff. That seems like such a long time ago.



What was on the site of St. Louis Centre before the mall was built?

DeBaliviere wrote:Wow, good stuff. That seems like such a long time ago.



What was on the site of St. Louis Centre before the mall was built?

Did I mention that my project partner and I finished started this (22-page paper) just two nights before it was due, finishing it at 4 in the morning on the morning it was due?



Well, to answer your question, I really don't know. If it were a group of architectural gems that were lost to the construction of the mall, I'm sure that, A) we would have come across these buildings more readily in our research and B) someone on this forum would immediately start citing the buildings, the years they were built, and their photos would be posted as well.



I believe it was some mid-rise office buildings with some street level businesses. There may have been a mention of a florist that was forced out by the construction of the Centre. I really don't remember. That paper could have been a lot better if it were started sooner.



So, again...

Thanks for memories.....

It was really exciting when St. Louis Centre opened. It was packed all the time, they had stores not found elsewhere. Plus, with all the stores downtown, it made it really easy to live without a car. It was bright, sunny, had fountains, and filled with happy shoppers. I didn't like what Dillards did with Stix. They turned it into a suburban style department store. But, Famous was still hanging in there back in those days. In the parking garage just to the east, there was a Woolworths or Walgreens that was very handy. And the parking garage had an overhang, which was excellent for waiting on the bus (still is I imagine). Lots of people with shopping bags waited for bus there. Also, on the first floor of the parking garage, midblock - east, right across from St. Louis Centre was a new restaurant. Sort of a diner that was really busy. IF ONLY all the new residential we have now was in place then. And with the new Union Station opening around the same time there was incredible optimism. I guess nobody thought that actual residents were needed. Of course, you could live in the Mansion House and have it all at your finger tips. I lived in the CWE, worked downtown, and lived most of my life on the Lindell or Grand bus lines. Those were the days.



The earlier project they didn't complete reminds me a lot of Charles Center in the middle of Baltimore's CBD. Multi-level plazas, tall modern buildings, and a complete failure at this point. I am told that when it was built, it created lots of confidence that eventually sparked Harborplace, which was and still is very successful.



I don't remember exactly what predates STL CTR, but remember shopping down there with my family. There were lots of shops, dress shops, shoe stores, etc. But, they got really seedy before it was all cleared.

Matt Drops The H wrote: Did I mention that my project partner and I finished started this (22-page paper) just two nights before it was due, finishing it at 4 in the morning on the morning it was due?

I almost felt sorry for you guys when I came in the morning well rested for the final and you guys were walking in mostly asleep. I shouldn't be talking, that was the one time I did not procrastinate. From what I have read, it turned out good though. BTW, if you send me a complete copy, I'll host it on my project for that class, StLEvolution.com, which I really need to get around to updating..