urbanSTL

I remember attending the grand opening and thrilled with the crush of people. Anybody remember the gourmet grocery that was on the 1st floor by the 6th and Washington entrance? I believe it was run the Tony Bommarito. That year was an exciting time for downtown. Between the two shopping centers opening so close together and all of the new hotels and office towers being constructed, we really thought the city was on the move.

Well done, Matt. Some of the best papers are written at the last minute. I actually wrote one at the Casino Queen at approximately 5:30 in the morning, semi-drunk after visiting Diamond Cabaret - we drove back to campus during rush hour, I typed it up and turned it in at 9. "A" work, all the way, let me tell you.



Anywho, Expat, I think the store in the garage was a Woolworth's. The retail space was emptied out and turned into additional parking for the garage.



I think there might have been the beginnings of a push to bring residents downtown, but it sputtered. Leon Strauss converted the Lenox building (now suites for the Renaissance Convention Hotel) to apartments, but the project was a bomb. I guess people just weren't ready for downtown living back then. The baby boomers were, for the most part, in the early stages of family life, raising people like me out in the burbs.

DeBaliviere, I had forgotten about the apartments at the Lenox. I was really excited when it opened. However, I didn't like the apartments. They had small rooms, low ceilings, nothing except location was interesting. I think they bombed because people could get a beautiful flat with hardwood floors, high ceilings, stained glass, balcony, etc. for less money. Or a CWE high-rise with balcony and lots of good restaurants nearby. The Lenox failed because they offered a mediocre product in my opinion. Today's downtown residential developments are very interesting and offer something different. I was really disappointed when I viewed the Lenox apartments because they were so gloomy. I knew they would fail and therefore, stunt further downtown residential development. I am grateful all that has changed and downtown has become a residential magnet.

That generation has caused so many problems in this country. I don't hold it against them or anything, my parents are baby boomers...but just think about how much havoc has been wrought because of the size of that generation.



Our surging economy in the mid 90s can be attributed to the coupling of the tech boom with the baby boomers reaching their highest earning potential period. Plus, because those same baby boomers fled the cities, many cities began to decay in the 70s-90s, when the boomers were focusing on family in the burbs.



Now, they are all about to retire, and completely bankrupt the social security system.



Anyway, back to the St. Louis Centre.

DeBaliviere, I had forgotten about the apartments at the Lenox. I was really excited when it opened. However, I didn't like the apartments. They had small rooms, low ceilings, nothing except location was interesting. I think they bombed because people could get a beautiful flat with hardwood floors, high ceilings, stained glass, balcony, etc. for less money. Or a CWE high-rise with balcony and lots of good restaurants nearby. The Lenox failed because they offered a mediocre product in my opinion. Today's downtown residential developments are very interesting and offer something different. I was really disappointed when I viewed the Lenox apartments because they were so gloomy. I knew they would fail and therefore, stunt further downtown residential development. I am grateful all that has changed and downtown has become a residential magnet.

Thanks, Expat. This is the first info I've heard from anyone who actually viewed the apartments. Sounds like Pantheon renovated the Lenox the same way they did DeBaliviere Place - not preserving any of the historic elements.

^True, except with the large number of buildings at DeBaliveire, they created a very pleasant neighborhood despite the bland apartments. I credit them for saving the neighborhood and giving something important to the city. However, the Lenox was all by itself and basically surrounded by nothing.

Redevelopment of DeBaliviere Place and even Soulard took off in the 1980s due to the more favorable federal tax code at that time. The major tax reforms of 1986 would dramatically slow local activity until the state historic tax credits would be devised a decade later.

DeBaliviere wrote:Well done, Matt. Some of the best papers are written at the last minute. I actually wrote one at the Casino Queen at approximately 5:30 in the morning, semi-drunk after visiting Diamond Cabaret - we drove back to campus during rush hour, I typed it up and turned it in at 9. "A" work, all the way, let me tell you.

Thanks...though I think your story trumps mine, as I was perfectly sober when I wrote it. Then again, I've never tried to write while drinking before. Maybe it takes the pressure off of the impending deadline?



I was actually fairly happy with the turnout of that paper, all things considered. It was supposed to be exclusively about St. Louis Centre, with just a couple introductory comments on the history of downtown retail and department stores. Well, it turned out that St. Louis Centre wasn't even mentioned until Page 9 . I only posted the section that pertained to the history and the opening.



I dug up articles from SLU's library. I learned to love microfiche after that. Just reading the titles of the various articles from the Post-Dispatch (the last issue of the Globe Democrat was in 1986, I believe) shows the change in attitude towards the Centre.



We went from articles about its opening that suggested that downtown was a dangerous hole that St. Louis Centre was going to completely plug up (1985) to articles about how noontime was the only busy time in the Centre (1995) to Union Station's dominance in attracting the tourist crowd (1997) to rising vacancy rates (1999-present).



It was an intriguing project. If anyone is interested, I will post the section about downtown's being unsafe and how the St. Louis Centre security had to make St. Louis's "inner city" safe for shoppers...

Matt Drops the H, I am really interested in that project, please post it up if you can.

Well, here is the entire paper. I hesitate to post this because I suspect someone on here might find some minor factual error that we were banking on our professor's overlooking.



Also, sorry, I don't have a webpage to host this on, unless MattnSTL wants to post it on his, as he said. Obviously, I did not post our footnotes either, but if anyone wants to know some of the books we looked at, just ask.

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Heart Failure: An Analysis of the Fall of the Mall at the Heart of It All,

St. Louis Centre



Inside the St. Louis Centre, the static sound of fountains pervades. There is no music playing; no vendors harass you to purchase a new cellular phone; few fellow shoppers are walking around, bumping shoulders. The Centre?s glass atrium overhead allows light to flood the shopping center?but it is as if no one has survived the deluge. The troubled shopping mall will celebrate its twentieth birthday this year on August 8, 2005?most likely with little fanfare other than an incisive piece in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on the project?s constant struggle to attract customers.



The St. Louis Centre exemplifies the tortuous history of downtown retail redevelopment in all of its interminable ambition, its false starts and its broken promises. Downtown retail once enjoyed a status where the saying of the two words one after the other would be quite redundant. Retail, especially in the form of the department store, dime stores, and specialty shops, dominated downtowns across America before the decentralization and subsequent suburbanization beginning in the 1920s and accelerating thereafter. The St. Louis Centre?s very purpose was to lasso the fleeing westward-ho! St. Louis suburbanites who had all but written off St. Louis?s downtown as dead. In the eyes of those optimistic towards their bleeding city, the St. Louis Centre was a gleaming, postmodern four-story middle finger to the suburban shopping centers that seemed to have stolen more from downtown than any panhandler or unwanted minority ever could. The pessimists in 1985 saw a green-and-white box in the midst of elegant turn-of-the-century terra cotta and brick construction?a box which housed a suburban shopping mall not unlike those in Crestwood and South County just miles away save for its necessary verticality. In 2005, however, there are few voices of dissent from the fact that the St. Louis Centre has been a monumental failure in downtown retail redevelopment, though the reasons often differ. St. Louis Centre remains the poster child of the American urban crisis as it relates to downtown retail. It was conceived in an era that had witnessed thirty years of rampant decentralization and suburban expansion, born into an emptying downtown and abandoned due to its inconvenience.



Department stores were a product of the late 19th century and, as shopping destinations, were the precursor to 20th century suburban malls. With the growth of city populations at the time, the establishment of large-scale manufacturing and increases in personal income, there were more goods to sell and more people to buy them. Someone needed to figure out how to bring the people and goods together. The department store, with its wide selection and low prices, was the engine for mass merchandising. Starting as dry goods stores selling fabrics and ready-made clothing, department stores spread to the main cities of Western Europe and the United States by the last decades of the 19th century.



Department stores did not market themselves merely as suppliers of clothing, appliances and various other products and services. Rather, they became, for everyone, a symbol of unabated American capitalism in all its gaudiness and hyperbolic fervor. Some viewed department stores as ?democratized luxury,? indicating the universal accessibility of at least the experience?highly valued by most shoppers?if not the products offered as well.1



St. Louis, one of the country?s top 10 largest cities beginning in 1870, featured three major department stores, countless specialty shops, restaurants and entertainment venues. Famous-Barr Co., Scruggs-Vandervoort-Barney, and Stix, Baer and Fuller competed with one another in the downtown department store market for over a century and each had offered numerous attractions. Famous-Barr was known for its window displays and Christmas celebrations. Scruggs-Vandervoort-Barney, commonly referred to as Vandervoort?s, was the most luxurious of Downtown?s big three, complete with a doorman, elevator operators in matching gabardine dresses with lace pocket handkerchiefs, and a tea room famous for its shrimp salad sandwiches. Stix catered to businessmen and offered a wood-paneled, leather-chaired ?Men?s Grill? in which to have lunch. All three offered candy counters that offered everything from chocolate covered strawberries to turtles.



The story of retail decentralization downtown begins nearly simultaneously with that of suburbanization. Streetcars enabled suburbs to flourish outside cities, most rapidly in the 1920s. Finger-like ?streetcar suburbs? garnered their own political independence while retaining a proximity to downtown which allowed their residents to continue to shop and work downtown.2 These suburbs, including St. Louis examples such as Maplewood and University City, contained small convenience stores that catered to residents? immediate needs, but not specialty shops and department stores. In the latter case, it was believed that any location outside of the central business district was simply not economically viable. Entrepreneurs debunked this theory early on in the twenties, as Chicago?s Marshall Field, New York?s Best & Company, and Cleveland?s Halle Brothers, among others, all opened successful ?branch stores? in well-established suburbs outside of each city.3



Secondary business districts began attracting specialty and department stores from downtown at a time when downtown?s land values were rising to intolerably high levels. Automobiles and streetcars allowed more people to avoid downtown?s terrible traffic jams and congestion.4 Developments such as Hampton Village in southwest St. Louis and the Clayton central business district provided convenient alternatives to downtown shopping, especially after World War II. With the growing success of these ?outlying shopping districts? and the increasingly-familiar stagnancy of downtown retail, the logical question arose: why remain downtown? The economic argument in favor of downtown was the ?law of accessibility? or, as transit expert Miller McClintock stated it, ?the efficiency of doing business in a compact, well-balanced, highly unified business district.?5 But downtown was growing ever more inefficient for various groups. Business owners faced increasing costs to maintain downtown structures and to cope with rising land values. High property values also drove away downtown?s residential population, transforming downtown into a solely commercial district by the middle of the twentieth century. Retailers witnessed a loss of customers to suburban locations for many reasons. The automobile was simply not compatible with downtown?s one-way streets and its grid system. Further, the commuter culture the automobile helped to foster grew weary of downtown gridlock.



Even so, the Pre-War public simply assumed downtown?s inexorable dominance in the retail sector. Demand for office space would remain high and thus would keep property values high in turn. Retailers would remain centralized out of a sense of tradition. In fact, the notion that downtown simply was always there and would always be proved to be a helpful diversion for retailers from the fact that downtown was growing obsolete for their businesses? purposes.6 Post-War downtown retail would fall from its lofty status with the changing demographics of the city and the voracity of the suburbanization of America. In addition, outlying shopping districts would secure full service department stores after the War.



Downtowns in 1950, including that of St. Louis, grew increasingly self-conscious. The Great Migration brought rural Southern blacks into Northern and Midwestern cities in droves, especially after World War II. St. Louisans, celebrating the country?s victory in World War II, returned to a city on the eve of racial change that would forever pollute its political process and would, for the foreseeable future, diminish the city?s status as the center of a sprawling metropolitan area. The black population living within St. Louis increased by 41 percent between 1940 and 1950, comprising 14 percent of the city?s total population. In 1900, in contrast, St. Louis claimed only 35,000 blacks in its population of 575,000?only 6 percent.7



At the same time as blacks moved into St. Louis City, St. Louis?s predominantly white suburbs grew exponentially. Jennings, in north St. Louis County, was virtually nonexistent in 1940 and yet boasted 15,000 residents in 1950, just ten years later. Further, University City grew to contain 40,000 people, making it Missouri?s fifth largest city.8 To be sure, St. Louis County?s black population increased from 12,000 to nearly 17,000 between 1940 and 1950?but it was the gains in the white population that were significant. The County?s population grew from 274,000 in 1940 to 406,000 in 1950, and, save for the aforementioned increase of blacks by 5,000, all of the people gained were white. While the upper class had moved out of St. Louis early on in the 20th century, the middle class had not attained the means to move. Federal government policies, beginning in the 1930s but growing especially prolific after the War, encouraged people to own their homes and, in doing so, often dissuaded middle class families from remaining in the City. The Home Owners Loan Corporation case study of St. Louis in 1937 indicates the anti-urban slant of the federal government?s policies, as any neighborhood dense, aging and/or black found it more difficult to secure loans from lending institutions, which now used HOLC guidelines to assess investment risk in urban neighborhoods.9



Demographic changes in cities, especially in the area of race and socioeconomic status, inherently affected the success of retail establishments. Statistics from the 1950 Census revealed that a rapidly expanding middle class was moving to the suburban areas of St. Louis. Wielding an increased discretionary income and sporting sheer numbers, the middle class provided retailers with a much more profitable market than the aristocratic clientele of the downtown department stores prior to the War. With the onset of the 1950s into the 1960s, most had shed the idea of eternal optimism for downtown. Noting the increase of shopping centers in suburban locations and the harrowing census figures showing rapid population loss in Rustbelt cities like St. Louis, a veritable war had been declared between downtown and suburbia?s offerings in the retail market for years now?a war which downtown suddenly seemed poised to lose, and to lose badly at that.10



To build a large suburban shopping center, developers needed large well-known department stores to draw customers to the apparel stores, shoe stores and any other small retailers who would lease space. However, at first the big retailers were reluctant to jump on the suburban bandwagon. They believed that sidewalk frontage was critical for drawing customers into a store and that putting parking in its place seemed reckless. ?With huge investments downtown, department stores were also fearful of cutting into their own sales volume and destroying their semi-monopolistic downtown locations.?11 To those who refused to believe suburbia would subjugate the central city in the coming decades, the ?branch store? was just that?a branch, drawing its life from the ?trunk,? or the central store.12 However, competition eventually helped developers persuade department stores to open branch locations. Chains such as Sears and Wards were developing all of their new stores in suburban areas and applying pressure to the downtown department stores.13 Sears and Wards reversed typical corporate policy by focusing expansion plans on areas outside of cities, prompting the need for downtown locations to engage in the extremely costly venture of revamping their outmoded stores.



The success of suburban shopping centers, which offered ample parking and were intentionally placed near the intersection of newly built interstate highways, made downtown?s drawbacks all the more conspicuous. Some, such as commercial designer Victor Gruen, believed downtown?s declining status to be due to its ?repulsive? aesthetics. Gruen believed it was the creation of the ?shopping atmosphere? that focused on the suburban offerings of ?beauty, comfort and relaxation? which could help to heal ailing downtown retail.14 Gruen?s beliefs about enhancing the physical core of the city seemed trivial in the fifties, but would become a key tool towards selling the image of downtown back to suburbanites with the onset of Modernism.



Regardless of the specific reasons for vacating the central business district, none of St. Louis?s big three department stores could resist the pull of the middle class shopping enclaves that the suburbs cultivated. In 1948, following national trends, Famous-Barr established a branch in Clayton. Famous?s venture was followed by Vandervoort?s move to Clayton in 1951. Stix?s Westroads location (in Clayton as well) opened in 1955. The 1955 Annual Report issued by Stix, Baer and Fuller argued that, ?Downtown sales were only slightly affected by the opening of the [Clayton] branch, which is an indication that the new store served the greatly expanded population of the suburbs, which appreciated the convenience of nearby shopping.?15 But downtown did suffer. By the mid 1960s, suburban branch locations effectively dismantled their parent stores downtown. Vandervoort?s Clayton and downtown locations initiated a clash between convenience and nostalgia, successfully cannibalizing one another?s business until the point where Vandervoort?s shut its doors entirely in 1967. Famous and Stix remained downtown, but the stores did not prosper. As a result, each store downscaled its operations, reducing floor space and offering fewer services.16



Vandervoort?s was not the only retailer to leave downtown St. Louis. In fact, the City of St. Louis lost 6,000 retail establishments between 1948 and 1972, including 300 downtown, while the rest of the metropolitan area gained 4,500.17 These numbers bred pessimism among the public and retailers alike. Said Edward DeBartolo, the largest shopping center developer in the country, in 1973 ?I wouldn?t put a penny downtown. It?s bad. Face it. Why should people come in? They don?t want the hassle, they don?t want the danger?And the money: my God, you?d need fantastic government subsidies. So what do you do? Exactly what I?m doing: stay out in the country. That?s the new downtown.?18



Downtown?s rapidly accelerating retail woes cannot be parsed without the mention of racial conflict and injustice, which was likely decline?s most potent cause. By the 1950s, the industrialization and mechanization of the Southern U.S. brought numerous rural blacks to Midwestern and Northern cities. In the 1950s, black consumers felt that downtown could no longer ignore their growing numbers and proximity to neighborhoods adjacent to downtown. Mill Creek Valley and the Near South Side already sported large black populations. Downtown St. Louis could have cushioned the blows of suburbia to its retail powerhouse by catering to the population in the immediate vicinity?blacks and other non-white ethnic groups?but the influence of a society which witnessed Jim Crowe and segregation told retailers that their ultimate goal was to attract and sustain a middle class white clientele.19



But how could we combat the problem of a black downtown periphery? Enter Urban Renewal. Given the green light by the Housing Act of 1949, Urban Renewal allowed ?slums? deemed ?blighted? to be bulldozed and replaced by public plazas, super blocks and sometimes, nothing at all, indicating the Act?s true purpose?to remove the ?Negroes? who predominated in these ?slums?. Terms such as ?spreading,? ?crawling,? and ?burrowing? were used in reference to the growing blight around downtown, signifying the dehumanization of the residents surrounding the central business district. Of course, businesses and retailers described the problem of their nearby residential neighbors as lacking ?purchasing power.? Those around downtown had little disposable income and thus need not be serviced by downtown retail.20 In reality, the undeniable fear of downtown merchants was that downtown would be abandoned due to the changing racial patterns??or else be a Negro shopping district,? as one unnamed university study predicted in the 1950s of downtown Trenton, New Jersey circa 1980.21 Following noticeable demographic change, it became much easier to fault blacks for downtown?s decline than the usual laundry list of complaints against sprawling suburbia?ignoring, of course, any links between ghettoization and suburbanization.22 The removal of blacks from downtown and from around downtown, then, would surely convince fleeing suburbanites, always the target of downtown retailers, to come back downtown.



St. Louis?s black population did not idle in the late 1950s and especially the early 1960s when the Civil Rights movement kicked into full force. Stix, Baer and Fuller and Vandervoort?s were regular sites of NAACP pickets in downtown St. Louis. Vandervoort?s alienated the black community of St. Louis with its ?alleged practice of not hiring Negro clerical and sales workers.?23 Stix, unlike Famous, was open to customers of all races, but did not serve blacks at its lunch counter. On May 15, 1944, a group of white and black women were refused service by the Stix lunch counter unless they could find other lunch counters who would serve them as well. The Citizens? Civil Rights Committee responded to Stix?s challenge and picketed both Famous and Vandervoort?s?both of which also refused to serve blacks at their individual lunch counters. After much pressure by the civil rights group, Vandervoort?s agreed to change its lunch counter policy. It took another civil rights group, the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE), to get Famous to integrate its first floor and its basement cafeteria.24 Downtown St. Louis appeared determined not to become the ?Negro? shopping district as the dire predictions had stated it. In the late 1960s, riots in Newark, Watts and Detroit became evidence as to the lawlessness and danger of the central city. Downtown St. Louis retailers and businessmen would abandon downtown due to fears of rioting and racial unrest in the streets in record numbers between 1970 and 1980, after the reality of the race riots had settled in.



St. Louis in the 1960s avoided a large scale race riot, but nevertheless felt it necessary to mask its own decline?particularly by ?beautifying? the pockmarked face of downtown. ?The Gateway Arch [dedicated in 1965] seems to fill St. Louis?s need for an identity which takes into account the city?s past and its future,? noted a panel of 16 urban scholars from across the nation in 1969.25 With the new 630-foot stainless steel Gateway Arch and a new home for the St. Louis Cardinals at Busch Stadium in the mid-sixties, St. Louis would never look back on the warehouses and ethnic districts it demolished and built over in order to wield the power and money given by ?Urban Renewal.? Though the ?new? downtown offered more and more gleaming high rises in the suburban school of architecture, suburbanites were emphatically not impressed. Between 1960 and 1970, the City of St. Louis fell from 750,026 people to 622,236, a decrease of 17 percent. Conversely, St. Louis County grew from 703,532 people in 1960 to 951,671 in 1970?significant both for its impressive 35 percent increase and for the first Census triumph of the County over the City that divorced it in 1876.26



While the Arch acted as a shiny hulking savior of St. Louis?s tenuous hold on national worth, the Modernist movement focused its efforts on making the rest of downtown?s aesthetic appeal to those who would look beyond the new Modernist monument. The ultimate goal of Modernism utilized the tools of urban renewal to create ?a clear slate, an urban core that could be liberated from past memories and experiences.? Modernists sliced downtown into homogeneous zones of development, clearly defining commercial, residential and recreational areas, in an attempt to make downtown ?efficient.? The suburban shopping center was just this?an efficient, planned and controlled environment that downtown suddenly embraced.27



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



St. Louis Centre architect Leonard Kagan?s goals for the mall complex seemed to be a throwback to the urban ideals of Jane Jacobs, though he abused her tenets in nearly every category. Kagan believed the Centre?s street level focused outward and encouraged window-shopping and pedestrian activity in the surrounding blocks.39 A few first-floor stores had windows facing the street, but the entire ground level sported only three entrances. Essentially, the first floor facing Seventh Street was a loading dock for the mall, stealing space from possible street level retailers. Since Kagan labeled the area as ?dense,? he felt it necessary to create public plazas for pedestrian traffic and for civic events. The resultant plaza at Washington and Sixth Streets, however, became a hangout for some prominent members of downtown?s scarce residential stock?the homeless, a group not particularly liked by Centre shoppers. Further, Kagan argued that the mall?s two acres of glass would allow a view of the activity inside the mall to passersby, enlivening the streetscape. Truly the pedestrian passageway connecting Dillard?s to the mall corrupted the integrity of the remarkably intact nineteenth century Washington Avenue warehouse district?s streetscape. The green and white enameled metallic panels covering much of the mall were, to Kagan, a necessity in order to hide storage and service areas of the shops as well as to provide a contrast to nearby architectural styles. Kagan noted the famed metallic panels were almost like ?gift wrapping a box.?40 To many, the fa?ade of that box could have featured a ?return to sender? stamp as well. Authentic turn-of-the-century terra cotta and brick construction did indeed give Mr. Kagan his intended contrast.



The St. Louis Centre?s exterior may have had a peculiar design, but concerns over parking surfaced in newspaper reports just a day after the Centre?s opening, as if to hearken back to 1950 downtown?s growing inconvenience when held up next to its expansive and parking-plentiful suburban shopping counterparts. Visitors to the Centre pondered the obvious question after the veneer of novelty chipped away: why pay to park at a mall downtown when you can park for free in Crestwood? Further, safety concerns were inextricably tied to parking problems. In no other garage would most dare park but one with a passageway leading directly into the mall, hovering safely above, if only briefly, the danger of the ?inner city.? A Globe Democrat article entitled ?Men in gray chase blues away? by Mike Field clearly defined the goal of the St. Louis Centre security staff: ?make St. Louis? inner city, or at least part of it, safe for shoppers.? Further, the article introduces readers to Al Tremor, head of security at the mall, who elaborates on this goal: ?We want even the little old ladies who are scared they?ll be attacked if they shop downtown to feel safe and comfortable.?41



Downtown had been the only option for shoppers prior to 1920, and the only one they could imagine; now, in 1985, downtown was in the position of needing extra defense in order to attract these shoppers. Due in no small part to persistent racism and downtown area residents? ever diminishing ?purchasing power,? St. Louis Centre faced these parking and safety concerns?and incurred their costs?while suburban shopping centers would continue their dominance and would champion their efficiency.



At first, however, St. Louis Centre was, to circa 1985 St. Louis, hope for downtown grandeur once more. Immediately after the August 8, 1985 opening, suburban competitors such as Plaza Frontenac reported noticeably decreased sales and customer traffic. ?It?s been terrible here,? noted a sales clerk at Saks Fifth Avenue in Plaza Frontenac, ?Terrible, terrible. I?d be down there today too if I could. It?s a great thing for St. Louis.?42



St. Louis Centre?s effects on its suburban counterparts were not long-lived. With the opening of the St. Louis Galleria in 1986 (and its subsequent expansion in the early 1990s), the St. Louis Centre saw an immediate bite to its possible suburban shopping base. The Richmond Heights-based mall was merely ten miles from downtown, and, of course, offered copious parking in an area where security was no real concern. In addition to the Galleria, the St. Louis Union Station restoration project completed in 1985 as well. Though city leaders and analysts believed tourists and the downtown lunchtime crowd would sustain St. Louis Union Station?s Rouse-developed festival marketplace atmosphere and fill that particular niche, St. Louis Centre rather quickly failed to attract the residential population that was supposed to sustain it. Noting the expanding Illinois portion of the Metro Area, the Centre?s mall manager predicted the mall?s customer base to be 40 percent downtown workers, 30 percent tourists and convention-goers and the remaining 30 percent comprising residents of the Metro Area, including Illinois.43 Really, Union Station and St. Louis Centre shared the downtown office worker clientele, with Union Station capturing more of the tourist crowd.



In 1990, the Census Bureau showed that downtown could claim only 1,152 residents.44 Though Architect Leonard Kagan likely referred to downtown business traffic when he deemed the area ?dense,? Census figures showed that downtown was sorely lacking a residential base which might support the mall at other hours besides the lunchtime rush. A Post-Dispatch article entitled ?Noontime Fills All the Tills at St. Louis Centre? showcases St. Louis Centre?s ongoing plight and the drama journalists depicted of the Centre?s fight to claim even a fraction of the customer base it once bragged at opening. Further, sales per square foot took a tumble in St. Louis Centre?s first ten years. A year after opening, the mall?s manager boasted of a higher than national average of $250 per square foot and higher than expected per-square foot profit for the mall, at $300.45 Ten years later, the mall?s management attempted to remain optimistic, noting sales at about the national average, disguising the fact that a downtown mall requires more revenue due to its increased security concerns and its reduced hours of operation (especially on weekends).



St. Louis Centre?s management had believed their rebound would arrive in the form of Metrolink, St. Louis?s light rail mass transportation system completed in 1993. A stop would be placed literally at the doorstep to the mall, on Sixth and Washington, the site of Kagan?s public plaza. Mass transit?s service to the St. Louis Centre would surely bring those elusive Illinoisans to the Centre as Metrolink was to expand farther east. Of course, St. Louis Centre was receiving annual write-ups in the Post-Dispatch as to its snowballing failure. Washington Avenue redevelopment, which would explode with the availability of state historic tax credits in 1998, could not lend a wealthy population base to St. Louis Centre just yet. St. Louis Centre came to be, by the late 1990s, a public embarrassment to the city and a scar to downtown. As loudly and as ceremoniously as it began in 1985, with Bob Hope, homing pigeons and the largest balloon release since the 1984 Olympics, St. Louis Centre faded rather quietly in the 1990s.



The relative drama surrounding St. Louis Centre?s changes in ownership reflected its massive failure as downtown redevelopment. On May 31, 2001, Melvin Simon and Associates sold the 175 million dollar mall to North Carolina-based investor Haywood Whichard for just over $8 million. Arthur Spellmeyer III stated in a May 31, 2001 St. Louis Post-Dispatch article, ?[Simon and Associates has] lost significantly?tens of millions of dollars?on St. Louis Centre.?46 Whichard, called ?investor? by the Post-Dispatch for reasons of civility, is, in actuality, a slum landlord. Whichard buys dying malls across the country, refusing to pour any money into the structures after initial investment. He then sits on the property in anticipation of collecting money from local governments as they are forced to condemn the properties he neglects?with, of course, due compensation. On August 4, 2004, the mall was yet again sold amidst complaints by City leaders against Whichard?s questionable practices. This time the mall went to California-based Galveston Discount warehouses for a total of $5.4 million.47



Neither with changes of ownership nor with flexible leases could St. Louis Centre rekindle the brief flame it sparked in 1985. The mall?s occupancy rate was often seen as the barometer of the mall?s spiraling failure. By 2000, St. Louis Centre was half-occupied. Worse still, by 2005, the mall could claim only a third of its space occupied. Though the mall saw a weekend of resurgence when the Final Four came to St. Louis in 2005, the shopping center remained dormant into and throughout the 21st century. St. Louis Centre was once to provide a contrast to the surrounding blocks of downtown. That contrast appeared ever more an impediment to downtown?s relative resurgence in the 21st century. A plan laid out by Downtown Now!, a public-private partnership dedicated to restoring downtown St. Louis, channeled their efforts into redeveloping downtown district by district, one of which was known as the ?Old Post Office District.? This central core of downtown, containing some of downtown?s oldest structures, was seen as key to revival of the central business district. St. Louis Centre is mentioned only briefly in the 1999 plan. Downtown Now! offered the following suggestion for the Centre: ?Work with the owners of St. Louis Centre to reposition the facility through redesign, ground floor retail venues and a marketing/leasing strategy.?48



For the future of the mall, one need only speak to the mall?s current manager, Cristina Rotter. Ms. Rotter offered St. Louis the prediction that, by the time the next Final Four rolls into town, St. Louis Centre will not be able to provide the space it did for the 2005 Final Four. No, not due to its being closed, condemned or demolished, as most St. Louisans might suspect, but rather due to Ms. Rotter?s faith that Galveston Discount Warehouses is dedicated to making the mall at the heart of it all viable again?or for the first time, one could say.



To make downtown a retail destination once again, it needs to enjoy its former status as a mixed-use hub of activity and needs to be as much a dense, urban neighborhood as it is a bustling commercial district. Various plans for the suffering St. Louis Centre have included all of the following: transformation into a large IKEA store; an interactive educational facility; a street-level retail focused shopping center with conversion to office space on the upper floors; an aquarium showcasing the aquatic life of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers; and a target of the wrecking ball. Though the Washington Avenue Loft District is responding to downtown?s need for residents, higher density developments must occur. The St. Louis Centre site would perfectly suit a new residential apartment tower catering to middle income residents which could boost Downtown Now!?s Old Post Office District with much-needed pedestrian activity and nightlife. Whatever the ultimate fate of the St. Louis Centre, the mall?s troubled history, from its ambitious conception to its bombastic delivery to its almost fantastic abandonment, paints a lush portrait of the American urban crisis of which downtown St. Louis stands as an all-too-familiar example.

Nice job! Impressive research. Reading it made me think back to the time the mall opened - there WAS a feeling of optimism in the city back then. STL Centre and Union Station were open. The Fox had been renovated. DeBaliviere Place was going strong, and Soulard and Lafayette Square were coming back. There were flowers growing in the median of the Forest Park Parkway. And there were some newish towers downtown, mainly along Market Street.



Yes, the 1980s were the low spot for downtown in many respects. The 1986 tax reform act didn't help. But the '80s were also a time when many people in the 'burbs started rediscovering the city - even if they didn't like it so much that they wanted to move there. In the early '80s there were huge crowds of suburban "tourists" on summer weekend nights along Euclid in the West End.



St. Louis Centre ultimately failed, but it was a contributor to this optimism. When it opened, people weren't even giving all those warehouses on Washington Ave. a second glance - and look where Washington Ave. is today. I think STL Centre itself deserves another chance. Tear down the skybridges, by all means, and clear out the food court. Whatever. But it would be a mistake to tear down the entire structure. It might still have a viable future.



Here's an idea: Make the mall into a winter garden, like a modified version of the Botanical Garden's Climatron. Keep it open to the public. And keep the escalators going up to the second-floor mezzanine, which would serve as a new entrance lobby for the One City Centre office tower.

Matt drops the H, this is indeed impressive work. Very well done.



LouLou, you are spot on. I remember those days in St. Louis and it was great. I really think the tax reform of the mid 80s stopped the momentum.



Too bad Cohen seems to be more of a speculater than a developer. There are things that could be done to STLCTR. For one thing, part of it could be a multi-level, sun-filled Virgin Records. Imagine if one of those big glass entrances took you into a Virgin Record Store like the one on Times Square. Another could be a Borders Book Store. It could be so many things with some vision and investment. Without investment, even the best places wither and die. On the other hand, if they want tear it down and start over, I would support that, too.

St. Louis Center: IKEA, IKEA, IKEA.

Yes, I too will add that the paper by H drop is well done.



However, as for all the Cohen bashing, I will defend him for the time being. SLC is a great piece of property: an mall in the heart of downtown st. louis. But, what does he do with that property? To rush off in any one driection right now might be foolish. All the developments along washington and in the OPD add a new residental compnenet to downtown. More people are living in SOulard, Lafeyett Square, and King Louie. But, are these people enough to ensure the sucess of a relaunched mall? I don't know. Downtown losses more daytime workes all the time.

What Cohen should be rightly waiting on is seeing the sucess of the Bottle District and the plans for the Ballpark village. If these developments are sucessful high rise high density residental addtions to downtown, Cohen will know the market is strong to relaunch the mall with whatever mix of small shops and big box retailers he cobbles together. But lets say the Bottle District attracts less than half of the possible residents? Or that the Ballpark Village is delayed in starting. Even if downtown continues to add more lofts, these are dinky additions to the population by comparison. To launch a mall cohen should be looking for population and he is right in waiting to see that these dense residental developments are sucessful before tieing himself too a plan built on shops. At least by waiting, if the residential demand dips, Cohen can back track and tear down the whole structure and try his hand at Class A office space.

Basically, I think the mall, if it is to stay, needs massive redesign to the point where it isn't recognizable as the St. Louis Centre anymore. And the name "St. Louis Centre" has some bad associations with it now. That too should be shed. This place needs major work so that it does not succumb to the stigma it has built up.



The building needs to blend better with the rest of downtown's more architecturally-pleasing surroundings. The Centre is after all the bridge between the Old Post Office District and the Loft District.



The Circle Centre development in Indianapolis was also a product of Simon and Associates. It's very similar to the St. Louis Centre, save for two things:



1) it used the facades of existing structures as opposed to contructing a new mall with ugly metallic panels



and



2) it is still successful.



Doesn't this look familiar?







But...







That definitely blends in better with the streetscape than our "Centre."



And the inside is not too much different from the St. Louis Centre:







See?



Here's another picture that shows the gaudy bridge--almost a local monument--as well as the intact historical facades.







For a history of the development of this mall, click here.



It's amazing how two malls created and developed by the same company could have such different results despite their similarities.

It certainly does need a total redesign. And in the end, it may not be a mall in the traditional sense. Good idea to dump the STLCTR name.



While Circle in Indy is better looking on the outside, I don't think that is really the problem. Does Indy have suburban shopping centers on the level of St. Louis suburbs? St. Louis County has better than average shopping which would be nearly impossible to compete.



As Jmedwick indicated, Cohen may need to see how the market shapes up. How long will that take? Does it have to be an embarrassment to the city in the meantime. He could do the city a favor and move the remaining stores to the lower level, close up the upper levels while he speculates on the surrounding market, and take the name off. People associate STLCTR with the center of St. Louis. It establishes the reputation for St. Louis for many visitors. THAT is costing a lot of other people in town money when visitors don't return or bring back convention business. I can't blame him for being a business man and waiting for the best or smartest deal. But he is doing it at the expense of the entire metro area. Sitting there with a huge empty mall with the doors wide open is squandering the cities reputation.

Thanks for the pics. The similarities are uncanny. One thing I noticed is that there are lights 'on' underneath the bridge in Indy. If Cohen is waiting to redevelop the St Louis Centre, he should at least fix the lights underneath the massive bridge.



I disagree with giving him more time, tenents continue to leave as their leases run out. I have no idea why Walgreens wants to stay on the 4th floor unless they too are waiting for the lease to expire so they can move elsewhere. I'm sure proposals have been floated for them to move to the ground level, but there may have been a caveat for them to extend their lease in the Centre.

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.

I agree with what southslider said on the last page. I think Walgreens is waiting to move back into the Garage Majal, err Shoppes on Ninth. Walgreens is notorious for demanding street visibility(as well as drive up pharmacies) nowadays. I think they have an ace up there sleeve.



Cohen had better hurry up; that is unless his plan all along was to let the place go down the crapper. Whatever his plan I don't think it can be entirely retail anymore. In the meantime I do like the consolodation idea, that won't happen unless Walgreens moves down or moves out.

Expat wrote:
While Circle in Indy is better looking on the outside, I don't think that is really the problem. Does Indy have suburban shopping centers on the level of St. Louis suburbs? St. Louis County has better than average shopping which would be nearly impossible to compete.

Well, I wasn't trying to imply that the only reason the Circle Centre was successful was due to its better relationship to the streetscape. The reasons for the differences in the outcomes of the two Centres and numerous and complex.



For one, Indianapolis merged with its county, Marion County, in the 1970s. Indianapolis has very few suburbs compared to St. Louis's multitude. Regional fragmentation was never a problem for Indianapolis. Thus, even though not without its own urban problems, Indianapolis did not bear the brunt of sprawl nearly as gravely as did St. Louis. The shape of our region, being ever westward-skewed, has inherently affected the success of St. Louis Centre and other retail establishments throughout the city.



There are innumerable differences between the two cities that perhaps could illuminate why Circle Centre has remained profitable. But that's just an obvious and major difference. St. Louis is an emblem of governmental fragmentation--sporting a separate City and County--while Indianapolis is one of the few cities that merged with its county.

Good stuff, Matt.



Here are some pics of Milwaukee's Shops of Grand Avenue. It was on life support at one time, but seems to have attracted some good new tenants recently - Linens N' Things, Old Navy, Lane Bryant, Office Max. The Marshall Fields' Building that was connected to the mall was recently converted to Residence Inn and office space.

St. Louis Centre used to have unique retailers too, so it make me wonder if Cohen could attract some unique retailer along with what Millwaukee did attracting shops like Old Navy, Office Max, etc. The unique retailers is what made the Centre work in the first place, so maybe getting back to basics, along with maybe some residential, or even performing arts space, the mall could work again. The outside is going to have to be redone no matter what happens though. The uninvitingness has got to be the number one reason the mall is dead.

Expat wrote:It certainly does need a total redesign. And in the end, it may not be a mall in the traditional sense. Good idea to dump the STLCTR name.



While Circle in Indy is better looking on the outside, I don't think that is really the problem. Does Indy have suburban shopping centers on the level of St. Louis suburbs? St. Louis County has better than average shopping which would be nearly impossible to compete.

I used to live in Indy and their shopping scene is improving....



Indy does have another upscale shopping center on the northside called Fashion Mall of Keystone Crossing. It has stores such as Saks, Parisian, Cheesecake Factory, Crate & Barrel (opening next month), etc.



The thing that Circle Centre has going for it is that it has a Nordstroms along with some entertainment venues such as Gameworks Studio (similar to Dave & Busters) and a movie theatre. Also a few stores that can't be found at Fashion mall or other malls in Indy, plus many restaurants that stay open late (Buffalo Wild Wings) or are high end like Ruth Chris Steakhouse. The problem with St Louis Centre was that it closed at 6pm each day and there isn't any entertainment or dining that kept ppl there. Famous Barr and Dillards all had better stores in the suburbs.

I've never been in Circle Centre, but I would guess that another advantage that it has over SLC is that there isn't an office building in the middle of it. Walking in to SLC and seeing very little first-floor retail and having to immediately take an escalator up to the second floor is a little awkward.



I still think that the food court can be successful. If anything, it makes sense - I think I would prefer to have a bunch of fast food outlets consolidated on the fourth floor of the mall as opposed to having them take up every retail space at street level in a building like the Paul Brown, for instance.

Certainly there are things that can be done. You can't expect a 20 year old mall to thrive without some occasional investment and redesign. Too bad they didn't work on it a fews years back when it began to decline. Maybe they could have avoided a total collapse. Malls have to stay up to date, even in the suburbs.