urbanSTL

Here's a mini update on Crestwood Plaza:



http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/busine ... enDocument



If I remember correctly, one (if not both) of the new owners are involved in the new Whole Foods/Target shopping thingie in Town & Country... I'm just glad that the mall/center/court is out of Westfield's hands!

Crestwood mall to become open-air lifestyle center

By Gail Appleson and Joe Whittington

ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

04/03/2008



Crestwood Plaza will be at least partially demolished and transformed into an open air lifestyle center, according to one of its new owners, Chicago-based Centrum Properties.



Centrum along with New York investment advisor Angelo, Gordon & Co purchased the 48-acre mall from Australian shopping-mall giant Westfield Group for an undisclosed sum. Westfield bought the mall, built in 1957, for $106.4 million in 1998.



The deal, reported first in the Post-Dispatch by columnist Joe Whittington two months ago, closed on March 26. The mall has been temporarily renamed Crestwood Court.



"It had not been aggressively managed for years," said Sol Barket, Centrum's managing partner of retail development. "We saw it as a great opportunity to create an open air lifestyle center."



His brother, Keith Barket, is senior managing director at Angelo, Gordon. Both men grew up in the St. Louis area and have been involved in other commercial developments here.



Lifestyle centers, a current trend in shopping center developments, tend to be upscale properties with storefronts that open to the street, outside walkways and outside dining, and a gathering place, such as a square or fountain. They offer an open air design versus an enclosed configuration found in traditional malls.



Although specific plans for the property have not yet been drawn, the redeveloped Crestwood shopping center is expected to have features usually included in lifestyle centers, Barket said.



In addition to what he called a "town center," Barket said the property would have an expanded movie theater, restaurants and would possibly hold outdoor concerts. A town center is typically a square or fountain that acts as a focal point for a center.



Barket expects the new center will be about 500,000 to 1 million square feet. The mall has about 1 million square feet today.



"I am truly overjoyed this has happened," Roy Robinson, Crestwood mayor, said about the sale. "This is a great day for our city."



The mall has its temporary new name to show it has new ownership, Barket said. However, that name will be changed after the lifestyle center is created. Groundbreaking will not take place for a year or two as there are still a number of areas that must be addressed, including leases held by existing tenants.



Source

^ What are they going to do? Bulldoze the south buildings that were added in 1985 and restore the plaza to what it was?

^ Yeah, it's interesting to note that Crestwood and Northwest plazas, with new owners and plans, will move full circle and revert back to open-air shopping centers.



I really wish all of this could've happened before Dillard's decided to leave. Unfortunately, Dillard's never updated the store (and I'm not sure Stix Baer & Fuller did much with it since 1967 either), but there was a great selection of merchandise there, and it isn't like there are that many Dillard's stores in Greater St. Louis anymore. I hope Macy's and Sears will be part of the revamped development, but I don't hold out much hope for either major tenant. I'm glad to see there will still be a movie theatre there though, because there aren't many in this particular area, and I've always liked the Crestwood 10 for some reason even though it and the mall are woefully dated. (Maybe because it's not as crowded with teenagers as Ronnie's or as, um, interesting as the Esquire?) Yeah, those could be a couple of reasons.

Could the Dillard's be repurposed as a movie theater?

I beg the developers to leave my favorite Sears unscathed. I love that place. One of our favorite family outings is dinner at Steak and Shake on Watson followed by shopping at Sears. I am not kidding.

63104mom wrote:I beg the developers to leave my favorite Sears unscathed. I love that place. One of our favorite family outings is dinner at Steak and Shake on Watson followed by shopping at Sears. I am not kidding.

I'm actually a fan of that store too. I bought my TV, lawnmower, tools, refrigerator and a bunch of other stuff there.

I'm actually a fan of that store too.

Oh, me too! Whenever I'm there, I can't help but think of the scene in the Brady Bunch movie when they all got dressed up and went to Sears. I can't ride the escalator without wanting to break into a silly hand gesture dance



http://youtube.com/watch?v=Q4h7chFGQw8

Groundbreaking will not take place for a year or two as there are still a number of areas that must be addressed, including leases held by existing tenants.



"We will also require subsidies from the city of Crestwood," he said. A meeting between city officials and the new owners is expected to be held in the next few weeks with aggressive planning to follow, Barket said.

The local zero-sum retail game continues.

Nonsense. That stretch of Watson is extremely starved for retail space. If anything can help lift it up, it's more retail.

If it's "starved" for retail, and if there's customer demand, then entrepreneurs will take risk and build stuff without massive government subsidies.

sarcasm filter </back>. Sorry 'bout that.

dweebe wrote:That stupid new strip plaza across the street with the Starbucks, Kinkos and a few other businesses pi**es me off to no end.

What's wrong with the strip center? I haven't been out that way recently.

bonwich wrote:sarcasm filter </back>. Sorry 'bout that.

carrieocity kills wrote:Sears is the best place to buy sewing machines.

I agree. (I don't sew well- mostly mending and simple patterns). Where do you buy fabric? I usually go to Hancock of 55 on Bayless/Union (cannot remember which exit I use).

"Open air lifestyle center."



This is what happens when you destroy your urban fabric with a bunch of malls. Mall eventually goes belly-up, and the space isn't on a street where people walk past it, so you take off the roof and build a cartoon of a real street. Brilliant!

We wandered over here yesterday because we were in the neighborhood and had some time to kill.



Noticed that the old Houlihans has been taken over by a locally-owned concern, Fletchers. Their only other restaurant is in Belleville, and at least there in Belleville they've got some good food.



I wish they had taken a minute to walk around the mall before signing the lease, though; looks like there's more closed stores than there are open ones.

ben1040 wrote:Noticed that the old Houlihans has been taken over by a locally-owned concern, Fletchers. Their only other restaurant is in Belleville, and at least there in Belleville they've got some good food.



I wish they had taken a minute to walk around the mall before signing the lease, though; looks like there's more closed stores than there are open ones.

I want to know who sold the fine folks at Flecther's the snake oil. I have to imagine they were fed a beautiful line of BS, or like you said, failed to do the most basic investigating by walking around the dying mall.



I really want Fletcher's to succeed because their Belleville location is excellent. I guess I should also support their Crestwood location, but I get depressed every time I go to Crestwood Plaza anymore. I just hope with the so-so economy that the plans to give the mall a makeover actually go forward. Hopefully the developers can retain Macy's, Sears, and the movie theatre at the very least.



I still can't get over the idea that in order to bring businesses and shoppers back to Northwest and Crestwood plazas, the solution is to take them back to their original state (Crestwood was enclosed in the early 1980s, Northwest in the late 1980s).

The Central Scrutinizer wrote:Or maybe they were offered a sweetheart deal too good to pass up.

That's my theory. I wouldn't be surprised if they got a big enough break on the rent that it didn't matter that the mall was dead.





I hope that the developer can maintain the movie theater, but do a whole new build-out rather than just revamping the space.



I could imagine that the Moolah concept could be scaled down a bit and multiplexed. From what I remember reading I thought that area was home to a generally older demographic. I would suspect that boomer types would be much more inclined to go somewhere they could enjoy a movie on a couch and and have food/drink service, than, say go to Ronnie's.