I noticed the Value City furniture in the strip center at Chippewa & River Des Peres is closing. That added with the shuttered Schnucks (several years ago) leaves only the Dollar Tree left. This strip center is an eyesore. The parking lot is neglected, the large sign is rusting & nobody is rushing to lease the former Schnucks space. This is a very high traffic area, in a densely populated area. Obviously, this strip center has big competition with Mackenzie Pointe & Kenrick Plaza, but it seems to me that this could be successful with the right mix of stores. 

Anyone have any insight on this specific location? Could this be a location where a mixed use (condo-townhome-apartment- retail (Pick your combination) development could succeed?  It seems like the worst case would be a thrift store or breaking these large stores into multiple smaller retail stores. What motivation does the strip center owner have now to get this ugly strip center leased? If nobody has bit on the other vacancies, I can't imagine the Value City space gets leased. I am hoping they have a grand plan I am not aware of, but I doubt it. I just wonder how long the owner can survive with just a Dollar Tree & a bunch of vacancies. 

It is an interesting site where most of the parking lot is in the city but the commercial space is in the county. I remember going there as a kid when it was a Shop'n'Save.

It'd be good to see it urbanized what with the Metrolink close by but I also wonder about its location so close to the River Des Peres, like how often it has flooded.

^ River Des Peres has not flooded near that location to my knowledge. When it has flooded, it has been mostly near Morgan Ford & near 55 & Germania. That being said, the proximity to River Des Peres is not ideal, but it is not much of a factor. I think the other strip centers in the area are thriving, which has hurt this one. The easier fix is to find retailers that are not currently in the area, like a hardware store, a Trader Joes or something unique. I do not believe the owner has been willing to get creative &/or put much money into it. I only spend so much energy on this because it is in a prime location & the locals deserve better than this eyesore. 

As much as I dislike them, hand the land over to McBride since they seem to have a model that worked on the Hill and at the old Crestwood Mall site.

^ I would take that over keeping the strip center. The other ones near buy can service the new homes. Considering the owner has not been able to get a retailer to lease the old Schnucks for years, I am not confident that retail will work in this spot.

I will say this, completely unrelated. Probably the worse empty former strip center is the one on Olive not too far from all of the new stuff at Olive & 170 where the old Seafood City was located. That is ripe for residential, but who knows since that entire strip of Olive near the old Chinatown is hit or miss. I hope U-City has a plan. I am not confident the City will have any plan to push a development along at Chippewa & River Des Peres.

I live around the corner from there. That would be a *great* place for a 5-over-1. Retail has struggled along this stretch for a long time. Mackenzie Point is doing okay and the Walmart is always busy, but everything else has been a rough go. 

But it's a nice place to live! There's more than enough road capacity to manage auto traffic from 200+ apartments there, and it's transit adjacent; you're right on the RDP trail which gets you a quick walk to the Shrewsbury Metrolink station. The apartments behind those buildings on Weil can be a bit sketch, but you're also very near some very nice city and county neighborhoods.  The Rosebrough Monument Co is still active in corner of the parking lot at RDP & Chippewa but that shouldn't be too hard at all to work around at all.

-RBB

^ Agree on all points! Not really sure why or how retail could fail in such a densely populated, heavily trafficked area. 

If somebody can ID the owner of the strip center, maybe we will have an idea of how they handled other properties. Do they hold on to it forever & let it rot, sell it or attempt to reinvent it by altering the structures. What is their reputation..... 

PeterXCV wrote: ↑

Nov 20, 2025

It is an interesting site where most of the parking lot is in the city but the commercial space is in the county. I remember going there as a kid when it was a Shop'n'Save.

Not quite and actually more interesting... the city/county line cuts the former Schnucks building almost exactly in half diagonally.  Don't remember how they did sales taxes, but I think all of the checkouts were in the City, so sales tax was based on the City rates and collected for the city. Property taxes were based on SF split between city and county. No clue how they did earnings tax.

Three words: indoor pickleball courts.
All the indoor courts are pretty far out from the city. 

The Schnucks portion of the lot was recently listed for sale or lease.  I think it was DESCO/Schunucks owned.

The owner is Jared Commercial out of Springfield: https://www.jaredcommercial.com/propert ... 0498-lease

DogtownBnR wrote: ↑

Nov 20, 2025

^ Agree on all points! Not really sure why or how retail could fail in such a densely populated, heavily trafficked area. 

If somebody can ID the owner of the strip center, maybe we will have an idea of how they handled other properties. Do they hold on to it forever & let it rot, sell it or attempt to reinvent it by altering the structures. What is their reputation..... 

The parcel is owned by CHIPPEWA CENTER LLC, which appears to be registered to Jared Curtis of Jared Commercial & Management in Springfield, MO.

-RBB

I always thought it'd be cool to extend to metro up to it and then have a large TOD with hundreds of apartments, townhomes, and smaller scale retail.

rbb wrote: ↑

Nov 20, 2025

DogtownBnR wrote: ↑

Nov 20, 2025

^ Agree on all points! Not really sure why or how retail could fail in such a densely populated, heavily trafficked area. 

If somebody can ID the owner of the strip center, maybe we will have an idea of how they handled other properties. Do they hold on to it forever & let it rot, sell it or attempt to reinvent it by altering the structures. What is their reputation..... 

The parcel is owned by CHIPPEWA CENTER LLC, which appears to be registered to Jared Curtis of Jared Commercial & Management in Springfield, MO.

-RBB

Out of town ownership is not usually a good thing, as they do not see the way their vacant strip mall is dragging down the area on a daily basis. 

DogtownBnR wrote: ↑

Nov 20, 2025

^

I will say this, completely unrelated. Probably the worse empty former strip center is the one on Olive not too far from all of the new stuff at Olive & 170 where the old Seafood City was located. That is ripe for residential, but who knows since that entire strip of Olive near the old Chinatown is hit or miss. I hope U-City has a plan.

A few years ago U City and MSD had a plan to build huge underground storage tanks at this site for River des Pere overflow. Haven't heard anything for a long time, though.

That has to be a horrible idea from a local resident’s perspective!

The car oriented sales tax producers that inner ring county munis went all on have started to hit the downhill. See big bend, brentwood blvd, watson road. Was never sustainable, Going to have to reimagine those thoroughways. Brentwood Blvd is trying to reinvent itself (and I think it will eventually), the others need a lot of work

Trader Joe's would be a great tenant for a new mixed use development, wink wink nudge nudge.

^So interesting thing I learned a couple of weeks ago: Trader Joe's is owned by Aldi Nord. (And has been since 1979 apparently.) Trader Joes? Is just an Aldi by another name. (Not that the two halves of the family seem to have much trouble competing with one another these days.)

That site is about 9 acres - That could fit a 5 over one, townhomes and retail, if we could find a developer with that kind of vision 

symphonicpoet wrote: ↑

Nov 22, 2025

^So interesting thing I learned a couple of weeks ago: Trader Joe's is owned by Aldi Nord. (And has been since 1979 apparently.) Trader Joes? Is just an Aldi by another name. (Not that the two halves of the family seem to have much trouble competing with one another these days.)

that's interesting. there is a day and night difference between the two in quality and prices.

^I only have a little experience with Trader Joe's, but they seem to follow a quite similar formula: sell house brands, almost to the exclusion of everything else. And by reputation at least the quality at Trader Joe's is also reasonably good. I've always found Aldi surprisingly good, pariticularly given the price. Much better than most American supermarkets by comparison. Good bread at very reasonable prices. Good staples. Decent produce. Acceptable cold cuts. Good frozen pizza. Nice snacks. All around decent places. Not fancy, but good. Trader Joe's does have the reputation of being more expensive, I'll grant you that. But the stores seem similar in size and layout, even. Maybe fancier, though. Aldi for yuppies and hipsters. For my money I will probably always prefer Aldi, but . . . maybe Trader Joe's is at least worth a look.

Anyway, they really are owned by Aldi Nord. They were founded by someone else, but Aldi Nord bought them in 1979, so they've had a long long time to become Aldi. And hey, we get to be the only place other than Germany where both halves of the family have stores, and the only one anywhere that both have stores in the same market. Other than us they've pretty well carved up the world at a thing called the Aldi-Äquator (or Aldi equator.) Trader Joe's seems to have at least a little more independence, which may be the only reason they're allowed "south" of the equator. (The split was apparently . . . dramatic. They still negotiate a few things together, but Aldi Nord and Aldi Süd are two completely separate companies with different governance and even different logos.)

So Trader Joe's is only kinda Aldi, and a different Aldi than our Aldi at that. But still, it's Aldi.

Ideally any redevelopment could be combined with a Metrolink Extension. Since the corridor for any extension south is known. The site seems to be a good spot to upzone and could impact surrounding areas in Shrewsbury and in St. Louis Hills neighborhood.

Since this would tie into an idea I had is to do short extensions and branches of Metrolink over time in areas were its very well defined where a line would go.

imperialmog wrote: ↑

Dec 03, 2025

Ideally any redevelopment could be combined with a Metrolink Extension. Since the corridor for any extension south is known. The site seems to be a good spot to upzone and could impact surrounding areas in Shrewsbury and in St. Louis Hills neighborhood.

Since this would tie into an idea I had is to do short extensions and branches of Metrolink over time in areas were its very well defined where a line would go.

Honestly, it's within walking distance of the Shrewsbury station already, and it's a pleasant walk down the River Des Peres Greenway at that. Not that I don't want to see MetroLink extended south, but it should already be ready for upzoning and TOD.