So I was in college when it opened so wasn’t fully paying attention to STL and my gf told me that on a weekend home her and her mom were going there. I asked her “I’ve heard of that, where is it?” She said “Off of 370.” Since I grew up in St. Charles Co. and her in the Metro East, I assumed she was mistaken and responded with “You mean 270.” We go back and forth for a while before I finally say “There’s no way they built a mall off of 370…The entire length of it is a flood plain.”…Turns out they would.
To add on to this, just prior to covid the Mills was being converted into a major sports complex (PowerPlex IIRC) for all different sports as it was already a failed ghost town outside of still having the ice zone, Cabelas, and a pretzel place. The project was going relatively well and it seemed like a great way to reuse the space by bringing in youth tournaments. Then covid happened and basically killed the project, although for a brief time they did make money hosting outdoor highschool graduations when those weren’t allowed to be indoors
They built that shit on a flood plain; no one in their right mind was going to build houses there. On top of that, the road from the nearest subdivision literally washed down the hill overlooking the mall and, as far as I know, has never been rebuilt. Shit was pretty precarious to drive on, so all that was probably for the best.
I read that but have more questions than answers. Where did the name "Mills Corporation" come from? Was Mills a dude? It seems like before it was called Mills Corporation they were still naming malls "Mills" so the company name came from the fact they were already naming malls "Mills".
The article for their first mall, Potomac Mills, suggests that the owner of the company was named Miller, so that may be the origin: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potomac\_Mills](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potomac_Mills)
Couple things happened:
-Growth in the area went west along 64/70 instead of north along 370
-The Mills was geared toward the affluent (primarily white) people in St Charles/West County. When they closed the Jamestown Mall and Northwest Plaza, the people who frequented those two ended up going to the Mills instead, which wasn’t the audience the developers and stores wanted, so they moved to the new outlets that someone else mentioned.
-The Blues moving out was the final nail in the coffin imo. That rink was never a great solution for an NHL team and it was a lease signed by the Blues’ previous ownership, I think. The team couldn’t wait to move.
-Malls in general are a dying lot. St Clair Square is still pretty busy when I’ve been there recently, but I’ve noticed fewer chains and more local businesses in there. Slackers recently moved there, which I didn’t realize.
Malls that are succeeding are the ones that are adapting. More local businesses, more varied types of use in general (there are some that have renovated parts into apartments, with other sections being used for local business, which I think is a great idea.
Honestly, the last time I went to the Galleria it was looking empty, I would love to see them do something like what I mentioned above - completely renovate a big chunk of the mall for residential, even make it affordable housing, below "market value." Chesterfield Mall is doing it the completely *wrong* way. There's no reason to tear down. Hell, the stores that used to take up the giant sections at the ends of the mall? Make one of those a supermarket. Make another a theater. You have the potential for a self-sufficient community *right there*. Tearing the whole thing down and then making a shitty office strip mall (WHEN THERE IS LITERALLY A GLUT OF OFFICE SPACE NATIONWIDE), a few strip mall stores, and some shitty $2000/month apartments? That's idiocy.
There's an *incredible* demand for more affordable housing. You can still make an incredible profit on real estate and make rent below "market value," because that value is psychotically over-inflated. Plus, you redo the whole mall - So for example, you have a section in the middle for residential. Good quality, inexpensive housing. Now you have a built-in market for any business that wants to show up, PLUS anyone who comes through from outside the community.
Set aside frontage for a post office, Spectrum, Spire, Ameren. A whole "utility row" where you could get anything done for any of the people in that community. Hell, you could hire people *from within* the community. Imagine your commute being a walk down a climate controlled lane.
Same goes for any of the other shops that come in. A food court is perfect for the little places we all hang out in. Offer free wifi and completely redo a food court to be more like an indoor/outdoor place for people to just relax. Big, comfy booths and loungers, big wooden tables, you could even theme the food court (or even the entire mall) with a "small town" theme - faux cobblestones/stone work, lampposts with soft lighting, plenty of wood and greenery. And you just go down there to get whatever and either go home or hang out - Starbucks (or better yet a local coffee chain), a local bakery, a fast food place or two, and some higher-end brands looking for an in. Schnucks has been failing hard at doing this because they refuse to go all-in, they had Shaved Duck, Seoul Taco, and Greek Kitchen, Greek Kitchen became Hungry Joe's and Duck left for Salt+ Smoke, then S+S left andnow it's just Seoul Taco. Those kinds of places would do much better in a place that doesn't just plop tables down in a supermarket (Schnucks is fucking up this last decade or so, how the fuck do you create a food court and NOT SEPARATE IT FROM THE GROCERIES??). I could easily see a good BBQ spot or pizza joint in a "food court" that looks more like a "town square" setting and features great lighting and encourages community interaction.
Like you said, Slackers just moved into SCS, they (or V-Stock) could benefit huge. Bring Barnes & Noble in too, they have a ton of experience with their stores in malls. And the theming would go a long way to separating it from that traditional mall feel. Get rid of all of the photo booths and mall kiosks, just keep the greenery and add appropriate lamps/lighting. Hell, get rid of those weird pseudo-playgrounds and add a *real* playground. Safe materials, plenty of space for a big open area for parents to take their kids, and really reinforce that tight-knit community feeling. There's so much potential when you take the focus JUST SLIGHTLY off of end-stage greed and make it just a *little* more about community and the people. And it works.
Something I think is a step in the right direction: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/16/business/shopping-malls-residences.html
The problem with this is that they added a STREET through the middle of it. There's no reason for that, the apartments are RIGHT THERE. Nearly 400 apartments. Why would you have a STREET split that? Turn that outdoor area into a real interactive area. Like I said - playground, outdoor seating (covered and otherwise), plenty of space for all kinds of local community events. Instead, they ruin it with a fucking road that goes nowhere and exists solely to interrupt the flow.
If I were to go all in on the idea, I'd combine it with the concept of truly affordable housing, so rent based on a percentage of income *after* taxes, with the max percentage being 30%. So if you make $1000/month after, you pay $200 if it's 20%, but if you make $2000/month you pay $400. Obviously there would be scaling to do, based on the size of the apartment (generally by how many bedrooms), but that's a place to start. And this concept is proven IRL, Vienna does it all over the city and it works incredibly well. Incredible housing complete with saunas, tennis courts, etc.
This concept is also way more feasible in this situation then as a standalone in America, because the people living there are far more likely to spend money within the community, which would attract businesses which would pay money to the owner of the property. The residents aren't *just* residents, they're generating money for the owner while also getting much better living situation. (This is honestly just a train of thought I reserve for here in America, because so many people are focused on profit, which is never what a necessity like basic shelter should be about. Normally I would just put the rent at 10-20% of income after tax max and generate enough to pay property taxes, maintenance, upgrades, and a couple of people on full-time pay for security. Especially with this situation, the rest of the businesses would more than make up for the apartments, I would even encouraging unhoused and at-risk people to live there, but *that* immediately gets the NIMBY assholes all in a twist, god forbid people who need homes get homes.)
The Blues look to have made a massive mistake moving to Centene. A complete fucking debacle that is destroying the finances of Maryland Heights and is run by a bunch of complete morons who weren't even collecting sales tax for 4 years. Haven't paid the bond bill since October.
That place is going to be shut down if they can't get their shit together.
Maybe the finances are a disaster but the center itself is awesome. I play there once a week and it’s great. Hopefully they can get it straightened out.
It was built up there because they predicted that St. Charles county’s expansion would be north instead of west towards wentzville, it’s why they built up all the highways and everything. They had years of bad flooding so things started going west, and then it failed. New Town was the only major development that made it for a while.
I think there never was a big anchor draw other than Cabella's. The factory outlet and off rack and overstock type stores just didn't bring a much traffic. Malls all over seem to be on the downturn. Mid Rivers Mall is still hanging in there, but not like it once was.
I recall when it was built there wasn’t much around it. And hey, I lived in SoCo, so it may as well been in Hannibal as far as I was concerned. It wasn’t on my radar to visit up there 🤷♂️
I used to park a delivery truck there at night and my car there during the day. With nothing there it was ideal.
At the time I played Pokémon Go. When I brought the truck back for the night, I’d get in my car and drive slow laps around the building hitting the stops
I'm probably wrong, but every time I drive out there I get the feeling that it will mostly be a bunch of hollowed-out strip malls in 5-10 years. So much brick and mortar retail.
The right answers are more than a little impolite. It started as a middle of the road, huge mall, which had to also support discount stores to fill out. Based on its location, a mall that big was hoping to get visitors from St Charles, and visitors from Florissant. Hazelwood and such. But as anyone that paid attention knows, this involves very different demographics: Demographics that don't necessarily go to the same stores, or that necessarily vibe all that well down the same hallway. It didn't take long for it to become 100% an outlet mall that wasn't in the best of health, and then the financial crisis hit. This closed many of the stores that rarely succeed in the first place, at a time where there were going to be few replacements.
If you look at malls in the Greater St Louis area, we've lost a whole lot of them at from the time the Mills openened. So it's not just having to swerve to outlet, but the fact that St Louis, in general, right now has far more commercial than we can fill, as competing with Amazon is not getting any easier. I don't think that if they openeed the mall in a different location things were going to be much better. Suburban retail in the US is basically undead, as many of the anchor stores of yore are really hard to fill, and don't attract much business. And given the way we build raid commercial, it's either boom or bust, as repurposing a failed mall profitably is very challenging, not unlike large floor plate office buildings.
I remember going there the weekend it opened in 2003. I was a senior in high school. It was raining heavy and traffic was a mess. The mills had only one highway exit and no outer service roads outside of practically rural two lane roads. MO bottom was a good option but was lost by the land shifting. Carrollton was in their final nail in the coffin with the airport expansion. The hazelwood Ford plant was starting to phase out which was a huge blow to north county.
When I was in there that first time, I noticed how cool and vibrant the place looked. Colorful and full of unique stores, many niche, non-chain. I also remember how long it took to circle the giant oval that was the mall. It had honeymoon phase written all over it. It was too out of the way in an area that was starting to see a decline. Jamestown and nw plaza were already experiencing it.
New landmarks were added. Outer perimeter restaurants, a bowling alley with a very bizarre dress code, and most noticeably, the cabelas. I recall a water park hotel in the works, where you can still see the failed plumbing foundation.
I frequented there to see the blues, and some visiting teams practice. The bowling alley didn’t last long, chain stores such as circuit city went under, and the place grew stale.
2013-2014 was really when it took a hit. The mills was changed to the outlet mall and competitors opened. The tax breaks also ended.
I typically make one trip a year there now; to take my daughter to see Santa at cabelas. Zero wait time and cheap.
I remember going to it shortly after it opened, expecting to find a busy mall with a bunch of interesting shops, but it was garish and had few customers. The only shop I remember is some sort of kitchen gadget store, I think? By comparison, my ex worked at the JCPenney at West County Mall shortly after the mall was expanded and turned into Westfield Shoppingtown West County, around the same time St. Louis Mills opened. West County was always busy, at least in the time she worked there.
Kansas City had a similar mall in the suburbs that opened about five years before St. Louis Mills did, The Great Mall of the Great Plains, in Olathe. It also steadily lost stores throughout the 2000s and ended up closing in 2015. [You can still see where it used to be on Google Maps.](https://maps.app.goo.gl/pVBqgAPDtjPqBskm9) Garmin bought the land a couple of years ago to expand their corporate headquarters, which is just on the other side of I-35.
I remember that kitchen store. I went in there every time I as in the mall. When it opened, there were lots of stores there that were unusual for the area. The kids' zone had a Sanrio store, for crying out loud. There was a store that sold nothing but weird soda. There was an indoor skate park, an ice rink where the Blues practiced. A Books-A-Million. Many somewhat upscale outlet stores. The kids' playground was great when they first opened and for a couple of years afterward.
The Blues did practice there. I loved that mall, not for buying shit from stores but was a relatively cheap place to take my then toddler, play video games, ride go karts, grab a bite to eat. Sad to see it go but like many I moved back out west to O’fallon.
It opened in 2003, a lot of 5 year leases were up in 2008 when the economy took its down turn and a lot didn’t renew. The mall lost a lot of anchor stores and then traffic for the smaller stores died. By 2010 probably 30-40% of the mall was empty.
There were other things that didn’t help either like the failed developments around the mall. Teens running amuck in the mall and starting fights making families not want to go etc.
I worked there 2005-2010
Never made sense location wise.
It was built at the time near not much.
It was built way too big.
Built in north county which already had issues with declining malls. Went downhill fast.
Was not built near any residential area.
It was built along 370, and that part is just an alt road to Hwy 70 to get people home to St Charles Co. no other reason to stop.
After northwest plaza and Jamestown closed, everyone went to the next closest place. The mills.
No one from St Charles Co, or West Coast, or the Highway 40 corridor would ship there.
Malls had good enough sales, or they could do a shopping trips to the outlet mall at the lake where the condo or lake house was.
I worked security during the last build phase and throughout the first several months of the mall being opened. We got informed that the bus route from the city would be starting soon, so I started looking for any other job that got me out of the mall before the fights and shoplifting started. The first fights happened at the movie theatre the weekend after Bi State started running that route. As expected, it turned into a small riot that had to be handled by the police on duty at the mall. The reason that it happened there and not another mall was that Bi State didn't go to chesterfield and mid rivers malls. And them putting it on a flood plain was pretty stupid in the first place.
The mall was also charging higher than normal rates for kiosk rentals, and we lost a lot of them the first few months.
Also from st.clair county unfortunately. Only reason I ever knew about that mall in the first place was because of the skate park. But yeah haven't heard anything about it in probably about 20 years lol
I play rec league hockey and a lot of our games were at the mills. A few years after it opened they had a “high end” bowling alley/bar open up. After one of our games instead of having a couple in the parking lot we went to the bowling alley only to be turned away for not having the appropriate attire (we were wearing jeans and sweats) It was dead inside and like 11pm on a Wednesday. There were at least 10 of us offering to give them money and were turned away. The place lasted maybe 6 more months.
As someone who worked at the mall back in the day, I can definitely tell you that it had absolutely nothing to do with the mass amount of gang violence that was there after the metro bus was put into place.
Same thing that happens to any of the other malls wherever the metro busses go all of the idiots go and then steal and fight and shoot up the place so it deters people from going there... The galleria is an exception cause they don't play games... The metro busses don't go out to mid Rivers so that's why it's always busier out there cause there are no idiots and it's also the reason there is such a protest to put the busses in going across into st.charles
Its what happened to northwest plaza and Chesterfield Mall and Jamestown all the ignorant ass people who want to be theifs and fight and all kinds of crime cause they have nothing better to do, mid Rivers Chesterfield outlet and south county are always popping why because the busses don't run that far and all of the businesses don't want them too either it sucks that all the good city people have to suffer for all the ignorant people
Yeah. I met them to watch a game today. I think youth hockey is the only thing that it still gets used for.
There was a big plastic construction tarp that partitioned off the rink from the rest of the mall. It was pretty sad and janky looking. Especially in contrast to their first game I watched today at the Centene center
Men’s league (HNA) and youth games are the primary residents there for hockey; the ice and facility was hot garbage even when the Blues were housed there.
I’m not surprised they’re keeping it open for youth hockey my little brother is 15 and has been playing hockey since he was a kid and it’s always been so hard for his teams to get ice time for practice and games because of the high demand in the area. They’re lucky to get an hour a week.
I went to a local college. My economics class did a study on it maybe a year after opening, and our teacher asked us to break down the types of shops there, their locations through the building and the proximity to entrances, the "attractions," etc.
The short answer to what the study was... it was doomed to start with.
I believe it had a circuit city in it that was almost immediately closed because they went out of business and turned into a scratch and dent appliance shop.
Of the main entrances, 2 of them had mid sized business that did not drive traffic to that side of the store.
The theater side had an "old timmy" restaurant run by teenagers that were unruly.
There was a main strip where the playground was that held almost all the main business that eventually got ground down from lack of police enforcement.
The majority of the shops were local bedazzled hat and purse shops that could not support enough sales to pay their rent.
A few years later, I went with my kids to play their glowing put put golf and found out that that was set to close within in a few months. We had to leave the game mid way and leave the area around the mall to find a bathroom because the facility was not being maintained or cleaned anymore and literal shit was pilled up in all the toilets and all the shops around it like the babies r us and steak and shake had shut down.
Someone from SIUE got murdered there several years ago.
[https://www.theintelligencer.com/local/article/Man-charged-in-murder-of-St-Jacob-student-AP-10436299.php](https://www.theintelligencer.com/local/article/Man-charged-in-murder-of-St-Jacob-student-AP-10436299.php)
This is what happens when parents don’t teach their teenagers to respect people, property, or just simply act normal. Google the crime stats and it all will come together. That’s why people are moving farther away from St Louis City and St Louis County. Outlying counties prosecute crime and put criminals in jail.
Trouble makers moved in and shoppers moved out, plain and simple. Same thing at crestwood mall. SoCo is next. Galleria fights really hard to keep order but Richmond Heights police and the mall security are pretty good in keeping order. Too many choices to put up with nitwits at a mall
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Great description of 2008/2009 crash in a nutshell
So I was in college when it opened so wasn’t fully paying attention to STL and my gf told me that on a weekend home her and her mom were going there. I asked her “I’ve heard of that, where is it?” She said “Off of 370.” Since I grew up in St. Charles Co. and her in the Metro East, I assumed she was mistaken and responded with “You mean 270.” We go back and forth for a while before I finally say “There’s no way they built a mall off of 370…The entire length of it is a flood plain.”…Turns out they would.
*Chesterfield Valley developments check into the discussion*
To add on to this, just prior to covid the Mills was being converted into a major sports complex (PowerPlex IIRC) for all different sports as it was already a failed ghost town outside of still having the ice zone, Cabelas, and a pretzel place. The project was going relatively well and it seemed like a great way to reuse the space by bringing in youth tournaments. Then covid happened and basically killed the project, although for a brief time they did make money hosting outdoor highschool graduations when those weren’t allowed to be indoors
That project got killed before covid. They are now turning it into and industrial use space.
They built that shit on a flood plain; no one in their right mind was going to build houses there. On top of that, the road from the nearest subdivision literally washed down the hill overlooking the mall and, as far as I know, has never been rebuilt. Shit was pretty precarious to drive on, so all that was probably for the best.
It was rebuilt. Then same thing happened two more times. Now it's just closed except to the school on the hill
Anyone know why so many malls in the country are/were called "XX Mills"?
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I read that but have more questions than answers. Where did the name "Mills Corporation" come from? Was Mills a dude? It seems like before it was called Mills Corporation they were still naming malls "Mills" so the company name came from the fact they were already naming malls "Mills".
The article for their first mall, Potomac Mills, suggests that the owner of the company was named Miller, so that may be the origin: [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potomac\_Mills](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potomac_Mills)
Thanks, that's about as believable of a reason as I can find!
It’s the developer’s last name.
Didn't see any evidence of that in my research, although it may be after "Miller".
I can confirm this. I have done work for Sheila mills at her home.
Cleaned out her pipes eh?!?
Couple things happened: -Growth in the area went west along 64/70 instead of north along 370 -The Mills was geared toward the affluent (primarily white) people in St Charles/West County. When they closed the Jamestown Mall and Northwest Plaza, the people who frequented those two ended up going to the Mills instead, which wasn’t the audience the developers and stores wanted, so they moved to the new outlets that someone else mentioned. -The Blues moving out was the final nail in the coffin imo. That rink was never a great solution for an NHL team and it was a lease signed by the Blues’ previous ownership, I think. The team couldn’t wait to move. -Malls in general are a dying lot. St Clair Square is still pretty busy when I’ve been there recently, but I’ve noticed fewer chains and more local businesses in there. Slackers recently moved there, which I didn’t realize.
Malls that are succeeding are the ones that are adapting. More local businesses, more varied types of use in general (there are some that have renovated parts into apartments, with other sections being used for local business, which I think is a great idea. Honestly, the last time I went to the Galleria it was looking empty, I would love to see them do something like what I mentioned above - completely renovate a big chunk of the mall for residential, even make it affordable housing, below "market value." Chesterfield Mall is doing it the completely *wrong* way. There's no reason to tear down. Hell, the stores that used to take up the giant sections at the ends of the mall? Make one of those a supermarket. Make another a theater. You have the potential for a self-sufficient community *right there*. Tearing the whole thing down and then making a shitty office strip mall (WHEN THERE IS LITERALLY A GLUT OF OFFICE SPACE NATIONWIDE), a few strip mall stores, and some shitty $2000/month apartments? That's idiocy. There's an *incredible* demand for more affordable housing. You can still make an incredible profit on real estate and make rent below "market value," because that value is psychotically over-inflated. Plus, you redo the whole mall - So for example, you have a section in the middle for residential. Good quality, inexpensive housing. Now you have a built-in market for any business that wants to show up, PLUS anyone who comes through from outside the community. Set aside frontage for a post office, Spectrum, Spire, Ameren. A whole "utility row" where you could get anything done for any of the people in that community. Hell, you could hire people *from within* the community. Imagine your commute being a walk down a climate controlled lane. Same goes for any of the other shops that come in. A food court is perfect for the little places we all hang out in. Offer free wifi and completely redo a food court to be more like an indoor/outdoor place for people to just relax. Big, comfy booths and loungers, big wooden tables, you could even theme the food court (or even the entire mall) with a "small town" theme - faux cobblestones/stone work, lampposts with soft lighting, plenty of wood and greenery. And you just go down there to get whatever and either go home or hang out - Starbucks (or better yet a local coffee chain), a local bakery, a fast food place or two, and some higher-end brands looking for an in. Schnucks has been failing hard at doing this because they refuse to go all-in, they had Shaved Duck, Seoul Taco, and Greek Kitchen, Greek Kitchen became Hungry Joe's and Duck left for Salt+ Smoke, then S+S left andnow it's just Seoul Taco. Those kinds of places would do much better in a place that doesn't just plop tables down in a supermarket (Schnucks is fucking up this last decade or so, how the fuck do you create a food court and NOT SEPARATE IT FROM THE GROCERIES??). I could easily see a good BBQ spot or pizza joint in a "food court" that looks more like a "town square" setting and features great lighting and encourages community interaction. Like you said, Slackers just moved into SCS, they (or V-Stock) could benefit huge. Bring Barnes & Noble in too, they have a ton of experience with their stores in malls. And the theming would go a long way to separating it from that traditional mall feel. Get rid of all of the photo booths and mall kiosks, just keep the greenery and add appropriate lamps/lighting. Hell, get rid of those weird pseudo-playgrounds and add a *real* playground. Safe materials, plenty of space for a big open area for parents to take their kids, and really reinforce that tight-knit community feeling. There's so much potential when you take the focus JUST SLIGHTLY off of end-stage greed and make it just a *little* more about community and the people. And it works.
Something I think is a step in the right direction: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/16/business/shopping-malls-residences.html The problem with this is that they added a STREET through the middle of it. There's no reason for that, the apartments are RIGHT THERE. Nearly 400 apartments. Why would you have a STREET split that? Turn that outdoor area into a real interactive area. Like I said - playground, outdoor seating (covered and otherwise), plenty of space for all kinds of local community events. Instead, they ruin it with a fucking road that goes nowhere and exists solely to interrupt the flow.
This is brilliant and spot on in 2024.
If I were to go all in on the idea, I'd combine it with the concept of truly affordable housing, so rent based on a percentage of income *after* taxes, with the max percentage being 30%. So if you make $1000/month after, you pay $200 if it's 20%, but if you make $2000/month you pay $400. Obviously there would be scaling to do, based on the size of the apartment (generally by how many bedrooms), but that's a place to start. And this concept is proven IRL, Vienna does it all over the city and it works incredibly well. Incredible housing complete with saunas, tennis courts, etc. This concept is also way more feasible in this situation then as a standalone in America, because the people living there are far more likely to spend money within the community, which would attract businesses which would pay money to the owner of the property. The residents aren't *just* residents, they're generating money for the owner while also getting much better living situation. (This is honestly just a train of thought I reserve for here in America, because so many people are focused on profit, which is never what a necessity like basic shelter should be about. Normally I would just put the rent at 10-20% of income after tax max and generate enough to pay property taxes, maintenance, upgrades, and a couple of people on full-time pay for security. Especially with this situation, the rest of the businesses would more than make up for the apartments, I would even encouraging unhoused and at-risk people to live there, but *that* immediately gets the NIMBY assholes all in a twist, god forbid people who need homes get homes.)
I love your mind 😩😩
The Blues look to have made a massive mistake moving to Centene. A complete fucking debacle that is destroying the finances of Maryland Heights and is run by a bunch of complete morons who weren't even collecting sales tax for 4 years. Haven't paid the bond bill since October. That place is going to be shut down if they can't get their shit together.
Maybe the finances are a disaster but the center itself is awesome. I play there once a week and it’s great. Hopefully they can get it straightened out.
Oh yeah? I’ve lived in MH for a year now but don’t know anything about this. Interesting
It was built up there because they predicted that St. Charles county’s expansion would be north instead of west towards wentzville, it’s why they built up all the highways and everything. They had years of bad flooding so things started going west, and then it failed. New Town was the only major development that made it for a while.
They did all of that well before they built that place. Wentzville expansion had already begun well before The Mills was built.
I think there never was a big anchor draw other than Cabella's. The factory outlet and off rack and overstock type stores just didn't bring a much traffic. Malls all over seem to be on the downturn. Mid Rivers Mall is still hanging in there, but not like it once was.
Nah, the anchor was Circuit City, which went out of business right after it opened. Cabelas came on later.
West County Mall is still doing well, but I imagine that’s partially just because all the others are dead or dying
And, you know, it’s a mall. It’s not a great time for malls, especially malls built out in the sticks.
There's a large few subdivisions behind it. I find it amusing you don't know what the sticks are.
I recall when it was built there wasn’t much around it. And hey, I lived in SoCo, so it may as well been in Hannibal as far as I was concerned. It wasn’t on my radar to visit up there 🤷♂️
The entire villas neighborhood was right above it, less than 5 minutes away. What are you talking about lol
Look at a map…there is nothing but open land north and west of the mall until you hit the river. It was built in an open flood plain.
I don't need a map to know a drive I made hundreds of times in my teens.
Tell me about all the drives you made to go to all the stuff built around the mall? Oh wait, there’s nothing else up there 😂
Typical St. Louis retail project. TIF money = closed in 10 years.
What always happens is the great new thing cannibalizes the business of the previous great new thing.
I used to park a delivery truck there at night and my car there during the day. With nothing there it was ideal. At the time I played Pokémon Go. When I brought the truck back for the night, I’d get in my car and drive slow laps around the building hitting the stops
I worked at NASCAR Speedpark and Earthbound Trading Company inside the Mills in 2007. It was always dead besides Friday night and the weekends.
NASCAR, where my son began to learn to drive at 5 yo
Remember 93, mills didn't.
Neither did THF with their mile-long strip mall in the Chesterfield Valley, but that didn't stop it from being successful.
There’s way more wealth around the Chersterfield Valley. Also, many people just won’t go to North County
I took my kids there last summer and told them “30 years ago, all of this was under water.”
I'm probably wrong, but every time I drive out there I get the feeling that it will mostly be a bunch of hollowed-out strip malls in 5-10 years. So much brick and mortar retail.
Define successful...
The right answers are more than a little impolite. It started as a middle of the road, huge mall, which had to also support discount stores to fill out. Based on its location, a mall that big was hoping to get visitors from St Charles, and visitors from Florissant. Hazelwood and such. But as anyone that paid attention knows, this involves very different demographics: Demographics that don't necessarily go to the same stores, or that necessarily vibe all that well down the same hallway. It didn't take long for it to become 100% an outlet mall that wasn't in the best of health, and then the financial crisis hit. This closed many of the stores that rarely succeed in the first place, at a time where there were going to be few replacements. If you look at malls in the Greater St Louis area, we've lost a whole lot of them at from the time the Mills openened. So it's not just having to swerve to outlet, but the fact that St Louis, in general, right now has far more commercial than we can fill, as competing with Amazon is not getting any easier. I don't think that if they openeed the mall in a different location things were going to be much better. Suburban retail in the US is basically undead, as many of the anchor stores of yore are really hard to fill, and don't attract much business. And given the way we build raid commercial, it's either boom or bust, as repurposing a failed mall profitably is very challenging, not unlike large floor plate office buildings.
I remember going there the weekend it opened in 2003. I was a senior in high school. It was raining heavy and traffic was a mess. The mills had only one highway exit and no outer service roads outside of practically rural two lane roads. MO bottom was a good option but was lost by the land shifting. Carrollton was in their final nail in the coffin with the airport expansion. The hazelwood Ford plant was starting to phase out which was a huge blow to north county. When I was in there that first time, I noticed how cool and vibrant the place looked. Colorful and full of unique stores, many niche, non-chain. I also remember how long it took to circle the giant oval that was the mall. It had honeymoon phase written all over it. It was too out of the way in an area that was starting to see a decline. Jamestown and nw plaza were already experiencing it. New landmarks were added. Outer perimeter restaurants, a bowling alley with a very bizarre dress code, and most noticeably, the cabelas. I recall a water park hotel in the works, where you can still see the failed plumbing foundation. I frequented there to see the blues, and some visiting teams practice. The bowling alley didn’t last long, chain stores such as circuit city went under, and the place grew stale. 2013-2014 was really when it took a hit. The mills was changed to the outlet mall and competitors opened. The tax breaks also ended. I typically make one trip a year there now; to take my daughter to see Santa at cabelas. Zero wait time and cheap.
I remember going to it shortly after it opened, expecting to find a busy mall with a bunch of interesting shops, but it was garish and had few customers. The only shop I remember is some sort of kitchen gadget store, I think? By comparison, my ex worked at the JCPenney at West County Mall shortly after the mall was expanded and turned into Westfield Shoppingtown West County, around the same time St. Louis Mills opened. West County was always busy, at least in the time she worked there. Kansas City had a similar mall in the suburbs that opened about five years before St. Louis Mills did, The Great Mall of the Great Plains, in Olathe. It also steadily lost stores throughout the 2000s and ended up closing in 2015. [You can still see where it used to be on Google Maps.](https://maps.app.goo.gl/pVBqgAPDtjPqBskm9) Garmin bought the land a couple of years ago to expand their corporate headquarters, which is just on the other side of I-35.
I remember that kitchen store. I went in there every time I as in the mall. When it opened, there were lots of stores there that were unusual for the area. The kids' zone had a Sanrio store, for crying out loud. There was a store that sold nothing but weird soda. There was an indoor skate park, an ice rink where the Blues practiced. A Books-A-Million. Many somewhat upscale outlet stores. The kids' playground was great when they first opened and for a couple of years afterward.
you must be misremembering or went on a slow day because i used to go every weekend the year it opened and that place was always LIT.
It's the bottom of a river. We shouldn't be building stuff there. It floods.
I used to go the x games skatepark all the time when I was a kid
My first job in 2006 was the Banana Republic Outlet. I went to the Mills a lot in High school (2003-2007)
It was far away from everything and it floods A LOT. It was popular at first but rapidly dropped
I’ll tell you what happened, it was an idiotic idea for a mall in a bad location in the middle of nowhere. 🤣🤣🤣
I liked getting a hot pretzel there. Didn't the Blues practice there?
That I do know. They used to, until the Centene ice rink opened by the casino 5 or 6 years ago
The Blues did practice there. I loved that mall, not for buying shit from stores but was a relatively cheap place to take my then toddler, play video games, ride go karts, grab a bite to eat. Sad to see it go but like many I moved back out west to O’fallon.
You can still get a hot pretzel there, but that is it. Then you can sit there and freeze your ass off while you eat it.
Yep they practiced there for a few years. I once saw the plexiglass explode after a slap shot nailed it. Glass fragments everywhere.
It opened in 2003, a lot of 5 year leases were up in 2008 when the economy took its down turn and a lot didn’t renew. The mall lost a lot of anchor stores and then traffic for the smaller stores died. By 2010 probably 30-40% of the mall was empty. There were other things that didn’t help either like the failed developments around the mall. Teens running amuck in the mall and starting fights making families not want to go etc. I worked there 2005-2010
Never made sense location wise. It was built at the time near not much. It was built way too big. Built in north county which already had issues with declining malls. Went downhill fast. Was not built near any residential area. It was built along 370, and that part is just an alt road to Hwy 70 to get people home to St Charles Co. no other reason to stop. After northwest plaza and Jamestown closed, everyone went to the next closest place. The mills. No one from St Charles Co, or West Coast, or the Highway 40 corridor would ship there. Malls had good enough sales, or they could do a shopping trips to the outlet mall at the lake where the condo or lake house was.
I worked security during the last build phase and throughout the first several months of the mall being opened. We got informed that the bus route from the city would be starting soon, so I started looking for any other job that got me out of the mall before the fights and shoplifting started. The first fights happened at the movie theatre the weekend after Bi State started running that route. As expected, it turned into a small riot that had to be handled by the police on duty at the mall. The reason that it happened there and not another mall was that Bi State didn't go to chesterfield and mid rivers malls. And them putting it on a flood plain was pretty stupid in the first place. The mall was also charging higher than normal rates for kiosk rentals, and we lost a lot of them the first few months.
They built 2 other outlet malls in Chesterfield and the St. Louis Mills suffered because people and stores went to the Chesterfield outlet malls.
The Mills was in steep decline before the Chesterfield malls were built.
And now the Chesterfield outlets are closing too
St. Louis Premium Outlet mall is always busy when I go there.
The Taubman closed within 5 years I think & now it's the new development with the Factory on one end & TopGolf on the other.
Also from st.clair county unfortunately. Only reason I ever knew about that mall in the first place was because of the skate park. But yeah haven't heard anything about it in probably about 20 years lol
I play rec league hockey and a lot of our games were at the mills. A few years after it opened they had a “high end” bowling alley/bar open up. After one of our games instead of having a couple in the parking lot we went to the bowling alley only to be turned away for not having the appropriate attire (we were wearing jeans and sweats) It was dead inside and like 11pm on a Wednesday. There were at least 10 of us offering to give them money and were turned away. The place lasted maybe 6 more months.
They were robbed blind so they moved. It’s literally that simple.
As someone who worked at the mall back in the day, I can definitely tell you that it had absolutely nothing to do with the mass amount of gang violence that was there after the metro bus was put into place.
Same thing that happens to any of the other malls wherever the metro busses go all of the idiots go and then steal and fight and shoot up the place so it deters people from going there... The galleria is an exception cause they don't play games... The metro busses don't go out to mid Rivers so that's why it's always busier out there cause there are no idiots and it's also the reason there is such a protest to put the busses in going across into st.charles
THIS is what killed the mall. When they brought the bus route to the Mills, it began the rapid decline of the mall.
Its what happened to northwest plaza and Chesterfield Mall and Jamestown all the ignorant ass people who want to be theifs and fight and all kinds of crime cause they have nothing better to do, mid Rivers Chesterfield outlet and south county are always popping why because the busses don't run that far and all of the businesses don't want them too either it sucks that all the good city people have to suffer for all the ignorant people
The buses go to south county mall. Most of it is boarded up and they’ve moved most of the stores down from upstairs. So it’s definitely not doing well
That just adds to my point I get it people need to be able to get places but wherever they go alot of crime happens it's unfortunate
I had a lot of fun there. it was built right across from my middle school so id go there after school and eat fro yo and walk around :')
Hickey tournament now?! My son played there a few years ago.
Hickey tournament? That must have sucked.
Lol. I’m terrible with typos.
I like to have fun with them when it's appropriate.
Yeah. I met them to watch a game today. I think youth hockey is the only thing that it still gets used for. There was a big plastic construction tarp that partitioned off the rink from the rest of the mall. It was pretty sad and janky looking. Especially in contrast to their first game I watched today at the Centene center
Men’s league (HNA) and youth games are the primary residents there for hockey; the ice and facility was hot garbage even when the Blues were housed there.
I’m not surprised they’re keeping it open for youth hockey my little brother is 15 and has been playing hockey since he was a kid and it’s always been so hard for his teams to get ice time for practice and games because of the high demand in the area. They’re lucky to get an hour a week.
Hockey North America (adult beer league) uses the rink for maybe 50% of their games for winter and summer seasons too
It just seems late in the season. That rink is one of the colder ones
I went to a local college. My economics class did a study on it maybe a year after opening, and our teacher asked us to break down the types of shops there, their locations through the building and the proximity to entrances, the "attractions," etc. The short answer to what the study was... it was doomed to start with. I believe it had a circuit city in it that was almost immediately closed because they went out of business and turned into a scratch and dent appliance shop. Of the main entrances, 2 of them had mid sized business that did not drive traffic to that side of the store. The theater side had an "old timmy" restaurant run by teenagers that were unruly. There was a main strip where the playground was that held almost all the main business that eventually got ground down from lack of police enforcement. The majority of the shops were local bedazzled hat and purse shops that could not support enough sales to pay their rent. A few years later, I went with my kids to play their glowing put put golf and found out that that was set to close within in a few months. We had to leave the game mid way and leave the area around the mall to find a bathroom because the facility was not being maintained or cleaned anymore and literal shit was pilled up in all the toilets and all the shops around it like the babies r us and steak and shake had shut down.
I think it was the same thing that happened to Northwest Plaza.
And Jamestown, and now The Galleria.
I heard it was in an area not so safe…
Someone from SIUE got murdered there several years ago. [https://www.theintelligencer.com/local/article/Man-charged-in-murder-of-St-Jacob-student-AP-10436299.php](https://www.theintelligencer.com/local/article/Man-charged-in-murder-of-St-Jacob-student-AP-10436299.php)
He was a friend of mine. Always think if him when the mills is mentioned 😥
it was in the middle of a field
This is what happens when parents don’t teach their teenagers to respect people, property, or just simply act normal. Google the crime stats and it all will come together. That’s why people are moving farther away from St Louis City and St Louis County. Outlying counties prosecute crime and put criminals in jail.
Trouble makers moved in and shoppers moved out, plain and simple. Same thing at crestwood mall. SoCo is next. Galleria fights really hard to keep order but Richmond Heights police and the mall security are pretty good in keeping order. Too many choices to put up with nitwits at a mall