Northwest Plaza
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| Northwest Plaza | |
| Mall facts and statistics | |
|---|---|
| Location | St. Ann, Missouri, United States |
| Opening date | 1963 |
| Developer | Hycel Properties |
| Management | General Growth Properties |
| Owner | Somera Management, LLC |
| No. of stores and services | over 120 |
| No. of anchor tenants | 5 |
| Total retail floor area | 1.7 million ft.² Dillard's - 217,906 ft.² Macy's - 238,493 ft.² Sears - 331,772 ft.² Steve & Barry's - 162,000 ft.² 24 Hour Fitness - 23,500 ft.² former Burlington Coat Factory - 50,642 ft.² former Kids "Я" Us - 21,023 ft.² former Tilt! Family Entertainment Center - 43,815 ft.² former US Factory Outlets - 37,944 ft.² former Wehrenberg cinemas - 49,758 ft.² |
| No. of floors | 1 with partial upper level; food court area has 3 stories |
Northwest Plaza is an enclosed shopping mall located in St. Ann, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis. The largest mall in the St. Louis area[1], Northwest Plaza is anchored by Dillard's, Macy's, Sears, Steve & Barry's, and 24 Hour Fitness. The mall features over 120 stores, as well as a food court and 12-story office tower.
Contents |
[edit] History
Northwest Plaza opened in 1963[2] as an open-air shopping center anchored by Famous-Barr, JCPenney, Sears, and Stix, Baer & Fuller, with Boyd's, Walgreens, and Woolworth as junior anchors.[3] The Famous-Barr store featured a rotunda (a feature retained by the building's current tenant Macy's).[4] At the time that Northwest Plaza opened, it was the only mall in the St. Louis area to feature four department stores.[5]
Dillard's acquired the Stix, Baer & Fuller chain in 1984[6], and re-branded all the stores to Dillard's. Paramount Group, a New York-based company, acquired the mall in the same year.
Paramount enclosed and expanded the mall in 1989, gaining more than 200,000 square feet of retail space in the process.[5] A movie theater was added to the mall in December of that year[7], replacing a freestanding cinema complex in the mall's parking lot. Kids "Я" Us were added shortly after the mall's enclosure, and the large Woolworth store was closed. Woolworth later became Phar-Mor on the upper level, and was divided into smaller stores on the lower level, and Oshman's Sporting Goods moved into the former Boyd's. In the mid 1990s, Phar-Mor and Oshman's both closed; the stores were later replaced with US Factory Outlets and Burlington Coat Factory, respectively.
Northwest Plaza was acquired in 1997 by the Westfield Group[8], who re-named the mall "Westfield Shoppingtown Northwest" (later shortened to "Westfield Northwest") to match the nomenclature of other malls in their portfolio.
[edit] Westfield Shoppingtown Northwest
Under Westfield's tenure, the mall saw several new stores opening. Office Max opened its first mall-based location at Northwest Plaza that year[9]. Dick Clark's American Bandstand Grill, American Eagle Outfitters, Bath & Body Works and other stores opened in the center. Gap, which had closed in 1996, returned to the mall. By 1999, occupancy had increased by 7%.[10]
Additional plans for renovation were made by Westfield Corporation, but these plans never got beyond the addition of family restroom and a childrens' play area. Westfield also moved its regional offices to the mall's office tower.[11]
Office Max closed in 2003, and sat empty for 18 months before 24 Hour Fitness replaced it.[12] By 2004, Westfield Shoppingtown Northwest had an occupancy rate of 79.1 percent, the second-lowest occupancy rate in the entire Westfield portfolio.[13] Burlington Coat Factory moved to St. Louis Mills in 2003; as of 2007, the former location at Northwest Plaza is still vacant.[14] Also in the early 2000s, US Factory Outlets and JCPenney closed.
2004 also saw the addition of a Retail Skills Center, the first of its kind in the Midwest.[15] The Skills Center offered recruitment, training and placement facilities for people seeking careers in retail.
Steve & Barry's University Sportswear opened in 2004 as well, replacing the spot vacated by JCPenney. The store, at the time, was the largest Steve & Barry's in the chain.[16]
[edit] The mall today
Westfield Corporation sold the mall in 2006. Somera Capital Management, LLC bought the mall for $45 million, and changed its name back to "Northwest Plaza".[17] Also in 2006,Famous-Barr was re-branded as Macy's. The mall's Wehrenberg movie theater complex closed the same year, as did the Tilt! family entertainment center.
Proposals to redevelop the mall in 2007 have been approved[18]; so far, it is currently unknown what the redevelopment will entail.
[edit] Trivia
- On Christmas Eve 1994, a murder occured at the mall's Famous-Barr.[14]
[edit] References
- ^ http://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/stories/2000/01/03/tidbits.html
- ^ http://www.ggp.com/properties/Centerinfo.asp?smuid=838
- ^ http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/lifestyle/stories.nsf/fashion/story/26282898F8144F648625721B006FE6A9?OpenDocument
- ^ http://www.urbansaintlouis.com/urbanstl/viewtopic.php?p=45012&sid=e100155172eb432894f47315b2804b3e
- ^ a b http://joefrank.blogspot.com/2007/02/northwest-plaza-rebirth-2.html
- ^ http://www.shareholder.com/dillards/history.cfm
- ^ http://cinematreasures.org/theater/6681/
- ^ http://retailtrafficmag.com/mag/retail_transactions_41/
- ^ http://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/stories/1997/08/18/story7.html
- ^ http://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/stories/2000/01/03/tidbits.html
- ^ http://www.stlcommercemagazine.com/archives/april2003/construction.html
- ^ http://stlouis.bizjournals.com/stlouis/stories/2004/01/19/tidbits1.html
- ^ http://stlouis.bizjournals.com/stlouis/stories/2005/07/04/story3.html
- ^ a b c http://www.archibase.net/archinews/8006.html
- ^ http://www.nrf.com/content/default.asp?folder=press/release2004&file=stlskillsctr0604.htm&bhcp=1
- ^ http://www.specialtyretail.net/issues/may04/steve.htm
- ^ http://stlouis.bizjournals.com/stlouis/stories/2006/06/05/daily55.html
- ^ http://overland-stannjournal.stltoday.com/articles/2007/02/23/news/sj2tn20070206-0207ovl_stann_1.ii1.txt
