Perhaps the mall era has come to an end.
All around the country, malls are closing at a rapid rate. Funny enough, the malls that once pushed out the vibrant American main streets are now being torn down and replaced with open-air “lifestyle centers,” which resemble the traditional main streets – places where people can walk amid restaurants, movie theaters, offices and apartments or homes.
St. Louis County leaders are proposing a similar switchback plan for the Jamestown Mall, the largely-vacated, 142-acre retail center in unincorporated North St. Louis County. Jamestown is the size of the entire French Quarter in New Orleans, and it’s more than twice the size of the St. Louis Galleria and The Boulevard combined.
On May 27, the county’s consultants presented a plan for rebuilding the area into a walkable, mixed-use village center. The proposed area includes senior-living housing, offices, restaurants, retail shops, an amphitheater, recreational green spaces, a farmers’ market and civic centers. The Jamestown Mall Area Plan, a 15-year project, offers wiggle room to adapt the plan to the changing economic times and pressures.
When built in 1973, Jamestown, located at Old Jamestown Road and Lindbergh Boulevard, was a pillar of the community. And over the past two years, residents have told planners, legislators and consultants exactly what they want in their community. In the fall of 2009 the non-profit Urban Land Institute conducted a panel study of the North County area to identify the issues contributing to the retail decline and to provide recommendations for best uses.
Urban Land Institute strongly recommended that the county first hire a consultant that would engage the community in the designing process for a new Jamestown area. In September 2010, the chosen consultant, Dover, Kohl & Partners, held a six-day planning session with 400 residents and stakeholders.
The community members offered many specific ideas. But at the end of the day, residents wanted a place to shop, dine and visit with neighbors. They wanted a family-friendly place with green areas similar to Forest Park. And they wanted a diverse array of housing.
In the plan released last week, the consultants provided a market analysis of these ideas and which would be most sustainable. Currently, the location of the mall does not have access to enough households required to support 1.2 million-square-foot mall with several national tenants. Looking at demographics and household spending, the community could support 200,000 square feet in local serving retail.
In the next one to five years, consultants said the village may support a movie theater with several restaurants and boutique shops, totaling around 76,000 square feet. In the next six to 15 years, the village could include a grocery store along with more restaurants and cafes and boutique shops. As far as housing, the area could provide for 1,400 new single-family attached and detached dwellings and apartments units in addition to the 200,000 square feet of retail, and 80,000 square feet of offices or varying combination of the two.
Looking at job creation, there are 30,000 people within the seven-minute drive time study area surrounding the Jamestown Mall site, representing 7.9 percent of the 377,000 people in North County. The plan projects that potentially 500 new jobs in the immediate area could be created.
“We want to give North County a place that residents can be proud of again,” said St. Louis County Executive Charlie A. Dooley. “The beauty of this plan is that it capitalizes on the virtues of North County and is flexible to meet the community’s needs. Based on two years of research, this is what the residents of North County have told us they want and what studies show is possible.”
The mall once included four anchor stores (Sears, Macy’s, JCPenney Outlet and Dillard’s), the Wehrenberg movie theater and a food court. When Dillard’s closed in 2006 and Sears in January 2009, the surrounding stores were left without much stability. The remaining 412,000 square feet of retail space is sparsely occupied by approximately 48 tenants.
With the area plan finished, the St. Louis County Council must now adopt the plan. Then project managers will begin reaching out to the five distinct property owners who control the various parcels that constitute the Jamestown site. The owners include Macy’s, Carlyle Group, JCPenney, Sears and investor Michael Kohan. Kohan purchased most of the mall in June 2009 for $3.3 million. The purchase did not include the JCPenney Outlet and Macy’s stores and the closed Sears and Dillard’s stores.
Victor Dover, principal of Dover, Kohl & Partners, said, “Residents kept telling me this used to be the heart of the community. I think this plan reclaims that place.”
To read the complete plan, visit http://www.slcec.com/jamestownmall.html.
