St. Louis County Councilwoman Shalonda Webb on Wednesday confirmed she is working to find funding to demolish the Jamestown Mall building, which has sat vacant for years.
“Let’s do as much as we can because we have been waiting a very long time.” —St. Louis County Councilwoman Shalonda Webb
An audience member asked about the status of the derelict property during a North County town hall meeting Wednesday evening.
“I knew I wasn’t going to get away from that, and I don’t want to get away from that,” Webb said, laughing.
North County’s Jamestown Mall was an enclosed shopping mall located at Lindbergh Boulevard and Old Jamestown Road. The million-plus square feet of property was opened in 1973 and included Dillard’s, JCPenney, Macy’s and Sears as its anchor stores. The mall began declining in 2000 and was finally shuttered in 2014.
Webb, along with Port Authority Chairman John Maupin and Rodney Crimm, CEO and president of the STL Economic Partnership, announced in late June the government’s intent to demolish the building.
“Earlier this year there was an interest to build an industrial park in our community and you all said no,” Webb said Wednesday. “And I understood that ‘no,’ because he wanted to build an industrial park … in your backyards, in the middle of these communities and that was unacceptable, and I acted accordingly.”
The councilwoman represents District 4, which encompasses Florissant up north to Pelican Island and east to Columbia Bottom Conservation Area.
Webb said she is searching for funding to demolish the building.
“I’m not putting all of our eggs in one basket,” she said. “I’m looking at every level to get that revenue and those resources. So, if I’ve got to beg at the federal level, if I’ve got to beg the governor at the state level and even at the local level, our county executive, that is exactly what I am doing.”
Webb said she’s been told by officials she is asking for too much at one time, but she feels a lot of the steps needed to demolish the property can be done simultaneously.
“Let’s do as much as we can because we have been waiting a very long time,” Webb said.
She said there are local, regional and out-of-state developers who are interested in North County projects because they see the potential in North County. So, she’s searching for the right developer for the property.
Shortly after this discussion, multiple audience members submitted questions asking about the numerous vacant properties throughout the county.
Marcellus Speight, St. Louis County code enforcement manager, assumed the questions were mainly from people living next to derelict properties and said razing a derelict property is a painstakingly slow governmental process.
“I really feel the anguish in everyone’s phone calls [asking] these questions, but the process is a long, legal process,” he said.
Speight said those houses didn’t become vacant overnight, so solving the issue will take some time, and maybe more importantly, funding.
“A vacant property is not necessarily a problem property,” he said. “However, if left unattended they become problem properties. Therefore, they wind up in my view, and my team will have to address those properties.”
Speight said while his team addresses the properties, there’s nothing they can do in the meantime with the buildings.
“In order to more or less satisfy the challenge we have, it’s going to take funding,” he said. “I bring this up to anyone that asks and it’s not a scapegoat, it’s not a way to say we can’t do it because we don’t have the funding or the manpower, it’s just a fact.”
Speight applied for federal funding to demolish these buildings and was approved. However, he said, it’s limited.
“So, we have to take the worst case[s],” he said. “I know something may have sat adjacent to your property for many years, and just deteriorated before your eyes, but you may not be the first property on the list, but I assure you our public works will address those properties.”
Webb added she is meeting with Speight and other county agencies every two weeks to find permanent solutions to the vacant property problem.
“Because whether we want to admit it or not, a lot of things that happen in North County happen in South County,” she said.
Residents can find the latest information about the Jamestown Mall project at bit.ly/3235PX5 and more information about reporting derelict properties at bit.ly/3FwYuxI.