Screengrab
An excavator begins demolition on the entrance to Crestwood Court.
Crestwood Court, Crestwood Plaza, Westfield Shoppingtown Crestwood, Crestwood Mall—whatever you called it, the shopping mall that inspires memories in a generation of St. Louisans is coming down.
Demolition began Tuesday, combined with a groundbreaking ceremony for the site’s future. From our previous report, here’s what’s next for the popular mall:
The Crestwood City Council recently approved $25 million in Tax Increment Financing and a 2 percent sales tax for a redevelopment plan. The site's owner, Urban Street Group of Chicago, bought the property during an auction in 2014. It will now begin construction of a development that includes retail, entertainment, dining, office space, and housing. It's putting about $79 million into the project, which is slated to open in approximately three years.
See also: Pay Your Final Respects to Crestwood Mall
PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY OF KHAZAR2COMMONS, WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
In case you need help remembering what the entrance looked like before demolition...
The mall first opened in 1957 and changed its name to Crestwood Plaza when the open-air shopping center was enclosed in 1984. In its prime, the mall had 90 retail outlets, four anchor stores, movie theaters, and a bustling food court.
Local reporters caught quick clips of the old Art Space awning coming down:
South County Times had the best angle on the demo, starting at :15 in the video below:
KTVI got some brutal close-up footage of the excavator’s arm destroying the awning that used to hang above the mall entrance.
Tuesday was also the last chance for reporters to walk through the former mall before the walls come down. There wasn’t much left to see inside the soon-to-be-demolished building:
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Lisa Brown broadcast her final walk-through on Periscope:
Even once it’s gone, many St. Louisans will remember Crestwood Mall as the place where they first hung out with friends away from mom and dad.
“Crestwood Mall is the first mall I ever remember as a kid and hanging out there was the cool thing to do,” SLM reader Erica S commented in our previous post. “I could never convince my mom to drop me off there by myself, but she would let me go off with my friends for however long and I'd have to meet her back at this spot or that spot at a designated time. It was my first bit of freedom as a young teenager and I loved it. To me the mall seemed gigantic and endless.. it was where many laughs were had a memories were made.
“It will always be my mall.”
Do you still have fond memories of Crestwood’s mall? Share in the comments.
Contact Lindsay Toler by an email at LToler@stlmag.com or on Twitter @StLouisLindsay. For more from St. Louis Magazine, subscribe or follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
