Thursday, Jan. 14 2010 @ 12:55PM
When
Northwest Plaza opened in St. Ann in 1963, it was the largest shopping center in the world with five anchor department stores and 185 smaller shops, restaurants and boutiques. Centrally located near the confluence of I-70 and I-270, it was one of the area's biggest employers. Kids from all over St. Louis County would gather at the main fountain.
"It was where we hung out, skipped school and got in trouble," Steve Erdelen, 54, remembers fondly.
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| nocostl.com/2009/10/time-capsule-northwest-plaza |
| Northwest Plaza in its glory days, when dinosaurs still roamed the Earth. (Actually, 1966.) |
​These days, Northwest Plaza is a
dead mall. It has dwindled to less than 50 stores and Macy's, one of its two remaining anchors, has just announced plans to pull out later this year. The physical infrastructure has crumbled; before Dillard's departed, a pool of standing water beneath the store had made it a breeding ground for mold. Even the clothes were damp.
The city of St. Ann has been debating for several years what to do with the Northwest Plaza site. In 2007, it adopted a $250 million
redevelopment plan that included building a new Wal-Mart.
Last month Erdelen set up a Facebook group called
"I hung out at the fountain at Northwest Plaza as a teenager". In just three weeks, it has grown to more than 700 members. "They're doctors, lawyers, CEOs," Erdelen marvels. "It shows that just because you hung out at the mall and smoked some pot, it doesn't mean you're going to be a burnout. But once the fun stories were over, we began to ask ourselves 'What's going on at Northwest Plaza?'"
Erdelen began to wonder, given the money and influence of some of hits members, if he could convert the group's nostalgia into activism, to return the Northwest Plaza site to its glory days as a community gathering place instead of making it just another Wal-Mart.
Their first line of attack? A giant mall walk starting at 1 p.m. next Saturday, January 23.