St. Louis Mills

St. Louis Mills, also known as St. Louis Outlet Mall, was a single-story shopping mall in Hazelwood, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis, Missouri, United States. Developed by The Mills Corporation and KanAm Group, the mall struggled with tenancy and maintenance issues for many years before closing in 2019. The first redevelopment effort, a sports complex called the POWERplex STL, operated from 2019 to 2023. The building's interior was demolished in 2023 and redeveloped into the Hazelwood Business Park, an industrial warehouse and office building.

St. Louis Mills/Outlet Mall was the first Landmark Mills mall to close permanently, which would later be followed by the December 2022 closure of Forest Fair Mall (formerly Cincinnati Mills) in suburban Cincinnati, Ohio.

In July 2001, The Mills Corporation entered a joint venture with German-based KanAm^[1] and acquired a 200-acre site in Hazelwood, Missouri off Missouri Route 370 for $20 million, and proposed St. Louis Mills in August 2002. Typical of their properties, St. Louis Mills would include a mix of outlet stores, big-box stores, and conventional shopping mall tenants.^[2][3] The mall was intended to revitalize the St. Louis metropolitan area and compete with smaller malls, such as the Union Station Mall.

St. Louis Mills was a 1.2 million-square-foot facility that cost $250 million to develop^[4] and opened on November 13, 2003 with eight anchor stores: Saks Off 5th, Bed Bath & Beyond, Marshalls Mega Store, Burlington Coat Factory, Books-A-Million, Circuit City, and an 18-screen Regal Cinemas (operating as Regal Cinemas St. Louis Mills Stadium 18), alongside Bass Pro Shops and Neiman Marcus Last Call. The mall originally featured colorful assets, including a food court designed to resemble the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair. Interactive attractions included SportStreet, and the PBS Kids Backyard learn-and-play area as part of a licensing agreement with The Mills Corporation and PBS.^[1] The mall was designed by local architectural firm Kiku Obata & Company, which also designed Concord Mills in Concord, North Carolina.^[5]

The mall performed well during the 2003 holidays, being 95% leased and attracting many locals from St. Louis.^[6]

In 2006, St. Louis Mills was 99% occupied. However, due to The Mills Corp.'s financial struggles, The Mills Corp.'s assets, including St. Louis Mills, would be acquired by Simon Property Group and Farallon Capital Management for $25.25 per share, following the rejection of Brookfield Asset Management's offer, which offered to acquire The Mills Corp. for $21 per share.^[7] The acquisition was completed in April 2007, and St. Louis Mills' branding was relaunched as The Mills: A Simon Company.^[8]

However, Simon defaulted on a $90 million loan from Morgan Stanley in 2006 and failed to make payments during the 2007 acquisition of the Mills Corporation and its portfolio.^[9]

PBS Kids Backyard closed permanently in 2008 following the expiration of the licensing agreement. On March 8, 2009, Circuit City closed all of its stores, including St. Louis Mills, due to Chapter 7 bankruptcy, previously Chapter 11 in November 2008.^[10]

Miami-based LNR Partners LLC acquired St. Louis Mills through foreclosure. The Woodmont Company took over management of the mall, and in late October 2012, the mall was renamed to St. Louis Outlet Mall.^[9][11][12]

Ross Dress For Less had its grand opening at St. Louis Mills on March 9, 2013^[13] in the defunct Circuit City space.^[10]

In mid-November 2015, LNR Partners put St. Louis Outlet Mall up for sale.^[9] Namdar Realty Group and Mason Asset Management purchased the mall in February 2016 for $4.4 million, which was roughly 98% off its original construction cost.^[14][15] That same year, St. Louis Outlet Mall's occupancy rate was down to 77%.^[16] The Books-A-Million store ceased operations in early 2017, and was replaced by Hope Church in July 2017 as St. Louis Outlet Mall suffered with a nearly 50% vacancy rate. The church signed a 15-year lease in 2017 and invested nearly $1 million into upgrading the 40,000-square-foot space.^[17]

By May 2017, St. Louis Outlet Mall was considered by many news outlets and locals as a "dead mall". A local photographer of 13 News Now, Joshua Bishop, visited the mall on a Tuesday afternoon and captured photos of the nearly-abandoned mall, stating that no one was playing in the playground or getting movie tickets, as well as calling the "ghost-town" mall a "shadow of its former self."^[18]

By late December 2017, only 48.4% of St. Louis Outlet Mall's leasable space was occupied. Shoppers focused more heavily on competitors, such as Saint Louis Galleria.^[19] Regal St. Louis Mills Stadium 18 & IMAX closed permanently on December 18, 2018, due to financial problems.^[20][21]

Reports indicate that Namdar aggressively cut expenses upon purchasing the mall in 2016. This fits a documented pattern of neglect seen at other Namdar properties, such as Pittsburgh Mills, which faced millions in fines for potholes and structural decay.^[22]

The mall was briefly renamed Mills Mall until May 24, 2019, when Namdar Realty Group announced the closure of the mall and sent the remaining tenants an eviction notice giving them 30 days to vacate the building. The mall closed in September 2019 with the exception of Cabela's, which is still operating as of 2025.^[23]

In June 2019, Hope Baptist Church and Midwest Clearance Centers filed a lawsuit for breach of contract, alleging Namdar "refused" to perform routine cleaning, landscaping, and maintenance in common areas to deliberately blight the property. Other tenants reported persistent rodent infestations and plumbing failures that were never resolved despite repeated repair requests.^[24]

Starting in 2017 and continuing through 2019, plans were approved by the city of Hazelwood to transform the mall into a sports complex called POWERplex STL, a project led by Dan Buck of Big Sports Properties.^[25]

By 2020, POWERplex began operating in approximately 130,000–150,000 square feet (12,000–14,000 m²) of existing mall space, hosting volleyball, baseball, pickleball, and ice hockey. The venue kept the building open to the public even though it no longer functioned as a retail center.^[26]

In November 2022, Big Sports Properties sold 50% of the building to Industrial Commercial Properties LLC (ICP). Big Sports Properties had plans to expand POWERplex STL into a $55 million to $60 million mixed-use development that would make Hazelwood Business Park and POWERplex STL connected, creating a 24/7 environment. The project would include an 18-court volleyball venue, seven beach volleyball courts (five indoors), eight outdoor soccer fields and a gymnastics training center. The entertainment zone would include an 84,000-square-foot (7,800 m²) event center for basketball, dance, cheer, and wrestling, a 105,000-square-foot (9,800 m²) amusement zone featuring go-karts and mini-golf, micro-brewery, 12 restaurants and eateries, and a golf simulator bar. Ameren Missouri, a local subsidiary of Ameren Corporation, planned to install solar panels to power the venue and nearby homes. However, these plans were canceled in April 2023 due to leasing difficulties with ICP.^[27]

Following the cancellation of the plans, POWERplex STL closed its doors on May 1, 2023.^[28] A $30 million renovation to convert the facility led to the complete demolition of the building's interior and a full repainting of both the interior and exterior to white. The facility's fire sprinkler and HVAC systems were replaced because the original infrastructure, which had been in place since the mall's construction in the early 2000s, was considered outdated and insufficient for the modern warehouse conversion. The building was officially renamed and opened as the Hazelwood Business Park in 2023.^[29]

IDI Distributors was the first tenant at Hazelwood Business Park. The insulation distribution company signed a lease in October 2023 to occupy approximately 27,000–30,000 square feet (2,500–2,800 m²) of the former mall's interior. IDI relocated its St. Louis operations from Maryland Heights to the new site, marking the first time one of its 65 national locations operated out of a converted retail space. The tenant had its grand opening on January 24, 2024, involving a ribbon-cutting ceremony.^[30][31]

Dive Bomb Industries followed as a major tenant in July 2024, signing a 128,000-square-foot (11,900 m²) lease for its headquarters, operations center, and a retail outlet at Hazelwood Business Park.^[32]

Ice Zone (also styled iceZone) is a 1,200-seat indoor ice arena connected to the mall's Northwest section. The arena is open to the public for skating, figure skating, and local youth, high school and adult hockey teams. It served as the official practice facility of the St. Louis Blues hockey team until relocating to the newly built Centene Community Ice Center. It offered free bleacher seating for fans during practice sessions.^[33]

The Speedpark included an indoor/outdoor go-kart race track and sometimes featured appearances by NASCAR drivers such as Kevin Harvick, who met with fans and signed autographs.^[34] NASCAR Speedpark closed on May 29, 2014.

The ESPN Skate Park opened with the mall in 2003; however, the mall lacked the proper copyright agreement to use the ESPN name with the park, which led to its renaming to the St. Louis Mills Skate Park in mid-2005.^[35] The park then closed in late 2006 and remained closed until 2007 when a new sponsor named Woodward announced that they would take ownership. Plans for that then fell through in late 2007, and the park remained closed until it was reopened with a new sponsor as "Plan Nine" in April 2009.

Following the mall's sale to Namdar Realty Group, the skate park was taken over by new management on July 1, 2016, and rebranded as FutureSk8/Earth Surf. The park closed once again in 2017.^[36]