Chesterfield Mall officially closed forever on August 31, and I was told by management that demolition will begin earlier than planned. The mall originally opened on September 1, 1976, so it made it 48 years. Back when it was built, the area was largely fields, as can be seen above and in an aerial photo I published several years ago. Chesterfield must have grown exceedingly fast in the 70s and early 80s, and the mall certainly was part of that boom.
Developed by Jacobs, Visconsi and Jacobs, the mall originally featured two anchors, a twelfth Sears in the St. Louis region, and a Stix, Baer and Fuller, the sixth in the area, which was designed by local firm Hellmuth, Obata and Kassebaum, who of course also designed the Priory and the Planetarium. The stunning interior, which I also enjoyed, was designed by Copeland Novak & Israel of New York.
At its opening the mall had 120 stores, and I learned some interesting trivia from the mall manager a couple of weeks ago, who has been in the mall business and with Chesterfield Mall on and off over the last forty years. Apparently, the mall had never been one of the highest performing malls in St. Louis, only earning around $300 per square foot, versus around $600 at the Galleria and the new West County Mall. Likewise, the store spaces were much larger than at most malls, so the extra space was eventually just given away to tenants to stay competitive in leases.
The central court, unceremoniously ripped out in a new millennium makeover, was noted for its large, very 1970s sculptures (two other sculptures anchored the smaller lounges near the two anchors). The large “free form” metallic sculpture to the right below was designed by Clarence E. Van Duzer, and the mobile, which hung over the large sunken carpeted lounge area, was the work of Joseph A. McDonnell. Van Duzer was in fact the same Cleveland-based artist who designed the sculpture at Jamestown Mall. McDonnell is still an active artist with his own website.
The mall, I believe, was always designed for the addition of new anchors at its central axis, and in 1983, Famous Barr joined as an anchor to the east. Later in the mid-1990s, a new Famous Barr was built out the western branch off the central court, and the old space was demolished, paving the way for the eventual construction of an AMC movie theater. A food court, which the mall never really had, was built off the new passageway to the new Famous Barr, and then in a weird twist, that one was vacated when I was in college and a new, inferior one was built in the new wing two floors below the movie theater. The mall chugged along for a while in the new millennium, and I guess the rest is history.
It was a great mall, and I’m sorry to see it go. Sic transit gloria mundi.