Crestwood Plaza Mall Site Developer Backs Out
Date Posted: June 4, 2020
Posted In: Projects,
From St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Walpert Properties is dropping plans to purchase the former site of Crestwood Plaza mall at Watson and Sappington roads, city officials announced Wednesday, leaving the land conspicuously vacant and without a redevelopment plan amid the worst economy in decades.
Creve Coeur-based Walpert first put the 47-acre site under contract in mid-2018 with plans for apartments, office space and retail, totaling roughly double the size of the similar and successful Streets of St. Charles development.
But Walpert never closed on the purchase from Urbanstreet Group, the Chicago developer that bought the site in 2014 and began demolishing it in 2016.
Crestwood Plaza, now a moonscape, was built in 1957 and was once the city’s largest revenue generator before closing in 2013. It is one of five malls in the region to have died — or close to it — after years of overbuilding, municipal competition for sales taxes, and systemic declines in retail traffic.