Next Mall to Fall?
Date Posted: February 5, 2026
Posted In: Discussion,
From St. Louis Business Journal: The number of malls operating in the St. Louis region has largely stayed the same since 2019, despite major setbacks from online shopping and the Covid-19 pandemic. That could soon change.
The news that various St. Louis County boards are exploring the possibility of converting one of the region’s seven indoor malls, South County Center, into a youth sports complex took many observers by surprise even though the mall had been visibly struggling for awhile.
Besides South County, the region’s malls are Saint Louis Galleria in Richmond Heights, Plaza Frontenac in Frontenac, West County Center in Des Peres, Mid Rivers Mall in St. Peters, St. Clair Square in Fairview Heights and Alton Square in Alton.
Counting the mall’s empty storefronts, regardless of whether a new store was coming in, vacancy rates range from a low of 13.11% at Plaza Frontenac, with both anchor stores filled and outlot development, to a high of 61.4% at Alton Square, which was redeveloped in 2017. It has all six anchor spaces filled now, but is mostly empty compared with its original footprint. Other vacancy rates calculated by the Business Journal are 14.36% at the Galleria, which has four of six anchor spaces filled; 15.09% at West County Center, which has all nine anchor spaces filled; 17.54% at St. Clair Square, which has six of eight anchor spaces filled, as well as outlot developments that include a Barnes & Noble; and 19.42% at Mid Rivers Mall, which has seven of its 10 anchor spaces filled.
ST. LOUIS MALLS
The area has seven remaining properties that operate as malls. (Interactive map included in St. Louis Business Journal’s article.)
Each survived to this point, despite decades of prophecies trumpeting the death of malls. Others, however, died a slow death. The last mall to close in the region, Chesterfield Mall, had been purchased in 2018 by The Staenberg Group with the express intent of eventually closing and redeveloping it. It closed for good in 2024, and has now been demolished for a $2 billion redevelopment called Downtown Chesterfield. The same slow death, as store by store disappeared, had happened at the St. Louis Mills mall ahead of its closure in 2019, Jamestown Mall in 2014 and Crestwood Plaza in 2013.