Your Dead Mall Could Be The Next Youth Sports Complex
Date Posted: July 19, 2019
Posted In: Projects,
From Forbes: The St. Louis Outlet Mall in Hazelwood, Mo., is a mess. The mall cost $250 million to build in 2003, and once promised high-end tenants and even hosted a St. Louis Blues training facility. But by 2016 it was struggling so badly it sold for a mere $4.4 million, and the owner is kicking out the few remaining tenants — such as a mattress store, a church and a skateboarding center, who exist behind waist-high grass and under a leaky roof, as the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports.
A declining mall seems a sign of the times, but so is what is replacing the St. Louis Outlet Mall — a youth sports complex. From St. Louis Public Radio:
By the end of next month, [Big Sports Properties] plans to close on a $63 million deal to create a youth sports-focused venue. The plan is to convert the 1.5 million-square-foot mall structure into six sports venues that will host more than 180 sports tournaments, camps and events.
Dan Buck, Big Sports Properties managing partner, detailed the plans Tuesday during a media event on the property.
“We inherit everything that this mall had to offer. Do we have some sprucing up to do? Do we have some work ahead of us? Yes, but these are all things you could never ever afford to do if you were trying to do it from a ground-up-type situation,” Buck said.
The ownership group, which includes St. Louis native and NBA player Bradley Beal of the Washington Wizards, also aims to put the headquarters for Beal’s elite youth basketball club and training program at the facility.