NORTH ST. LOUIS COUNTY, Mo.—Unlike some other high-profile events, no explosives were used when demolition of the former Jamestown Mall took its first public steps in North St. Louis County Tuesday morning. Machines did most of the work. The fireworks came in the form of political rhetoric from elected officials who jousted over credit for addressing what has become a community eyesore and who secured funds to pay for the demolition.
As various elected officials were called upon to make remarks, County Council Chair Shalonda Webb came to the podium when it was time for State Sen. Angela Mosley to speak. The mall site sits in Mosley’s Senate district and in Webb’s County Council district.
Webb said her trips to Jefferson City to lobby for state funds fell on deaf ears. She accused unnamed state representatives of pretending not to be in their offices, but identified Mosley by name in saying that she went to her office and got no response.
The project ended up getting $6 million in state funds and $6 million in St. Louis County funds in 2022, relying on federal American Rescue Plan Act money.
“I’ve got the receipts to know what I have done,” Webb said. She also criticized the work of Rochelle Walton Gray, who Webb defeated in the August 2020 primary, on the issue of the mall property’s future.
Mosley denied Webb’s allegations, and also said Walton Gray deserved credit. Both Webb and Walton Gray have filed Missouri Ethics Commission paperwork to run in next August’s primary for the 4th County Council seat. Walton Gray declined comment after the event.
“I’m sorry for how this turned out. It was supposed to be a celebration but some people who claim to not want to be a politician or are claiming not to be politicians came up and turned it to something else,” Mosley said.
“Politics is a touchy business sometimes. That was a difficult thing to watch but I hope substantively it doesn’t get in the way, only time will tell,” said Kevin O’Malley, the former U.S. Ambassador to Ireland and now Chair of the St. Louis County Port Authority, which owns the property and will lead the redevelopment effort.
The demolition process will extend into next summer for the 140 acre site. In the meantime, county officials are open to hear proposals from developers.
A proposal to turn the property into an industrial logistics park and distribution center emerged in 2018 but was shelved in 2021 after Webb opposed it.
A December 2022 Market Analysis and Feasibility Study identified an Agriculture-Food Technology campus as a “preferred direction” for the site that would work with other Ag-tech efforts in the region.
Other options in the study included senior housing featuring assisted living and single-family homes, with some commercial development. The study found that ideas like bringing large-scale retail or sports parks to the site were repetitive in North St. Louis County specifically or the St. Louis area.
Officials on Tuesday suggested that study is a starting point but not a roadmap for the site’s future.
“We definitely want this to be a multi-use facility and I know when the 2022 feedback came I’m hoping we can work within that plan and then make sure that it’s beneficial to this community,” Webb said.
“This is unprecedented for a government to tear down a derelict building before we have a redevelopment plan but the complexity of this site was so great that we couldn’t really get developers interested in anything that was sustainable or viable so we believe that clearing this site, turning it flat into green space will make the development costs much more predictable,” said County Executive Sam Page. “We hope to get more interest from the development community about what we can put here. It has to have community support, it has to have support of elected officials and it has to be sustainable.”
“The scenarios that people seemed to support don’t seem to be supportive of housing and I don’t think the market will support much retail…this was a retail place, see what happened to it,” noted John Maupin, another member of the Port Authority. “We will do what we believe is best for the county at the end of the day. What that is, I can’t tell you.”
“There is no 100% beautiful plan that’s gonna work here. But we need to be conscious of what’s around here. What’s gonna work? What will be sustainable in this community,” O’Malley said after the ceremony while watching the demolition unfold.
The answer, he hopes is a new use that doesn’t lead to another demolition ceremony years from now.
“It’s not just a dream list of I’d like this…..what will stand the test of time,” O’Malley said.