NORTH ST. LOUIS COUNTY, Mo.—Demolition at the former Jamestown Mall site has reached a milestone roughly six months into the process. Nearly all of the buildings on the roughly 140-acre site have been reduced to piles of debris.

Work will continue to turn the site into a temporary green space into the early summer months.

But what comes next on the property is still very much an open question.

The mall closed in 2014 and after that, the property fell prey to vandals who would set fires, adding insult to the eyesore. 

A proposal to turn the property into an industrial logistics park and distribution center emerged in 2018 but was shelved in 2021 after County Councilwoman Shalonda 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 said in September when the demolition started that the 2022 study was a starting point and not a roadmap for the future. The St. Louis County Port Authority is overseeing the start of any redevelopment and could decide over the next few months whether to ask for a formal request for proposals or to hire a firm to market the site.

Politics could also factor into what comes next. Webb, who represents the property’s location on the St. Louis County Council and is now the body’s chair, faces an Aug. 6 primary rematch with former County Council member Rochelle Walton Gray, who Webb defeated in 2020.

Tensions between the two sides boiled over at the demolition ceremony in September when Webb and State Sen. Angela Walton Mosley, Gray’s sister, got into a verbal dust-up over whether Webb or Walton Gray deserved credit for successfully lobbying for $6 million in state funds to pay for the demolition. Whoever wins the primary will be a heavy favorite in a majority-minority district to win in November.

“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,” Port Authority Chair Kevin O’Malley, the former Ambassador to Ireland told Spectrum News back in September as demolition began.

“It’s not just a dream list of I’d like this…..what will stand the test of time,” O’Malley said.