Saint Louis Galleria

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The Saint Louis Galleria (or St. Louis Galleria) is a shopping mall in the St. Louis suburb of Richmond Heights. The mall is owned and operated by General Growth Properties. Originally the site of the Westroads Shopping Center anchored by Stix Baer & Fuller, the property was sold in 1984 to Hycel Properties, which demolished most of the mall (but not the Stix or North Wing which included Walgreens (demolished & now soon to close Mark Shale store) and built the Saint Louis Galleria. Dillard's, which had acquired the old Stix chain, expanded the existing location at the same time, while retailer Mark Shale opened a major store. In 1991, the building was expanded south of the Atrium. The Clayton Famous Barr store(now Macys)moved to the Galleria, and the May company also opened a Lord & Taylor store on the south end. The addition also included an emergency electric generator that can supply limited lighting and monitoring functions (but not full operations) during a power failure. The mall receives external electric service from four points. It adapted the enclosed delivery corridor concept (but very little of the actual structure) from the Westroads design. Trucks enter on the south end and exit on the north end. The original loading dock for the Stix store (which remains in operation) is very similar in design to the loading dock at River Roads Mall, another Stix-developed shopping mall.

The Galleria is where the first Build-A-Bear Workshop opened in 1997 before it was a chain now many others have opened.

The Galleria hosts the flagship St. Louis stores of Gap Inc, Urban Outfitters, Janie and Jack, and many other stores, including one of the metropolitan area's two Apple Stores. The shopping center has an independent movie theater with six screens. The below-ground food court was renovated just in time for the holiday season of 2005; controversially, all local and regional restaurants were replaced with chain restaurants.

In 2006, two brawls between rowdy teenagers less than six months apart led officials on April 20, 2007, to require anyone under 16 to be accompanied by someone at least 21 years old on Fridays and Saturdays after 3 p.m. ^[3][4]

In 2006, Nordstrom had announced plans to open a store on the site of the now-demolished Lord & Taylor store. In December 2008, Nordstrom announced that it was delaying opening of the store until 2011.^[5]

On April 16, 2009, General Growth Properties and 158 of its properties filed for the largest real estate bankruptcy in U.S. history.

Jimmy'z and Mark Shale closed their Galleria outlets as a result of the recession.

Recession hit Galleria sales hard in 2008. Richmond Heights, which gets half its revenue from sales taxes and for which the Galleria is the largest taxpayer,^[6] saw sales-tax receipts drop from $10.1 million in fiscal 2007 to $9.1 million in the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2008.^[7]

[edit] Anchor stores

• Dillard's^[8] (opened 1984, 330,000 ft²)
• Macy's^[8] (opened 1991 as Famous-Barr, became Macy's 2006, 265,000 ft²)
• Nordstrom (opening Fall 2011 on site of demolished Lord & Taylor)

[edit] References

• Frank Trampe's River Roads Collection (See the talk page.)
• A Galleria advertising insert that ran in the Saint Louis Post-Dispatch, Sept. 13, 1987.

[edit] External links

• Saint Louis Galleria
• Saint Louis Galleria 6 Movie Theatre