Mid Rivers Mall (formerly Westfield Shoppingtown Mid Rivers) is a shopping center in St. Peters,

Missouri Missouri (''see #Etymology and pronunciation, pronunciation'') is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territories by area, 21st in land area, it border ...

, just off

Interstate 70 Interstate 70 (I-70) is a major east–west Interstate Highway in the United States that runs from Interstate 15, I-15 near Cove Fort, Utah, to Interstate 695 (Maryland), I-695 and Maryland Route 570 (MD 570) in Woodlawn, Baltimo ...

. The mall opened in 1987 and has since grown to be

St. Charles County St. Charles County is located in the central eastern part of the U.S. state of Missouri. As of the 2020 census, the population was 405,262, making it Missouri's third-most populous county. Its county seat is St. Charles. The county was organ ...

's largest shopping center. Mid Rivers Mall includes over 140 shops. The anchor stores are

Macy's Macy's is an American department store chain founded in 1858 by Rowland Hussey Macy. The first store was located in Manhattan on Sixth Avenue between 13th and 14th Streets, south of the present-day flagship store at Herald Square on West 34 ...

Dillard's Dillard's, Inc. is an American department store chain with approximately 267 stores in 29 states and headquartered in Little Rock, Arkansas. Currently, the largest number of stores are located in Texas with 57 and Florida with 42. The company a ...

, H&M,

JCPenney Penney OpCo LLC , Trade name, doing business as JCPenney (colloquially Penney's and abbreviated JCP) is an American department store chain store, chain with 649 stores across 49 U.S. states and Puerto Rico. It is managed as part of the Catalys ...

Marcus Theatres The Marcus Corporation is an American publicly held company headquartered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The company operates two principal divisions: Marcus Theatres and Marcus Hotels and Resorts. History Marcus Corporation was founded on Novembe ...

, Vintage Stock, and

Dick's Sporting Goods Dick's Sporting Goods, Inc. (stylized in all caps as DICK'S Sporting Goods) is an American chain of sporting goods stores founded in 1948 by Richard "Dick" Stack. It is the largest sporting goods retailer in the United States and is listed ...

. There is one vacant anchor store that was once

Sears Sears, Roebuck and Co., commonly known as Sears ( ), is an American chain of department stores and online retailer founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosen ...

. The mall is owned by

CBL Properties CBL Properties (previously CBL & Associates, Inc., then CBL & Associates Properties, Inc.) is an American real estate investment trust that invests in shopping centers and owns shopping malls, primarily in the Southeastern and Midwestern Unite ...

, which acquired the property in 2007 from the

Westfield Group Westfield Group was an Australian shopping centre company that existed from 1960 to 2014, when it split into two independent companies: Scentre Group, which owns and operates the Australian and New Zealand Westfield shopping centre portfolio; ...

History

Famous-Barr opened their store in 1981 on the site of the future Mid Rivers Mall. The mall was finished in 1987 with two anchor stores,

and

Famous-Barr The Famous-Barr Co. (originally Famous and Barr Co.) was a division of Macy's, Inc. (formerly Federated Department Stores). Headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri, in the Railway Exchange Building, it was the flagship store of The May Departmen ...

, as well as a food court; a 6-screen cinema opened in 1988. The 1990 expansion of Mid Rivers Mall included a new anchor store,

. Another expansion of Mid Rivers Mall in 1996 added the fourth anchor,

, which moved from nearby Mark Twain Mall in St. Charles. In 1999, Wehrenberg demolished the mall's 6-screen theater and built a new 14-screen

megaplex A multiplex is a movie theater complex with multiple screens or auditoriums within a single complex. They are usually housed in a specially designed building. Sometimes, an existing venue undergoes a renovation where the existing auditoriums a ...

. Later that year,

Chili's Chili's Grill & Bar (stylized as chili's) is an American casual dining restaurant chain founded by Larry Lavine in Texas in 1975 and is currently owned and operated by Brinker International. History Chili's first location, a converted postal ...

opened outside the mall.

Best Buy Best Buy Co., Inc. is an American multinational consumer electronics retailer headquartered in Richfield, Minnesota. Originally founded by Richard M. Schulze and James Wheeler in 1966 as an audio specialty store called Sound of Music, it was r ...

then opened in April 2000. Upon the acquisition of

The May Department Stores Company The May Department Stores Company was an American holding company of department stores founded in 1877 by David May. It operated several regional department stores throughout the United States, which were managed as distinct business divisions ...

Federated Department Stores Macy's, Inc. (previously Federated Department Stores, Inc.) is an American holding company of department stores. Upon its establishment in 1929, Federated held ownership of the regional department store chains Abraham & Straus, Lazarus (departm ...

, Famous-Barr was rebranded

in 2006.

opened at the mall between JCPenney and Sears in 2008. In February 2018, the mall began offering relatively inexpensive weekly lease rates so new retail businesses can test use of physical retail space. The initiative drives foot traffic to the mall while potentially bringing in long-term tenants. This same year the mall underwent renovation, with H&M opening, giving the mall another anchor store. On August 6, 2019, it was announced that Sears would be closing this location as part of a plan to close 26 stores nationwide. The store closed on October 27, 2019, leaving Macy's, Dillard's, Marcus Theaters, V-Stock, H&M, JCPenney, and Dick's Sporting Goods as the remaining anchor stores.

Crime and legal issues

In September 2017, the mall owner sued former tenant Max & Erma's, alleging that the

franchisee Franchising is based on a marketing concept which can be adopted by an organization as a strategy for business expansion. Where implemented, a franchisor licenses some or all of its know-how, procedures, intellectual property, use of its busines ...

owed over $680,000 in rent, interest, and fees after vacating their nearly mall space in August; its 2011 lease was to expire in January 2022. In December 2017, a 59-year-old man was attacked and his vehicle

carjack Carjacking is a robbery in which a motor vehicle is taken over.Michael Cherbonneau, "Carjacking," in ''Encyclopedia of Social Problems'', Vol. 1 (SAGE, 2008: ed. Vincent N. Parrillo), pp. 110-11. In contrast to car theft, carjacking is usually i ...

ed during late Saturday morning hours near the mall's Dillard's store. In March 2018, Mid Rivers was reported as one of several St. Louis area malls at which a woman allegedly photographed young girls in bathroom stalls to share with a man. In July 2018, it was reported that a 33-year-old man had been charged with invasion of privacy after he was caught attempting to record a woman while she was in a dressing room at the mall's Windsor's Fashions store. In July 2018, a shoplifting theft from a Mid Rivers Mall department store resulted in a high speed chase to St. Louis. In January 2020, two shoplifters drove over a police officer's foot while fleeing.

References

External links

Mid Rivers Mall Website

CBL Properties
{{CBL Properties CBL Properties Shopping malls established in 1987 Buildings and structures in St. Charles County, Missouri Shopping malls in Missouri St. Peters, Missouri 1987 establishments in Missouri