Former St. Louis Mills Mall has new owner

ST. LOUIS, Mo. (KMOV) - Plans for the redevelopment of the former St. Louis Mills Mall in Hazelwood are moving forward now that the building has a new owner.

Industrial Commercial Properties (ICP) purchased the building and plans to use half as a business park and the other half will be used by St. Louis POWERplex as part of an amateur youth sports complex.

Matt Zimmerman is the city manager of Hazelwood.

“This is going to be something very different and complimentary of POWERplex. And so we’re really excited to see both projects coming together at the same time,” he said.

Zimmerman said the business park will consist of some light manufacturing, smaller warehouses and offices.

The St. Louis Mills Mall opened in 2003 but in recent years the number of customers dropped and tenants left. Later it became the St. Louis Outlet Mall. In 2020 POWERplex moved into some of the spaces to begin developing a youth sports complex.

According to Dan Buck with Big Sports Properties, the company developing POWERplex, ICP will use about half of the building for the office park and the other half will be utilized by POWERplex. Already the sports complex is using 130,000 square feet of space for volleyball, baseball, pickleball and ice hockey.

“This is going to serve as a national model and how to take an old mall and convert it into a really dynamic mixed-use. To be able to have daytime traffic with an office park complemented by evening and weekend traffic with a sports park,” said Buck.

The plans for POWERplex includes an 84,000-square-foot event center, an amusement center and go-cart track, a bar and grill with golf simulators, a micro-brewery and 12 restaurants and eateries, as well as a convenience store.

According to Zimmerman, Construction work on the redevelopment plan could begin as early as February and the first tenants to the business park could move in as early as May or June.

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