Buzz Westfall Plaza on the Boulevard is a shopping center in

Jennings, Missouri Jennings is a city in St. Louis County, Missouri, United States. Per the 2020 census, the population was 12,895. Geography Jennings is located at (38.721100, -90.261428). According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area ...

. Opened in 1955 as Northland Shopping Center, it initially featured a

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 Department Sto ...

department store as its

anchor store In retail, an "anchor tenant", sometimes called an "anchor store", "draw tenant", or "key tenant", is a considerably larger tenant in a shopping mall, often a department store or retail chain. They are typically located at the ends of malls. Wit ...

. Extensive redevelopment of the property began in 2005, resulting in a strip mall anchored by Schnucks and

Aldi Aldi (stylised as ALDI) is the common company brand name of two German multinational family-owned discount supermarket chains operating over 10,000 stores in 20 countries. The chain was founded by brothers Karl and Theo Albrecht in 1946, when t ...

, with a vacancy last occupied by

Target Target may refer to: Physical items * Shooting target, used in marksmanship training and various shooting sports ** Bullseye (target), the goal one for which one aims in many of these sports ** Aiming point, in field artillery, fi ...

History

Northland Shopping Center

May Centers CenterMark, formerly known as May Centers, was a mall development company owned by a consortium of Westfield Holdings Ltd., General Growth Properties, and Whitehall Street Real Estate L.P. III. And it was formerly owned by The May Department Stor ...

, a subsidiary of The May Department Stores Company, which then owned the

St. Louis, Missouri St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi River, Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the Greater St. Louis, ...

-based department store

, announced plans to build Northland Shopping Center in 1954. Under these plans, a four-story Famous-Farr store would be the central

. At time of construction, this would be the biggest department store in the St. Louis area. By October 1954, several tenants had been announced for the center, including a local jewelry store, a beauty salon, and a dry cleaners. Famous-Barr opened for business on August 19, 1955. Edison Brothers Stores operated two shoe stores at Northland: Burt's and Baker's. By the end of the month, the center's second-biggest tenant had opened as well: an

S. S. Kresge Corporation Kmart Corporation ( , doing business as Kmart and stylized as kmart) is an American retail company that owns a chain of big box department stores. The company is headquartered in Hoffman Estates, Illinois, United States. The company was inc ...

dime store. A 1977 article in the ''

St. Louis Post-Dispatch The ''St. Louis Post-Dispatch'' is a major regional newspaper based in St. Louis, Missouri, serving the St. Louis metropolitan area. It is the largest daily newspaper in the metropolitan area by circulation, surpassing the ''Belleville News-Dem ...

'' described Northland as "the first auto age shopping center in the metropolitan area" and noted that the center's revenues had allowed for construction of sewer lines to accommodate newer housing developments surrounding the property. A directory published that same year indicated over 50 shops, including Lerner New York (now known as New York & Company),

Walgreens Walgreen Company, d/b/a Walgreens, is an American company that operates the second-largest pharmacy store chain in the United States behind CVS Health. It specializes in filling prescriptions, health and wellness products, health information, an ...

, Schnucks, Waldenbooks,

RadioShack RadioShack, formerly RadioShack Corporation, is an American retailer founded in 1921. At its peak in 1999, RadioShack operated over 8,000 worldwide stores named RadioShack or Tandy Electronics in the United States, Mexico, United Kingdom, Austra ...

Hickory Farms Hickory Farms, LLC is an American food gift retailer with headquarters in Chicago. Richard Ransom established the company in 1951 when he began selling handcrafted cheese at local fairs. By 1959, the company added summer sausage and opened its fi ...

Kinney Shoes The G.R. Kinney Company was an American manufacturer and retailer of shoes from until . Its listing on the New York Stock Exchange, symbol KNN, began in March 1923. The shoe concern was started by George Romanta Kinney whose father ran a general ...

, a bowling alley, and a movie theater. In 1987, Kmart eliminated all stores in the S. S. Kresge division. In July 1992, then owner CenterMark Properties (formerly May Centers, a subsidiary of May Department Stores), sold the ailing Northland Shopping Center to

San Antonio ("Cradle of Freedom") , image_map = , mapsize = 220px , map_caption = Interactive map of San Antonio , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = United States , subdivision_type1= U.S. state, State , subdivision_name1 = Texas , s ...

-based Spigel Properties for an undisclosed amount, just a year before CenterMark was sold to a consortium headed by

Des Moines Des Moines () is the capital and the most populous city in the U.S. state of Iowa. It is also the county seat of Polk County. A small part of the city extends into Warren County. It was incorporated on September 22, 1851, as Fort Des Moines, ...

-based

General Growth Properties GGP Inc. (an initialism of General Growth Properties) was an American commercial real estate company and the second-largest shopping mall operator in the United States. It was founded by brothers Martin, Matthew and Maurice Bucksbaum in Cedar Ra ...

and also included

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

-based Westfield Holdings Ltd. and Whitehall Street Real Estate L.P. III, an investment partnership formed by Goldman, Sachs & Co. At the time of the sale of the shopping center to Spigel, Famous-Barr was in the process of opening a newer store in the nearby

Jamestown Mall Jamestown Mall was an enclosed shopping mall in Florissant, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis, Missouri, United States. Opened in 1973, the mall formerly included Dillard's, JCPenney, Macy's, and Sears as its anchor stores. The mall had become in ...

. By early 1994, the Famous-Barr store was found to be in a state of disrepair, with portions of the store partitioned off and non-functional bathrooms. Famous-Barr finally closed their store there in June 1994. Following the closure of Famous-Barr, the center grew increasingly vacant, and was purchased by Sansone Group in late 2000 for redevelopment. Demolition of the structures finally occurred in 2005 with the last business at the site closing in June.

Buzz Westfall Plaza

In 2006, the shopping center officially reopened as Buzz Westfall Plaza on the Boulevard after the complete demolition of the previous structures on the site. The first major tenant to open in the new complex was

. Soon afterward, a relocated Schnucks grocery store was announced as the second major tenant. Sansone Group sold the shopping center to

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

-based Newport Capital Partners in 2015. Target closed in 2016.

References

{{Authority control Shopping malls established in 1955 Shopping malls in Missouri