Buzz Westfall Plaza on the Boulevard is a shopping center in Jennings, Missouri. 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 S ...

department store as its anchor store. Extensive redevelopment of the property began in 2005, resulting in a strip mall anchored by

Schnucks Schnucks is a supermarket chain. Based in the St. Louis area, the company was founded in 1939 with the opening of a store in north St. Louis and currently operates over 100 stores in four states throughout the Midwest (Missouri, Illinois, Indi ...

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 ...

, 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, f ...

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 Store ...

, a subsidiary of

The May Department Stores Company The May Department Stores Company was an American department store holding company, formerly headquartered in downtown St. Louis, Missouri. It was founded in Leadville, Colorado, by David May in 1877, moving to St. Louis in 1905. After many ...

, 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 and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...

-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 anchor store. 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 Edison Brothers Stores, Inc., was a retail conglomerate based in St. Louis, Missouri. It operated numerous retail chains mainly located in shopping malls, mostly in the fields of shoes, clothing and entertainment, with Bakers Shoes as its flagship ...

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 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-De ...

'' 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 New York & Company, Inc. (NY&C) is an American workwear retailer for women. New York & Company apparel and accessories are sold through a nationwide network of retail stores, and through its e-commerce site. New York & Company was founded ...

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, a ...

Waldenbooks Waldenbooks, operated by the Walden Book Company, Inc., was an American shopping mall-based bookstore chain, from 1995 as a subsidiary of Borders Group. The chain also ran a video game and software chain under the name Waldensoftware, as well as a ...

, RadioShack,

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 f ...

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 genera ...

, a bowling alley, and a movie theater. In 1987,

Kmart 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 ...

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= State , subdivision_name1 = Texas , subdivision_t ...

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

and also included Australia-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. 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