In the past two years, a couple of malls have garnered a ton of attention in the St. Louis area. West County Mall, was an existing mall torn down and rebuilt (mostly). West county mall sits in an affluent area and was blighted to make it easier for the developer to rebuild it.

Malls were interesting when they were being built as they represented a dedication to the indoor mall metaphor that many people say have passed us by. Newer malls such as Chesterfield Commons, which feature open air stores that you can drive to have become the darling of retail. There are many advantages to the open air mall approach. For instance, Chesterfield Commons features pretty much every store you'd ever need from WalMart to a nail salon to a movie theater.

The sales figures for West County Mall are embarrassing. Remember, this was an existing mall that was doing ok in the market, but the developers felt they need to make it better. To do this, they needed to tear down most of the existing building and rebuild. To this end, they blighted the area:

Under pressure, the city and Westfield agreed in 1997 to what became a controversial plan to declare the mall blighted, tear it down and rebuild. Taxpayers would chip in about 15 percent of the more than $200 million bill by forgoing some future sales and property tax revenue from the center. Instead, the money pays for a portion of the project.

For those not familiar with the city in which West County Mall resides, it's Des Peres. Pronounced Duh Pear, the city is one of the more affluent in the St. Louis Metropolitan area. Here was what the census said about Des Peres in 2000:

• 91% of the people in Des Peres own their own homes.
• Des Peres' median family income in $128,110.
• Families below poverty lines in Des Peres is 1%.

Does this sound like an area that needs to have a shopping mall blighted? Regardless of the final decision on blighting, all the experts were predicting that the mall would experience sales of $410 million a year. As the opening drew closer, sales projections were pushed down to $312 million.

Sales projections are the key to the reality of getting west county mall built as the local community was betting that the money they'd lose in helping to rebuild the mall would be paid back at a higher rate.

This didn't happen.

Remember the $410 and $312 million projections? How does $260 million sound? According to the St. Louis Post Dispatch, the mall hasn't even hit the $260 million sales mark. This means that the gamble the local community, including the school district took, in contributing money to building the mall hasn't paid off.

Sure, the mall has contributed to local coffers including the school district, but it's been less than was expected and what they were receiving prior to the blighting:

Earlier this summer, the company presented a check for $333,181.25 to the Kirkwood schools. The check stems from an agreement with the city that directs some sales tax revenue to the schools.

"It wasn't as much as we hoped," said Damerall, the superintendent.

Was it worth corrupting the laws of blighting? It's too early to tell, but 5 years in it looks as if it wasn't worth it for West County Mall.

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