Built St. Louis: Vanished Buildings
River Roads Mall

A checkup visit in November 2006 revealed that the demolition was still proceeding slowly. The old JC Penny store was mostly rubble, but the remainder of the mall still stood.

Additional holes had been knocked into the old Stix building, to facilitate the interior gutting. Large piles of scrap metal filled much of the sunken courtyard. The bulk of the interior has been stripped bare, with only the building's concrete structure remaining, along with some ducts whose insulation probably contains asbestos, requiring special abatement prior to demolition.

The small wing building attached to Stix has been ravaged by the interior demolition; little remains of its 1960s elegance. A site reader notes that this space was once a restaurant known as The Pavilion, offering sit-down dining as well as counter service and a cocktail lounge.

The main mall corridors have suffered some initial damage, and had their floors scraped away, but are relatively intact. The dim, pale light cast through the milky clerestory windows lends an eerie beauty to this otherwise mundane space.

The outlying buildings have not been touched; the Food For Less store remains in operation.