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Closed as of 5/31/07

Sam Graham’s Commentary:

The Bannister Mall area is one of the more fascinating to see today.

The mall itself stands there alone, doors boarded up and the

parking lot decaying, but otherwise in all its glory. But what

makes it so interesting is seeing all of the empty big box retail

and restaurants in the nearby area.

There's the old Wal-Mart Supercenter (an original Hypermart

prototype). An old Best Buy. An old Circuit City. An old

Petsmart. An old Toys R Us. An old Red Lobster. Strip mall space.

Nearly all empty.

It's a completely intact suburban ghost town.

The only thing still here of any significance still is a Burlington

Coat Factory and a few neighboring shops in a single strip mall

space. Somebody converted the old Black-Eyed Pea restaurant into

something new that was doing NO business when I drove by today.

This place was a thriving retail center I shopped at just 15 years

ago. To see it today, largely the same sans the businesses and

people, is a surreal experience.

(I have a few photos I snapped as I drove through if you want them.)

Kevin Gutierrez’s Commentary:

It's hard to see what was once a great mall fall to such a demise. I remember growing up as a child going to that mall and it was always so packed. Bannister Mall was the place to be! Growing up in the urban area most of us went there to shop for clothing, shoes, or just to hang out. It had a good share of fountains which were quite peaceful. It had many great stores and even while it was going downhill I continued to go there even as some of the anchor stores shut their doors for the final time and who could forget leaving the mall and having to go to Hypermart for groceries. Everythnig was once in that area. Best Buy, Burlington Coat Factory, and many other popular stores. I recently went there one last time before the news of its closing and there seriously was nothing in there. A few urban stores and nothing more. One of the urban stores had little mini-motorcycles and they were riding them through the mall because there was nothing else and there is so much
room. I was even shocked to see that the once highly populated Hypermart had vanished. Even in its closing I will always have nothing but the best memories at Bannister Mall and though they can close it down, it'll always remain in my memories and most Kansas Citians memories.

Karen ward’s Commentary:

I Have soo many memories of this mall. It opend when I was a teenager, I remember going there on Friday Nights. My gosh, there were so many people wall to wall in every store and every pathway. It was beautiful in its time.

We used to walk the mall, eat at Anne's Santa Fe and then catch a movie.
I lived at some apartments directly accross the street from the mall when I got older 1989 , 1990. The traffic was awful trying to get into the mall as there were so many people shopping there. The area was starting to have some problems then I remember. There were always people breaking into cars, stealing T tops off of cars as they were big back then. I remember The HyperMart opening and how big it was, they had these shopping carts that had calculators on them to figure how much you were spending. There was a Kmart directly accross the street and an Olive Garden opend on the corner, another large Movie Theatre opend accross the street. I could walk to the Theatre I lived so close. Christmas was fun in the area with all the traffic. I moved out of the KC area in 1995, that was the last time I was in the mall, It was still going strong then but was
having crime problems. I visited the area in 2003 and 2004 the Mall had som many crime problems then I did not even go inside. Very sad.

Randy Rathbun’s Commentary:

Bannister Mall closed for good on May 31, 2007.

http://www.kansascity.com/business/story/131427.html

And a nice opinion piece to go along with it:

http://www.kansascity.com/273/story/116891.html

Jason’s Commentary:

Bannister Mall is closing completely as of May 31. The owner of the mall is no longer willing to support only "mom & pop" shops that are currently in the mall.

Below is an article from the KC Star regarding the closing of the mall.

http://docs.newsbank.com/openurl?ctx_ver=z39.88-2004&rft_id=info:sid/iw.new

sbank.com:AWNB:KCSB&rft_val_format=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:ctx&rft_dat=118B319
A9AF21DF8&svc_dat=InfoWeb:aggregated4&req_dat=0D4DDA61269CF135

Joe Gunn’s Commentary:

I am not going to get in to why the mall died and who if anyone is to blame. I haven't been inside the building for years but I drive by Bannister Mall every now and then and think about what it once was. There are many memories for me there. I was a teenager while the mall was still in it's heyday and of course spent more then my share of time there. After hearing the other day that it will soon be closed for good I decided I will definitely be making one last trip there before the doors are locked for good. Now that I think about it the place holds so many memories from my teenage years. I think it only fitting to go and say good by to an old friend.

Jay Edwards’s Commentary:

Bannister Mall to close at end of May after 27 years

By JOYCE SMITH
The Kansas City Star

After 27 years of operations, the beleaguered Bannister Mall will close its doors at the end of May.

Spigel Properties, owners of the mall, said it has lost its last remaining national tenants and can no longer subsidize some 50 small "mom and pop" stores still in the operating in the center.

"It's unfortunate, some of them I'm sure were making a living, but I couldn't break-even," said Stanley Spigel, president of Spigel Properties in San Antonio. "I had been subsidizing them and could do that as long as the nationals were in there. Malls are expensive to run; when they left it made it impossible."

The mall site has been in the news recently as the Kansas City Wizards have picked a local developer to help pursue a plan to kick down the mall and build a soccer stadium and retail project.

Bernie Britt’s Commentary:

My name is Bernie

I am was and I still am very concerned about Bannister Mall, in fact, last spring I sent an e-mail to some of Kansas City's city Councilmen about my concerns of how that mall had gone down. One of the city Councilmen never answered my e-mail back Mr. Alvin Brooks and I was told that that is his district and Chuck Eddy, however, I did hear from Mr. Eddy. He said that he was concerned about the mall also and that they were looking into the situation but I never heard anything about what they were doing to remedy the situation. However, someone told me that I might as well forget about it because the Mayor and the city Councilmen were putting all of their efforts in pushing the remodeling of the downtown district and was not concerned about the Bannister Mall. The last time I went inside the mall I was told by someone who work
s inside there that there was 52 stores in the Mall and that more stores were coming but I haven't been back since then to see what is new inside there.

I so remeber Bannister Mall when it was the talk of the town. My kids, the neighbor kids and just about everybody that I knew back in the day went to Bannister Mall to shop. Matter of fact, just the other day my landlord was telling me that she use to live in Wichita, Kansas and everybody in Wichita would tell her when she come to Kansas City to be sure to go to the Bannister Mall and World's of Fun, that's how popular the mall was.

I remember the movie theater because we use to take our kids there just about every weekend and is use to live behind K-Mart and I moved there at the same time the mall was opened. There was also a Furrs Cafteria, A Santa Fe bar and grill, Wilson's Leather Shop, The Limited, Helzberg, and a lot of other stores. There were a lot of businesses across the street from the mall as well. We had Darryls, Tippins Pies, Black Eye Pea, Benningans Restaurant one of my favorites, Red Lobster, Hobby Lobby, Luby's, and a host of other places.

The mall not only went out of business because of theft by other people but they also caught the security guards stealing, and there was some racial tension about too many blacks hanging out there and fights happening all the time. We as a people need to know how to act when we go out and stop trying to be so bad and tough if you want to fight take it to the streets and not the malls. A matter of fact, we need to stop it all together and learned how to love one another instead of always wanting to fight each other. If we can learn how to live together then maybe we can learn to keep out malls alive in our communities. I would rather spend my money in my state of Missouri and not take it to Overland Park, Kansas and other places outside of my state because we need to keep the money in our state to help benefit us.

Thank you for listening to me. We need our Bannister Mall in our community.

Prshack’s Commentary:

Bannister Mall is dead, there are NO anchors and there's definently not 100 stores in it. The last time I went there was in the middle of a weekday, and it was obvious that some stores were out of business, even though they were full with merchandise, because it was in the business hours and they weren't open. One store said it was reopening in June 2005, wasn't empty, and this was in 2006! The only chain stores left are 3 (yes 3!) Foot Lockers and a Lenscrafters. As I remember, the rental is only 60 cents a square foot a month. Way back in 2001, there was a plan to bring a Bass Pro Shop to the mall, but the proposal was later defeated. The only new developement is a Fire Station being built in the parking lot of the mall. The old one was in the parking lot too. A lot of a huge plaza opposite of the mall is dead also. Stores no longer there include:

Best Buy

Some deparment sized store (I want to say Wards)

Hobby Lobby

Toys "R" Us

and now... Wal-Mart.

End note: I'm scared to go there!