Kingsway Plaza Mall: Sikeston, Missouri on DeadMalls.com

KINGSWAY PLAZA MALL: SIKESTON, MO

Jamie Hall's Commentary:

User submitted July 26, 2007

Construction on the $3 million Kingsway Plaza Mall in Sikeston, Mo., in 1968 led to the opening two years later of the first enclosed shopping mall between St. Louis and Memphis, Tenn. The mall's original anchors were J.C. Penney, which filled the mall's largest 75,000-square-foot spot directly across from the front entrance, and a pair of now-closed chains at each end: Britt's Department Store and TG&Y, an Oklahoma-based discounter. A Piggly Wiggly grocery store was attached to the front of the mall at one end, and a small three-screen cinema and local restaurant were near the front entrance and helped draw full parking lots of shoppers, especially during peak holiday seasons and on weekends. Eubanks-Finney, Athlete's Foot, Popcorn Corner, Jean Allen's, Fashion Bug and Readmore Bookstore were among other early and popular tenants, and the mall's center fountain area grew into the city's most popular location for beauty pageants, high school concerts and community theater events.

The mall was sold in 1983, and it soon lost TG&Y and filled the vacancy with Kmart. Britt's closed in the early '80s and was replaced by another department store, the small St. Louis-based chain Golde's. But the opening of the bigger and more modern West Park Mall in nearby Cape Girardeau in the early 1980s drew shoppers away from Kingsway Mall, and smaller stores began to suffer. Golde's closed by the end of the decade, Kmart moved to a bigger standalone store a few blocks away in 1993, and even the grocery store didn't last, leaving J.C. Penney as the near-empty mall's only anchor until it also moved into a standalone location in the mid-'90s.

Facing new competition from the area's first Wal-Mart SuperCenter less than a mile away, new local owners bought the aging mall and renamed it River Birch Mall in 1995, and a few locally owned shops and stores were added in an attempt to make it a "destination mall" instead of a "retail mall," the buyers said in a news release. But those few stores couldn't draw crowds, and neither could a flea market that filled the empty J.C. Penney spot. A fire gutted the front entrance of the mall in 1997 and destroyed the cinema and stores surrounding it. While those areas were repaired over several months, most remaining tentants closed.

Much of the mall was off limits following the fire and, marking the formal end of its use as a retail attraction, it was reconfigured as office space for local organizations, government agencies and nonprofits, some of which still fill small portions of the mall in 2007. Most sections of its interior remain closed off to the public.

Jamie Hall's Update:

User submitted June 27, 2017

Kingsway Plaza Mall opened in 1969 as the first enclosed shopping mall between St. Louis and Memphis. Local newspaper advertising at the time touted the mall as "serving the five state area of Missouri, Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee." Located a couple of miles from the junction of Interstates 55 and 57, the mall had an ideal location and thrived for several years.

The building, which was a one-level "I"-shaped mall, featured three anchor tenants, a one-screen movie theater, and a Safeway grocery store accessible only from the outside. The one out-parcel on the property was a local bank branch.

The mall opened near capacity with about 45 total stores. Its three anchors were JC Penney, which occupied the store's largest space near the center of the mall; TG&Y, a Midwestern five-and-dime chain at the south end; and Britt's, a department store, at the north end.

Among other stores at the time were Grabers, a national clothing chain; Osco Drugs; Breslers Ice Cream; Readmore book sellers; Bootheel Records; Winchester Station; Chris' Young World; Charlotte's Webb; Ben's; Wigs Unlimited; KarmelKorn; Ryes Jewelers; Lee's Shoes; and Jean Allen's. Although the mall included a few national chains, several stores were local.

The mall became a community gathering spot and often featured local concerts, beauty pageants, events for kids' groups, and other family events. It became incredibly popular during the Christmas season, in part because of Christmas decor that featured animated reindeer, snowmen, elves and other fixtures in displays throughout the mall.

The Britt's department store and TG&Y both lasted through the first decade before both chains suffered and began closing stores. Britt's was replaced by Golde's, a small department store chain based in St. Louis; the TG&Y location was filled after a lengthy vacancy by Kmart.

The mall's small size and lack of national retailers couldn't compete as other shopping malls opened about 30 minutes away in Cape Girardeau, Mo. (in 1981), and about an hour away in Paducah, Ky. (in 1983). Those malls were more than double the size and brought familiar chain stores to the region -- including more food options -- and Kingsway Mall's future was in doubt.

Golde's was the next anchor to leave when the chain went out of business in the late '80s, and the space was never filled. More and more small stores began to close as customers went to larger malls. Safeway closed and was replaced by a popular local seafood restaurant, Fisherman's Net, which was successful for several years.

The mall struggled to fill storefronts and was sold in the early '90s and rebranded as River Birch Mall. A few new local retailers did move in as the mall underwent cosmetic changes, but Kmart moved out when it built a new store about a half-mile away, leaving another anchor spot vacant; and JC Penney left to also build a new store several blocks away. Those anchor spots were never filled.

A final blow to the mall was a fire that gutted the Radio Shack and mall theater and caused smoke damage to the mall. Eventually the final inside stores closed (an Super D drug store was one of the final ones remaining) and the mall was largely sealed off from the public. A few parts of the mall are still in use as office spaces as of 2017, but no retail components remain open.