St. Louis Mills

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St. Louis Mills Mall

St. Louis Mills, a.k.a. "The Mills", is a shopping center in Hazelwood, Missouri, just off of MO 370. When it opened in November 2003, it had over 200 specialty shops and 8 anchor stores[1]. It is a venture investment by the Mills Corporation that offers many retail stores and entertainment attractions. The newest addition to the Mills will be a 130,000-square-foot Cabela's store opening in the spring of 2007.

1 Neighborhoods
2 Attractions
3 Trivia
4 Anchors
5 External links

[edit] Neighborhoods

St. Louis Mills is divided up in to six sectors called neighborhoods; each neighborhood has a different theme that contributes to the overall design, decoration, and attractions in that area of the mall. For example, the "SportStreet" area features wood floors like those found on a basketball court, and contains the NASCAR Speedpark, Woodward Skatepark, LuckyStrike Bowling Lanes and IceZone ice skating rink, which are all sports-related attractions. Neighborhood themes include:

High Drama Oasis
Chandelier Court
PBS Kids Backyard
Tree Oasis
SportStreet
Circus of Fire
Shakespeare in the Park Oasis

Each area of the mall features decorations, artwork, and colors in line with its namesake. Throughout the mall, there are several sets of projection TVs hanging from the ceiling, showing video loops of music videos and advertisements.

[edit] Attractions

[edit] Family and kids

A section of neighborhood 5, near the mall's foodcourt, is sponsored by PBS. The sponsored area features advertisements for PBS, as well as two indoor playgrounds for childen named "PBS Kids Backyard" and "A Place to Grow". These children's areas hold regularly scheduled family-oriented events called "Muggsy's Meadow", which are uniformly featured at all of the Mills Properties-owned malls. "Muggsy's Meadow" features product tie-ins offered by the Mills Properties.

[edit] Mall walking

Sponsored by a local St. Louis Christian Hospital, the "No Loafers Walking Club" meets daily at the mall and walks a one-mile course within the mall from 7am to 10am, before any of the mall stores open for the day. The hospital sponsors prizes for club members meeting fitness milestones, as well hosts education programs on the second tuesday of every month on varying health-related topics.[2]

[edit] Other attractions

Since the mall opened in 2003, the IceZone skating rink has been designated as the official practice facility of the St. Louis Blues hockey team. The rink offers free bleacher seating for fans during practice sessions.[3]

The mall has hosted an annual RV show, called the "Fall RV Show at St. Louis Mills," featuring over 300 RVs in the parking lot between entrances one and two. The show is held for one weekend in September with free admission[4]. The show features new models for the upcoming year, as well as year-end closeouts. Barbecue is sold on-site to benefit the area Lions Club [5].

The NASCAR Speedpark includes an indoor/outdoor go-gart race track & sometimes features appearances by NASCAR drivers such as Kevin Harvick, having them meet with fans and sign autographs.[6]

The mall has often plays host to sponsored events such as video game tournaments. Past examples include the 2005 EA Sports Madden Challenge[7], World Wide Dungeons & Dragons Game Day 2005 event[8], the PlayStation Big Hook Up skateboarding competition[9] and the 2005 "St. Louis Mills Celebrates the Final Four" featuring local radio station KSHE 95 with sponsorship by Coca-Cola [10].

[edit] Trivia

The mall's walkway forms a one-mile long track with wood, tile, and carpeted floors.

The Woodward Skatepark was previously named the ESPN X-Games Skatepark, but in early 2006 the Skatepark lost its ESPN sponsorship. It was temporarily named the St. Louis Mills Skatepark before being bought by Woodward.

Empty Storefronts are covered by black canvas which have inspirational quotes such as "What do we live for if not to make life less difficult for each other. -- George Eliot." written on them[11].