Ward Parkway Mall just sighed up

Jackson/Cass Suburbs, including South KC
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Eon Blue
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Re: Ward Parkway Mall just sighed up

Post by Eon Blue »

The model railroad club got asked to leave a couple weeks ago. Apparently a paying tenant has come along for that space.
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Re: Ward Parkway Mall just sighed up

Post by lock+load »

Eon Blue wrote:The model railroad club got asked to leave a couple weeks ago. Apparently a paying tenant has come along for that space.
The linked site plan shows a Party city in that location.

The proposed addition to the south looks very disconnected from the existing part of the mall.
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Re: Ward Parkway Mall just sighed up

Post by mgsports »

http://legacydevelopment.com/wordpress/ ... _15_15.pdf new Dining options to KC area to South. Five Below,Stage,Gohastings would be good among others.
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FangKC
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Re: Ward Parkway Mall just sighed up

Post by FangKC »

Restaurants coming to Ward Parkway Center to replace Dillards space.

http://www.kmbc.com/news/developers-mov ... r/39264962

http://tinyurl.com/gm5p9hv
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Re: Ward Parkway Mall just sighed up

Post by Highlander »

FangKC wrote:Restaurants coming to Ward Parkway Center to replace Dillards space.

http://www.kmbc.com/news/developers-mov ... r/39264962

http://tinyurl.com/gm5p9hv
It's good to see Ward Parkway evolve and survive when so many other malls and their derivatives have failed. It shows that the greater neighborhood area has some staying power.
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Re: Ward Parkway Mall just sighed up

Post by mgsports »

Oak Park Mall,Legends,Town Center and so on to.
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Re: Ward Parkway Mall just sighed up

Post by m.toast »

The side of the mall that used to house a Dillards store will soon be a 35,000-square-foot outdoor patio...
Does this mean a 35,000-square-foot slab of cement? Not including parking, of course. :?
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StL_Dan
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Re: Ward Parkway Mall just sighed up

Post by StL_Dan »

I went to the shoe store in the mall a few months ago. That mall is weird. Maybe all malls are weird now that I'm in my 40's. Anyway...weird vibes over there.
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Re: Ward Parkway Mall just sighed up

Post by flyingember »

StL_Dan wrote:I went to the shoe store in the mall a few months ago. That mall is weird. Maybe all malls are weird now that I'm in my 40's. Anyway...weird vibes over there.
They were always weird.
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taxi
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Re: Ward Parkway Mall just sighed up

Post by taxi »

Keep Ward Parkway Weird.
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Re: Ward Parkway Mall just sighed up

Post by geeman68 »

taxi wrote:Keep Ward Parkway Weird.
I like Ward Parkway. Good mix of stores, love Trader Joes and Target and go to TJMaxx, Old Navy, 5 Guys, Starbucks and AMC. Looking forward to seeing how they incorporate the restaurant/patio concept.
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Re: Ward Parkway Mall just sighed up

Post by earthling »

Trader Joe's main reason I go there, sometimes Target and that big shoe store. Mall conversions to at least half outdoor access is pretty common now, especially older malls.
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Re: Ward Parkway Mall just sighed up

Post by empires228 »

Does anyone have any vintage (pre reconfigeration of the lower leval at the least) pictures of Ward Parkway? There are pictures of Antioch, Blue Ridge, Bannister, Metro North, Metcalf South, and even The Landing everywhere on the internet, but Ward Parkway and Mission Center have eluded me thus far and I would love to see what the mall looked like in better times as the remaining indoor portion looks very nice in its current state.
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Re: Ward Parkway Mall just sighed up

Post by lock+load »

^Would also love to see some old photos of Ward Parkway.
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Re: Ward Parkway Mall just sighed up

Post by empires228 »

https://www.flickr.com/photos/33134456@ ... 2271917516 I have some modern shots from 2015-2016 that show of how good the existing interior portion looks, but I want to see photos of when it was more, well, mall-like.
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Re: Ward Parkway Mall just sighed up

Post by herrfrank »

The south end of the Ward Parkway mall (it was largely linear) was dominated, per my distant memory of the 1970s, by the chic St. Louis department store, Stix, Baer & Fuller. I recall oversized 1970s black-silver-and-mirrors décor. It was considered the most fashionable of the KC mall department stores. Not as glamorous as some of the stores on the Plaza, notably Hall's, but fashionable nonetheless.
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Re: Ward Parkway Mall just sighed up

Post by empires228 »

herrfrank wrote:The south end of the Ward Parkway mall (it was largely linear) was dominated, per my distant memory of the 1970s, by the chic St. Louis department store, Stix, Baer & Fuller. I recall oversized 1970s black-silver-and-mirrors décor. It was considered the most fashionable of the KC mall department stores. Not as glamorous as some of the stores on the Plaza, notably Halls, but fashionable nonetheless.
Yes. They had stores at Oak Park Mall (Men's Dillard's) and Independence Center as well. The reason that KC was able to support so many malls though the mid 90's is because the metro had access to Macy's (bought by Dillard's), Stix (also purchased by Dillard's), Sears, Ward's (liquidated in 2001-2002), JCPenney, The Jones Store (bought by Dillard's, sold to May, May merged with Macy's), Nordstrom, Saks (supposedly left because their store was too small, but they could have moved out to JoCo if they really wanted to be in KC), and Halls (down to one small store) to anchor the malls. Substitute Harzfeld's (parent company went under) for Nordstrom in the 80's and before.

Lets look at what the shopping centers of old opened with.

Oak Park Mall:
- Stix (now Dillard's Men)
- Macy's (now Dillard's Woman)
- JCPenney
- Montgomery Ward (later The Jones Store and now Macy's)
- Nordstrom added in the 90's
- Barnes and Noble and American Girl added later

Ward Parkway Center:
-Stix (later Dillard's-Dillard's Clearance Center, now demolished.)
- Montgomery Ward (demolished for Target)
- A Theater
- JCPenney (converted to mall space partially occupied by Dick's and later Ross.)
- Kline's Department Store
- Kroger
- F.W. Woolworth

Bannister:
- Sears
- The Jones Store
- Macy's (later Dillard's)
- JCPenney
- Adjacent standalone Montgomery Ward

Metcalf South
- The Jones Store (later Macy's)
- Harzfeld's (later Jones's Store Furniture and then mall space)
- F.W. Woolworth (later mall space and food court)
- Theater
- Katz Drug (I believe Topsy's occupied part of this space)
- Sears
- Safeway (later Carousel Park)

Metro North:
- Montgomery Ward (liquidated)
- Macy's (later Dillard's)
- JCPenney
- The Jones Store (now Macy's)

Antioch:
- Sears
- Macy's (later Dillard's and now Burlington)
- Levitz Furniture
- Payless Cashways
- Showbiz Pizza

Blue Ridge:
- Harzfeld's
- JCPenney
- The Jones Store
- Montgomery Ward
- Woolworth

The Landing
- Macy's (later Dillard's and now whatever Gold's is)
- Other unknown tenants because no one documented The Landing

Crown Center
- Halls

Independence Center
- Sears (who built the mall)
- Macy's (later Dillard's then The Jones Store and now ironically enough Macy's again)
- Stix (now Dillard's)
- Nearby JCP that will likely hop into Sears when it closes

Mission Center Mall
- Two Macy's (later two Dillard's)

Red Bridge
- Macy's (later Dillard's)
- Theater

The Great Mall:
- Dillard's Clearance Center (later Vanity Fair)
- Linens 'n Things
- Burlington Coat Factory
- Oshman's
- SuperSports USA
- Marshalls
- Group USA Clothing Company
- Foozles Bookstore
- Saks Off 5th
- Theater
- Steve & Barry's and Famous Labels took over other stores later

Town Center Plaza:
- Jacobson's (upscale Michigan department store that was later re-tenanted as The Jones Store and then Macy's after it liquidated)
- Pottery Barn
- Restoration Hardware
- Theater
- Galyan's Sporting Goods (now Dick's)

Indian Springs:
- JCPenney
- Montgomery Ward
- Macy's (later Dillard's)
- Theater

Leavenworth Plaza
- ALCO Discount Store (later Theater)
- Safeway (now Westlake ACE Hardware)
- JCPenney
- Montgomery Ward (later Sears)

and then The Country Club Plaza has been home to various combinations of:
- Saks
- Macy's-Dillard's
- Sears
- Woolworth's
- Halls
- Harzfeld's
- Kroger
- Theater

So maybe this shines some light on why KC lost so many malls in a short period outside of crime plaguing Indian Springs and Bannister. Department and Specialty Store bankruptcy and consolidations turned them into the same properties and deprived them of what made them unique. That's how Metcalf South for example remained so strong against Oak Park for almost 20 years despite being sandwiched between Ward Parkway, Oak Park, and Mission Center for so long. It offered three anchors that those other three malls didn't have.
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Re: Ward Parkway Mall just sighed up

Post by AlbertHammond »

empires228 wrote: That's how Metcalf South for example remained so strong against Oak Park for almost 20 years despite being sandwiched between Ward Parkway, Oak Park, and Mission Center for so long. It offered three anchors that those other three malls didn't have.
As a kid in the late '70s and '80s, when going with my mom to "the mall" it was either Metcalf South or Oak Park. The deciding factor was which anchor she needed to visit that time. If it was Sears for new Toughskins jeans, then we went to MS. If it was Penneys or Macy's/Dillards,then Oak Park Mall was the way we went. The small stores were generally the same at both malls, so that played little into the decision. I, personally, preferred Metcalf South for the three story fountain.

We never crossed the state line....I was told it wasn't safe over there. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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Re: Ward Parkway Mall just sighed up

Post by aknowledgeableperson »

Bannister:
- Sears
- The Jones Store
- Macy's (later Dillard's)
- JCPenney
- Adjacent standalone Montgomery Ward

WARD'S WAS ADDED LATER


Red Bridge
- Macy's (later Dillard's)
- Theater

WHERE THE THEATER WAS USE TO BE A GROCERY STORE CALLED PAY-LESS. THE STAND ALONE GROCERY STORE WAS ADDED YEARS LATER. AND THE MACY'S WAS NOT A FULL LINE STORE.
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Re: Ward Parkway Mall just sighed up

Post by mistervinix »

I think the Macy's at Oak Park Mall was where Dillard's Men is now. I clearly remember a Macy's name plate embedded in the sidewalk outside the store before all the expansion happened in the 90s. Although I guess it's possible I'm remembering a Stix name plate...
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