Bannister Mall

Infobox shopping mall
shopping_mall_name = Bannister Mall


image_width = 250px
caption =
location = Kansas City, MO, US
address = 5600 Bannister Road
coordinates =
opening_date = August 6, 1980
closing_date = May 31, 2007
developer =
manager =
owner = Stanley Spigel
architect =
number_of_stores = ~50 (180 at peak)
number_of_anchors = 4
floor_area =
floors = 2
parking =
website =
footnotes =

Bannister Mall was a shopping mall on the southeast corner of Kansas City, Missouri that closed on May 31, 2007, after being open for almost 27 years. The site will be reused for a new Kansas City Wizards soccer stadium. [cite news |url=http://kansascity.bizjournals.com/kansascity/stories/2007/04/23/daily15.html|title=Bannister Mall will close at end of May |publisher=Kansas City Business Journal |date=2007-04-24|accessdate=2007-05-28]

History

Bannister Mall was built and opened in August 1980 at 5600 Bannister Road in Kansas City, Missouri between I-435 and Hillcrest Road. The area was once the site of the Three Trails (Santa Fe, California, and Oregon). The mall was one of the largest malls in the Kansas City area in a previously vital and vibrant shopping area. In the early 1980s, Bannister Mall was the "place to go" with a draw over a large area that was mostly from South Kansas City, Jackson County, Missouri, and Johnson County, Kansas. In 1988-1990, an area north and east of the mall called Benjamin Plaza was added to the commercial retail area. In 1995, the mall was one of two final candidates to host the filming of Kevin Smith's film Mallrats, but when the management objected to the script, the Eden Prairie Center in Eden Prarie, Minnesota was chosen instead.

By the mid to late 1990's with newer and better deployments further south and in Johnson County Kansas, the area began to wane. Also, due to safety issues, the area around Bannister Mall earned a bad reputation as being a high crime area. This combination led to the present blight of the area. By 2005, three of the four anchor stores in the mall were gone. Bannister Mall once hosted 180 stores, but by 2007 only 50 stores were open.

In April 2007, it was announced that due to high crime and rising costs of operation that the mall would close. At the time, only half of the mall was open, with the northern part blocked off. The neighborhood that has caused the failure of Bannister Mall has also affected the rest of the retail area; very few stores remain in the area. The only new construction in the area is the replacement of the Kansas City Fire Department's Fire Station 41, which once was facing Bannister Road and now is facing Hillcrest Road. Even the nearby Wal-Mart Supercenter closed in January 2007, which was a day before a new Wal-Mart opened on the site of the former Blue Ridge Mall now called Blue Ridge Crossing. [cite news |url=http://www.pitch.com/2007-02-08/news/smiley-face-sad-face/|title=Smiley Face, Sad Face |publisher=Pitch Weekly |date=2007-02-08|accessdate=2007-05-28] The Bannister Wal-Mart was one of the company's earliest Hypermart stores [cite news |url=http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/walmart/transform/cron.html|title=The Rise of Wal-Mart |publisher=Frontline |date=2004-11-16|accessdate=2007-05-28] , but it later changed to the Supercenter format.

Anchor tenants

* JCPenney – (closed 2000)
* Dillard's – (closed 2002)
** formerly Macy*s – (closed mid-1980s)
* The Jones Store Co. – (closed 2005)
* Sears – (closed 2006)

Competition

* Blue Ridge Mall – (Demolished) – Blue Ridge Crossing is a new shopping center at the same site.
* Independence Center – "opened in 1974"
* Oak Park Mall – "opened in 1975"
* Ward Parkway Center – "opened in 1959"

References

*
*

Notes:

External links

* [http://deadmalls.com/malls/bannister_mall.html Dead Malls.com feature on Bannister Mall]
* [http://www.3trailscid.org/ 3 Trails Village Community Improvement District's site] (the district includes the mall area)
* [http://www.kansascity.com/602/story/116891.html "Mall's sad decline provides cautionary tale,"] Kansas City Star column by Mary Sanchez, May 21, 2007