Waccamaw Corp. was a pottery store chain founded in 1977, and based in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Famous really for the Waccamaw outlet mall along US-501 and US-17 in Myrtle Beach.
Opening stores in the early 80's in North Carolina, and South Carolina, the real jump for Waccamaw was in 1984 when they opened a store in an outlet mall in Rolling Meadows, Illinois, just outside Schaumburg.
The chain bought competing home furnishing chain Homeplace and grew to over a 100 stores by 2001, changing the names to Waccamaw's Homeplace, in hopes of phasing out the Waccamaw name as the chain filed for bankruptcy and closed by 2002.
Part of a former mall in Merrillville, Indiana, there is an Old Time Pottery store that I presume to have taken a former Homeplace store, as these are the shopping carts in the store, and this chain sells the exact same merchandise as Waccamaw.
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This time the sun it still out, since the last time I visited the St. Louis Outlet Mall, it was minutes from closing for the night, so I only got shots of the inside. That was in March 2014, I like to visited the city of St. Louis every spring, last year was the acception because of the riots in Ferguson, Missouri, it seemed too dangerous to travel to the gateway city, so I had alternate plans for that spring. It has been a while since the first time I was here, and scrolling through the first post of the mall from March 2014, several stores have since closed, making the old St. Louis Mills almost 90% vacant, a bath store employee put it, "we are over 90% vacant, when a store's lease runs out, they leave instead of renewing", that pretty much is self explanatory.
It is so pretty in this wing, it is a shame that this might soon be closed to the public.
Old Nascar Speedpark go-cart track to the right.
Food Court.
The outside of the mall is what I missed the first time around, so here are the anchor stores.
What I need to go see next is the Cincinnati Mills (Forest Fair Village) Mall outside Cincinnati, Ohio. It is an old Mills mall built in the early 90's that makes the old St. Louis Mills look 70%est. occupied because as Dan Bell put it, the mall is nearly 2 million square feet of vacant space, but you can still walk around in it. Expect that mall to be featured real soon.
While driving with the ambition to see the old Jamestown Mall on a routine trip to St. Louis came with mixed thoughts. Was the mall blocked off, guarded, or was trouble waiting for me to arrive. Enroute to the mall, taking a wrong turn through the woods along the Mississippi River ended up being better than worse come to think about it, as the original directions called for driving through Ferguson, Missouri. Although the riots have settled down, going out of the way as it ended up should always be the first choice. Arriving at the abandoned Jamestown Mall in Florissant, Missouri should have come to no surprise the entrance was blocked off.
...and the other near the Movie Theater sign
...The entrance near the old Sears wing was open for cars to drive through.
Jamestown Mall opened in 1973 with original anchor stores being Sears and Stix, Baer & Fuller, a local St. Louis area department store chain that would later be bought by Dillard's in 1984.
Famous- Barr opened as a third anchor in 1994, and converted to Macy's in 2006. In 1996, JCPenney was added completing the mall's floor plan.
A movie theater was also added sometime in the late 1990's. The mall changed hands in 2003, and shortly after, Dillard's announced it would close it store at Jamestown in April 2006. This was the malls first anchor loss, and not too far after, in 2008, Sears also closed.
After many plans were developed for the mall to be repurposed, make offices, assorted shopping, rebuild parts of the mall, etc. A final decision was made that the center would no longer be viable for shopping because of overlapping competition elsewhere at the time, and the demographic of its location kept developers from investing in the property.
In November 2013, the heat and power was shut off, forcing the owner to close most of the mall off from shoppers. Finally, on July 1, 2014, because several circumstances such as no power, or heat, and increased crime and vacancies since the early 2000's, Jamestown Mall was officially closed after 40 years of business.
Here are pictures I took of the mall in April 2016.
Former Stix, Baer & Fuller/ Dillard's.
Now showing signs of overgrown foliage, the front of the mall gives the allusion as if time stopped in Florissant.
The although the Sears store may be closed for good, the former Auto Center still appeared open as a car wash or detail center of sorts.
Former Sears store.
Here is the old JCPenney store, which converted to an outlet store, later JC's 5 Star Outlet, closed in late 2013.
The original Famous-Barr, later Macy's, and JCPenney (JCP Outlet, JC's 5Star Outlet). In sequence of time, the pictures provided below from an online search show to rapid demise of both the chains locations at Jamestown.
2011
2013
The last holiday season at Jamestown mall was the worst as a result of not paying bills for several months, the power and gas was shut off, making most of the mall "un-shoppable" for black Friday.
Former JCPenney/ JC's 5 Star Outlet.
Famous-Barr converted to Macy's in 2006. In January 2014, Macy's announced a series of closures that included the store at Jamestown, which closed a few months later.
Just goes to show, something actually was here before abandonment.
Former Famous-Barr/ Macy's
AMC should film an entire season of The Walking Dead: Mall Edition, it makes for the perfect setting.
Now leaving the mall unscathed, one last shot of the sign and former Sears Auto Center in the distance.
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