Downtown Chesterfield Mall Site Construction Update: What Changed

If you've driven Chesterfield Parkway past Clarkson Road this summer, you've probably noticed the grading equipment is still out there, moving dirt around 96 acres that used to hold a mall. The plans for what replaces it changed this spring, including revisions to parking and road access.

Before getting into that, it helps to clear up something a lot of Chesterfield residents mix up without realizing it.

Two Sites, Often Confused

The restaurants and crowds you've seen packing a beer garden off North Outer 40 Road are not on the old Chesterfield Mall property. That's The District, the former Taubman Prestige Outlets site, sitting across Interstate 64 from where the enclosed mall used to be. The District already has 4 Hands Brewing Co. and Hi-Pointe Drive-In anchoring a space called The Hub, open daily from 11 a.m. to midnight, with Napoli Bros. Pizzeria and Pasta occupying another space at the same gathering area and Narwhal's Crafted, the frozen cocktail spot with locations in Midtown and St. Charles, signed on for a spot nearby.

The old Chesterfield Mall, the enclosed one that opened in 1976 and closed for good on August 31, 2024, sits on the other side of the highway. That's the site now called Downtown Chesterfield, and it's still dirt, survey stakes, and two department store buildings. If you're picturing the mall's redevelopment and picturing 4 Hands on a patio, you're picturing two different addresses.

The Garage Plan Was Reduced by 451 Spaces

As reported by West Newsmagazine, Downtown Chesterfield's original site development concept plan was approved by Chesterfield's City Council in December 2024. Since then, mass grading has started and, according to the developer, more data has come in about what the site can actually support. At the Planning and Public Works Committee's February 19 meeting this year, The Staenberg Group came back with a list of changes to that original plan.

The biggest one: the parking garage planned for the site shrinks from 1,068 spaces across five levels down to 617 spaces across three. That's a reduction of 451 spaces, roughly 42 percent of the original capacity, and it's happening before a single vertical structure has gone up.

A few other changes came with it. The garage's western access point was originally set to connect to Downtown Chesterfield Boulevard, the new interior street running through the development. City planning staff say that connection has been rerouted to Millstone Boulevard instead, because of a steep grade in that part of the site. The four raised intersections planned throughout the development, originally meant to be finished in brick or concrete pavers, will now be built with stamped concrete, which city staff described as a longer-term maintenance decision. And a bus stop that was slated for the east side of the central park has been moved elsewhere, because neither The Staenberg Group nor Metro Transit wanted a stop sitting inside the development's interior.

The grand staircase, originally part of the developer's obligations, will now be designed and built by the city.

The current pedestrian plan calls for a 12-foot-wide trail with a 6-foot landscape buffer running the entire perimeter of Downtown Chesterfield Boulevard. Because a portion of that ring road sits on land the developer doesn't yet own, there's an interim version too: a narrower 6-foot path with a 6-foot striped buffer that can coexist with Dillard's existing parking lot until the full road gets built later.

Development plans can be revised as site work proceeds. Here, the garage plan was reduced by 451 spaces after grading began.

Project Timelines and Milestones

Public statements about several project milestones have been made at different points during the project.

The milestones in the table are not the only reported measure of progress.

The central park is another project milestone: a roughly 3.3-acre green space at the heart of the development. Staenberg described it in October 2025 as being "pretty much done, with sidewalks, bike paths, street lighting, signage" by fall of 2026, just not yet planted or programmed. If that held, the park's sidewalks, bike paths, street lighting, and signage would be in place by fall 2026, before the shops and residences planned around it are built.

What This Actually Looks Like If You Drive Past This Fall

Put the pieces together and here's the realistic picture for the rest of 2026. The Macy's and Dillard's buildings remain the only structures still standing from the old mall, a St. Louis-based deconstruction firm called Spirtas Worldwide having taken the rest of it apart piece by piece rather than imploding it. The park's hardscape, sidewalks, and lighting may be substantially in place, while landscaping and tenants are not yet in place. The garage that eventually serves the site will be smaller than originally announced, and it will feed off Millstone Boulevard rather than the interior boulevard as first planned. A November 2025 summary of the project placed Dillard's reopening in 2027. And any new construction you'd recognize as an actual building, rather than graded dirt and utility trenches, is probably still a year out.

Public Financing for the Project

The project also has a public-financing component. Chesterfield approved up to $353 million in tax increment financing for this project back in 2022, with roughly $105 million of that earmarked for the developer's own public improvements and another $25 million set aside for parking and related infrastructure at the neighboring Wildhorse Village development. Chesterfield doesn't levy its own property tax, so TIF is the mechanism the city relies on to fund infrastructure like this without creating one. These figures describe public financing associated with the project.

What to Watch For Next

The next real milestone isn't a ribbon cutting. It's whether the utility mapping that started in May 2026 wraps on schedule, since that determines when developers can start pulling building permits for the first vertical structures. Until then, Downtown Chesterfield remains in progress, with some projected milestones later than earlier estimates and a garage plan with fewer spaces than the version Chesterfield's City Council approved in 2024.

None of this changes what's happening on your own street today, but it may help to have a clear picture of the project's current plans and timing. If watching all this construction has you wondering what any of it means for your own address, from timing a move around a changing corridor to what buyers might ask about a property near an active development, Jill Azar & Jacque Mileusnic offer a free home valuation with no pressure attached, and they know this stretch of Chesterfield well enough to talk through what it's actually worth right now.