I'd definately love to have some pictures of that place. We tried to get some a couple years ago, but the memory card in the camera screwed up and we lost them.

Yeah,it is was the Blue Ridge East theatre that he is thinking of.
I remember going there and seeing a special midnight preview
of the first Batman movie(the Tim Burton one).

That theatre and the old one at Truman Corners had the same style. Interesting buildings, and a decent place to catch a flick.

Here it is. So cool.


http://64.4.34.250/cgi-bin/getmsg/th...48c3d4ed6a7f8e

The more I look at this place, the more I want to go in there. I love going into places that have been closed down for years.

A few years ago, I helped do an appraisal on an old, abandoned Veterans Hospital. There was no power and there had been homeless people hiding out there. It was weird. We actually inspected the morgue with caving helmets. It was pretty cool. I was so fascinated with the stuff still left that I had a hard time concentrating on what I was actually there for. But I have to admit, it was pretty creepy and we had no idea what or who we might find.

UHMmmmm the deal may have fallen though at the center but its still in independence they bought a ton of land basically across the street from the independence center and have been working on it for over a year i think..

So what happened to the area around there (87th and 435)?

I drove through there today and it wasn't just the Mall, all of the stuff north of it was deserted too, including the giant Wal-Mart...

Too much crime and too little security.

Wow.

It was so weird to see a whole area literally abandoned like that.

What's next, Seville Square?

I knew when they had to place several booths to monitor the outside parking lot, it was going downhill. This news does not surprise me at all.

RIP :reaper:

got a little treat for you,

in all it's current glory, blue ridge east theater:

http://www.undergroundozarks.com/for...opic.php?t=941

enjoy!

also, it's gotten worse since those pics were taken, i was in there a few months ago...like it says in that thread, copper thieves have torn it up pretty bad

I love that site.

Wow... that's crazy.

Nice toilets....

Awesome man, thanks.

I want to go in there even more now.

Wow! Thats awesume.

bannister mall has been a joke for a long time from people getting mugged in the parking lots, indian springs mall in kck is dead now too, probably for the same reason.

metro north is dead cuz zona rosa plus a lot of northlanders will drive to Oak Park or Independence center to shop even though its a 25 minute drive....

antioch mall has been pathetic for....well forever, they really need to shut that down & metro and do something with the space.

Anybody know anything about this Empire Theater? Seems pretty cool...here it a bunch of photos of it.

http://kcurbex.org/gallery/thumbnail...album=9&page=1

Is that the one downtown??? I remember seeing a few movies there with my mom in the late 1970's....

There was another one downtown in that era too called the Midland I think??

I remember standing in line there in 1980 waiting to see "The Empire Strikes Back"

Well I went to Bannister Mall today and took some pics. I was "yelled at" by some middle eastern guy, asking me "What are you doing?". My reply "I'm taking pictures". By this time he was getting pissed off and asked me why. My simple replay was "Because I can". To say that I didn't feel very welcome was an understatement.

Are they actually going to put the Wizards stadium there?

I have no idea. After that last encounter I am glad they are tearing it down. If only they would blow it up with him inside it.

That would be nice. Get those soccer idiots the hell out of Arrowhead.

So long Bannister Mall.......

Lots of memories there....


http://economy.kansascity.com/?q=node/884


The redevelopment of Bannister Mall got off the drawing board and into the demolition stage Wednesday.

Excavators started taking down the former Jones Store and will begin moving south over the next year, tearing down the mall to make way for a $949 million mixed-used center called The Trails.

The 467-acre development would be anchored by an 18,500 seat professional soccer stadium that would house The Wizards, Kansas City’s major league soccer team.

Eventually it would add a 12-field tournament soccer complex for local, regional and national tournaments, a 250-room hotel, up to 1.1 million square feet of retail and up to 1.7 million square feet of office space.

Area residents who showed up at the Bannister Mall site Wednesday were thrilled.

Standing in the parking lot with the demolition crew, well, I had a flashback to 1980.

I was with the electrical crew then. I had just moved to the city to attend UMKC and my big brother knew a worker who gave us a sneak peak of the spanking new center at Interstate 435 and Bannister Road.

Its sheer size - more than double, maybe triple my hometown mall - the skylights, the sculptures, the landscaping, the big name stores set to open - this was going to be life in the big city.

And when it opened in August of that year it was the place to be for many in the city.

Area high school students considered it 'their' mall and many still do. As young parents they shopped there as families.

After I became retail reporter for the Star most of my excursions there were to cover openings, and then more and more often closings.

The big names left, then the small locally owned stores.

Guard towers were constructed to make people feel safer. It didn't work.

But the only time I was actually worried was when I realized I was in a whole wing of the mall that was empty of people and stores.

Since Bannister Mall closed in late May 2007 vandals had moved in to 'help' with the demolition by breaking out all the windows and taking everything not nailed down - and then some.

So it was sort of bittersweet to see that once beautiful mall become rubbish (rubbish that will be recycled).

But here's hoping the developers can pull this project off and give south Kansas City residents another awe inspiring gathering place they can be proud of and call their own.

I lived near there for 9 years. It was cool in its day. Time stands still for no man some famous dude once said.

I'm still pissed off that Kevin Smith didn't get to film Mallrats there. It was his first choice, and the mall passed on it due to the "objectionable content". Would have been nice to see my old stomping grounds immortalized on film like that.

This story is so much more complicated than people are willing to admit.

It incorporates White flight (back to the urban core), falling property values, lost anchor stores that propped the mall up, the decline of a once bustling Benjamin Plaza, the decline in popularity of enclosed malls, middle class families moving East in to Lee's Summit/Independence/Blue Springs, shifts in disposable income with the occupying demographic, etc. etc.

That said, I had some wonderful memories at that mall.
I once worked there in the movie theater (United Artists).
I grew up in South Kansas City...It'll always have a special place in my heart.

We're on the verge of another failed Kansas City development sinkhole that'll quickly get stale and cost us millions upon millions of dollars.

*Yawn*

dont forget the crime quotient

I acknowledged that crime was a factor in saying that the story was much more complicated than that.

Crime was the major factor. People did not feel safe shopping there anymore.

The rest is just excuses.

I don't think Clark is going anywhere.

1. Benjamin trails was a ghost town for many of Bannister's thriving times, it is irrelevant.
2. A shit ton of more shopping options have opened for the southland since the time that that area was THE shopping destination for all south suburbs.
3. Wards was a big loss, then the deterioration of surrounding shops [how many hardware stores failed at the Home Quarters facility], Venture, BB and CC, then Hypermart all closing shop.

Speaking for myself, I stopped going there when more than one person I know was a victim of violent crime there.

I lived in the South Kansas City for all but about 4.5 years of my life.
The perception of the occupying demographic (much darker than in years past) and crime in the area is quite a bit more significant than the actual increase in crime.

Oak Park Mall, according to statistics, has often reported a higher rate of crime than did Bannister Mall. (Not) Surprisingly the perception of that area is quite a bit different.

Indeed.

Summit Woods, the resurgence of Ward Parkway, Town Center Plaza, Walmart on 135th & State Line, the Belton Walmart, etc.

I'd be interested in seeing some reports. My perception of the problems at Bannister Mall is not from personal experience.

I think the prevailing perceptions of the area come from people who haven't had personal experiences there.

I lived and worked in the area for most of my life.

I lived in apartment complex down there for awhile I never had any real problems. Just alittle urban for me. I always had fun when the quick trip turned into a club after midnight :)

I'm certain that the majority of people that shopped there didn't experience a mugging or other violent crime. That doesn't mean it wasn't a problem.

Can you point me to the report you referred to? (crime rates @ Bannister vs. Oak Park Malls)

Good riddance. The mall was great when it opened. The neighborhood treated it like sh**. If you treat your house like shi**, it's gonna get torn down eventually. Hell...it wasn't like it was the blue ridge mall--which was super-old already.

Independence Center has stayed open, I see. I'm curious as to why it has stayed solvent?

I never attempted to gloss over that fact.
My point was simply that the prevailing perceptions always come in stage left from people who haven't had real experiences there. And they tend to overstate the realities in those areas.

I'll have to dig to find the official report.
It's been a while...

WHERE? you went into detail on everything else but glossed over that fact

what about the area directly leading to the malls? i would say that the area around bannister is MUCH worse than the area around oak park

Sounds good. :rolleyes:
But in reality when the bus lines let all the "hood" into Hypermart area the mall didn't have a chance.

Maybe the crime rates were more in OP but I'm willing to bet the violent crimes weren't higher.

So what Johnny ran out of OP Dillards with a jacket... It's not as bad as someone carjacked in the parking lot at Christmas time at Bannister.

I went to school right around the corner from there. And grew up most of my life there also.

not where my perception came from

QFT whole post actually

nm I'm dumb.

Dad was a KC Police officer there for most of my life. He couldn't even be off-duty without seeing (and intervening in) some random crime being perpetrated in or near that mall. No doubt about it. This place was a hole. Period. That whole area needed a Giuliani-style crack down for years.

We lived in Raytown when they built the place. At the time it was great. Among the stores was one called the Village Set. They kept records of what the women bought and what sizes. So, us males could go in to do some Christmas or birthday shopping, they would pull up the card and guide us in color and size selection. What a fantastic operation.

What made us stop going there, were the groups of kids. They would wander about, being loud, and would walk down the corridors 5 and 6 side by side. They wouldn't move or let anyone get by them. It just got down right uncomfortable, so we went elsewhere.

The same goes for the HyperMart after awhile.

Well said.

Ill just prefer to remember that mall in its Glory days in the 1980's.

It definately was the place to be back then.

Not like "much more" means "in addition to" or "and"...
I get it though. Playing dumb is the ChiefsPlanet way.

Isnt that at any indoor mall in America?? This is partially why the trend is to move towards open air malls.

Deter the teen hangouts and crime.

Starting to be that way. However, some kids are more courtious than others. I noticed this when we did some quick shopping at the OP Mall this December.

When I was younger, we had places to hang out. Today's kids don't, so they take what they can get.

Kinda interesting looking at this area on Google Streetview, and considering the only thing that looks like it's open is the fire station, it actually looks pretty nice. It's a shame they are tearing it all down. I was there a couple times in the early 90s and I don't recall having any issues there, although maybe that was before all the trouble started.

Its not just malls, the little a-holes try to walk into you even in the stand alone stores...I have just learned to hate people in general. I keep praying for some huge comet to come hurling through space towards us. SWEET RELIEF BAYBE!

Me thinks that's quite an oversimplification.
How long has the Troost line been serving that area?

I think the businesses that cited non-violent crimes (ie, shoplifting) as a significant part of why they left the area would disagree.

Because God knows that violent crimes don't occur in Overland Park at a mall, like say, Oak Park...
*Cough* Kelsey Smith *Cough*
:rolleyes:

Yea, but they are building a soccer stadium there right?

That should help revitalize the area.

For a couple years before it's forgotten...

Oh yeah, the tens of people that will attract should turn the area around in no time.

Were there ever any efforts to ramp up security?

Forgotten? Soccer is mega huge these days.

If you build it, they will come.

People will always flock to the shiny and new.

Human Nature.

Are you really comparing OP's violent crime rate to that of Bannister Mall areas (Because of Kelsey's extreme case)?
It's common sense. Get off your excuse hording pedestal and call a spade a spade. Not saying violent crimes didn't/don't happen everywhere but it was more "expected" to happen in the BM area as opposed to other malls.

I don't know how long Troost has been servicing BM (don't care either). I DO know the Metro doesn't run to OP Mall. Coincidence that they're still thriving? Same for Independence Center.

You & I know that BM had gang troubles and you couldn't walk more than 2 people at the mall because of them. Other malls didn't have that issue. It all boils down to demographics... You're smart (you write so well). Figure it out.

Hmmm...I guess. Creighton University built a new soccer complex here a couple years ago, I've heard it's pretty cool but I hate soccer so I have no interest in going.

Soccer's an afterthought in American sports culture.
Me thinks Germany is quite a bit different than Kansas City.

You haven't been paying attention to high school sports.

*Waving to the strawman*

I'd have to be a fool to draw a comparison between the violent crime rates in Kansas City (a town four times as populous) and Overland Park. Guess it's a good thing that I didn't do that. I merely corrected you on the disingenuous idea that violent crimes don't occur in Overland Park.

Then perhaps you should defer the discussion of how the busline might've contributed to crime in the area? Just a thought...

It's because I'm smart that I realize that there's more in play.
You're oversimplifying because you don't truly understand the complexities of this discussion. It's easier to pander to the prevailing perceptions and fears of a small group of people than to try to understand all of the information available. I get that. Carry on...

Dude I get it. I really do...
Where does soccer register on the American scale of sports interest though? Fifth? Sixth maybe?

Yeah blame it on EVERYTHING ELSE but THE problem.
We've been down this road before. Once again, we'll agree to disagree.
FWIW: Despite how populous our city is compared to OP, I doubt BM area had THAT MUCH more shoppers than OP. Yet BM was the shitpile out of it all.

But violent crimes and the metro bringing the hood was only a small part of it. :rolleyes:

WHATS this "more in play" you keep referring to? enlighten us

hey there micjones 5 years ago would YOU have wanted to live within 1 mile of BM? how about 1 mile from pak park mall?

i will throw another mall that ran into the same problem: indian springs and no i'm not blaming it on blacks(which im sure is coming) it doesnt matter whether black white brown red or green if people are scared to go the place isnt gonna last, might as well admit it and let it go

Overland Park sometimes will go a whole year without a single murder. Sorry mic but there's no comparison. Honestly, sometimes I wish Johnson County would gain a little bit of a rep as a haven for violence just so I could up my street cred from having grown up there.

As far as a spectator sport, sure. But I guarantee you those soccer fields will be full of people every Saturday, all day.

ROFL , i'm so glad im not from JC

Please read post #111

I can't believe metcalf south mall is still open. It used to have that awesome fountain in the center. Me and 3 other buddies used to shoplift from Clints comics all the time when we were 13.

Didn't seville square have an arcade in the basement?