Since 1974, Plaza Frontenac has been one of a small handful of enclosed malls in the country built to hold both Saks Fifth Avenue and Neiman Marcus at once. In 2011, there were only nine shopping centers in the entire United States running that exact combination. For fifty-two years, the plaza on Lindbergh Boulevard was one of them.
As of this summer, it isn't anymore.
That single fact, more than any individual store opening or closing, is the real story of what happened at Plaza Frontenac in 2026. The mall didn't quietly lose a tenant. It lost the structural feature that made it unusual among American shopping centers, and it did so at the same time it filled in around the gap with a specific kind of retailer. If you shop there, park there, or just use it as the landmark you give directions from, the plaza you walk into this fall is running on a different model than the one that opened in 1974.
The Anchor Math Nobody Had to Run Before
Saks Global filed a WARN notice with the state of Missouri on March 6, 2026, confirming that the Frontenac store would lay off 65 employees between May 6 and May 31. The filing was part of a broader restructuring that also closed two other Neiman Marcus locations nationally, but the Frontenac closure carried a specific local weight: this was the only Saks Fifth Avenue in Missouri. The next closest one is in Chicago.
That detail matters more than it might first appear. Saks had been at Plaza Frontenac since the mall's developers persuaded the retailer to relocate its Central West End store westward in 1974, making it a second anchor alongside Neiman Marcus from day one. Losing it doesn't just remove a store. It removes the second half of an arrangement the plaza had held onto longer than almost anywhere else in the country.
The Screens Went Dark First
The anchor wasn't the first big departure. More than a year earlier, the mall's six-screen Landmark Theatres cinema, tucked in near the Saks side on the second floor, showed its final film on February 23, 2025, and closed for good five days later. The closure followed a lawsuit filed by Brookfield Properties, the plaza's owner, claiming the theater owed $274,000 in back rent.
In a letter to employees shared before the closing, Landmark's vice president of operations wrote that Plaza Frontenac "has created countless memories and played a significant role in the lives of many." For a theater that had run since 1998 and served as a regular venue for the St. Louis International Film Festival, that wasn't just a courtesy line. It was one of the few places in the region built for the kind of independent and limited-release films that don't usually make it to a suburban multiplex. Moviegoers in the area now have to drive to AMC Creve Coeur 12, Marcus Des Peres Cinema, or the Galleria 6 to find anything comparable.
The theater's exit mattered less for retail math and more for what it removed from an evening at the plaza. A trip that used to end with a film now just ends.
Who Actually Moved Into the Gaps
While the second floor was losing its cinema, the first floor was gaining a retailer the plaza had never had before. Aritzia, the Vancouver-based women's fashion brand, opened its first Missouri location at Plaza Frontenac on June 4, 2026, taking roughly 10,000 square feet on the ground floor. Before that opening, the nearest Aritzia to St. Louis was in Leawood, Kansas, about twenty miles south of Kansas City, which gives some sense of how far the plaza was still pulling shoppers from before this year.
Earlier in 2025, Abercrombie & Fitch opened on the mall's second floor, and St. Louis' sole Anthropologie store relocated there from the St. Louis Galleria. Neither of those is a full-line luxury name. Both are the kind of accessible, lifestyle-oriented retailer that has been showing up in successful mall renovations across the country for the better part of a decade, usually as a signal that a property is diversifying away from a single luxury identity rather than doubling down on one.
None of this touched the full-luxury core that has defined the plaza for years. Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Tiffany & Co., David Yurman, and Tory Burch are all still there, and Neiman Marcus remains as the mall's sole department-store anchor. So is the layer just beneath that tier: Golden Goose, Alo Yoga, Vuori, Lululemon, Kendra Scott, and Tecovas. What changed is the composition around the top. One department-store anchor with a specialty retail ring is not the shape Plaza Frontenac has run for fifty years. It's the shape most of its peers switched to a long time ago.
The Dining Row Lost a Name Too
The mall's four out-parcel restaurant lots have carried Canyon Cafe, Flower Child, BRIO Tuscan Grille, BrickTop's, and Fleming's Prime Steakhouse, along with the Zodiac Room inside Neiman Marcus. In January 2026, Canyon Cafe announced it was closing after operating inside the mall for more than a decade, ending one of the longer tenures among the plaza's casual dining options.
Here's a snapshot of the year's changes side by side.
| Change at Plaza Frontenac | Timing |
|---|---|
| Landmark Theatres cinema closes after a 27-year run | Final screening Feb. 23, 2025 |
| Anthropologie relocates from St. Louis Galleria | Earlier in 2025 |
| Abercrombie & Fitch opens on the second floor | Earlier in 2025 |
| Canyon Cafe announces closure after a decade-plus run | Announced January 2026 |
| Saks Fifth Avenue announces closure, 65 jobs affected | WARN filed March 6, 2026; store closes May 6-31, 2026 |
| Aritzia opens, first Missouri location | June 4, 2026 |
Read across a single row, none of this looks dramatic. Read together, it's the densest stretch of turnover the plaza has seen in years, compressed into about eighteen months.
What This Actually Changes on a Tuesday
None of this changes what the plaza has always done well for the neighborhoods around it: a walkable, climate-controlled stretch where a Ladue or Frontenac errand run can include lunch, a return, and a wander through Williams Sonoma or Pottery Barn without anyone needing a car for an hour. Losing Saks doesn't undo that.
What it does mean is that the mental map longtime shoppers have carried for fifty years needs a small update. The Saks wing closed out through that spring window earlier this year. The Landmark seats are gone, and the plaza's evening identity beyond dinner is still finding its next default. Aritzia and Anthropologie give the first floor a younger, more accessible edge than it had a year ago. Abercrombie gives the second floor a presence it never had before Landmark left.
For a mall that opened its doors on land once used by the Bridlespur Hunt Club's steeplechase course, changing shape after fifty years isn't really a decline story. It's what happens when a property that could afford to hold onto an old model for longer than almost anywhere else in the country finally stops being able to.
If you're the kind of Frontenac or Ladue resident who's watched this plaza serve as a fixed point on the map for years, the practical version is simple: go see it before the next round of announcements changes the map again. And if you're curious about how shifts like this one connect to the broader rhythm of the Central Corridor market, the team at The Warner Hall Group spends a lot of time thinking about exactly these kinds of neighborhood details. Requesting a private consultation is always a good place to start that conversation.
