When City Foundry STL (3730 Foundry Way, cityfoundrystl.com) opened its doors two years ago this past August, it was all about the food. St. Louisans were so excited to try the bounty of international cuisines in the former manufacturing plant's food hall, no one seemed ready to acknowledge the place was basically an elevated food court — without the mall to go around it.
That's all changed since, to the benefit of St. Louis shoppers. These days, City Foundry offers all the benefits of a shopping mall (easy parking, a great collection of diverse retail outlets and, of course, that top-notch food hall) without any of the downsides (a dearth of natural light, boring chain stores). As a bonus, these shops mostly keep regular afternoon hours, meaning you can swing by on your lunch break and happily pick up the kinds of things that have been all too hard to find in the city proper in recent years: lovely gifts, a pair of sneakers, a cute dress for Friday happy hour, a new pair of earrings. Treat yo'self!
The options are diverse, or at least as diverse as it gets for artisanal products. There's Sanctioned Sneaker Collective (sanctionedsc.com), which proudly markets itself as "the biggest sneaker store in the Midwest" and almost blew my sneakerhead nephew's mind on a recent visit. There's Golden Gems (shopgoldengems.com), a gift shop where the ethos is proudly feminist badass (and which blew my conservative sister's mind in a totally different way) and plant-based skincare provider Esther & Mila (estherandmila.com).
Women's clothing shops include Polished Prints (polished-prints.com), the flagship for St. Louisan Leah Longueville's clever printed T-shirts, onesies and glassware. A mom of three, Longueville famously started selling her prints on Etsy as a hobby only to see her brand land in boutiques around the country (including one you may have heard of called Nordstrom). There's also La Vie Boheme (bohemeboutique.com), the second outpost of an Edwardsville, Illinois, boutique with enough flowy dresses and romantic blouses to outfit Stevie Nicks, and Mix + Match (stlmixandmatch.com), a well-curated collection of quality of-the-moment women's basics.
But the shop most likely to command your attention the longest is Procure (shopprocure.com). It's the first brick-and-mortar store for the Women's Creative, which has been throwing great shopping events featuring women-owned brands around St. Louis since 2017. Procure now serves as a consignment-based showcase and incubator for those brands, as well as one-stop shopping for gift-givers on a mission.
Looking for the perfect item for your boss? Procure is the only retailer in St. Louis for Sol Hom's hand-poured candles, which sit in very cool minimalist concrete jars. A new outfit for your little sister? Locally owned, Caribbean-inspired Gyal Bashy offers jumpsuits, blouses and more. What about Dad? Even he is covered here, with Blues sweatshirts and T-shirts from Series 6. "We sell more of our sports stuff than anything else," owner Christina Weaver notes.
Procure will be open at City Foundry two years as of February, not without some struggle. "This year has been hard," Weaver admits. Shoppers and entrepreneurs alike are feeling the strain of inflation. And Procure's determinedly reasonable price point (most items are $25 to $100) means the store relies on volume, a tough thing in a boutique business. "We need lots of people to shop, and we need them to come back all the time," Weaver says with a laugh. But days with good foot traffic can yield exactly the payoff she's hoping for.
"A lot of people who shop with us aren't expecting to buy anything," says Nina Geers, Procure's director of inventory. "Then they pop in and go, 'Oooh!'"
In that way, City Foundry is just like a mall back in their heyday — only in this case, the shops are locally owned and the products for sale are a lot more interesting. Not to mention the serious upgrade to the food court.
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