Tampa’s Best Repurposed Shopping Malls
Every shopping mall has 4 stages of life:
- The New Mall!
- The mall
- Oh shit, is that place still open?
- Nope
And then, if it’s lucky, it turns into something else. Developers in Tampa have proven to be masters of the conversion from retail-shopping-and-ersatz-town-square to some other kind of facility. It hasn’t happened yet to International Mall (currently residing comfortably in stage 2) but it will. It’s inevitable.
Here are the Top 5 shopping mall reclamations in Tampa…
Floriland, now Floriland Office Center (Busch and Florida) –
IT HAD: Montgomery Ward, Zayre and coin-operated kid-sized carnival rides
IT HAS: Florida’s Center for Child Welfare, a medical academy and an unemployment office
East Lake, now NetPark (Hillsborough and N 56th Street) –
IT HAD: Maas Brothers, Montgomery Ward, Service Merchandise and a fountain.
IT HAS: Nobody who doesn’t work there has any idea. There’s probably a laboratory with some “Stranger Things” shenanigans happening
University Mall, still there but shrinking rapidly (Fowler Avenue) –
IT HAD: Dillards, a movie theatre, Mr. Dunderbak’s and benches
IT HAS: Not much
Westshore Mall, still there but slated to be torn down and replaced with condos (Westshore and Kennedy) –
IT HAD: Sears, Penny’s, Chik-fil-A and planters (that’s not a store; it’s large buckets with plants in them)
IT HAS: a movie theatre and those planters, probably
Tampa Bay Center, now One Buccaneer Place (MLK and Himes) –
IT HAD: Sears, Penny’s, a movie theater, a top-notch food court and several racist merchants
IT HAS: The training and practice facility for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and probably no racists
