At Least Someone Still Believes... - a photo on Flickriver

Today is a big day in retail history! The first enclosed shopping mall to open since 2006 opens today in Sarasota! The Mall at University Town Center will finally open after two years of construction. This two level, 880,000 square foot mall was originally planned to open in 2010, however the economy caused developer Taubman to delay those plans by a few years. Taubman opened a small scale semi-enclosed mall in downtown Salt Lake City in 2012 (City Creek Center), however, since that mall has a retractable roof (which was a pretty neat idea, and has won a few awards), it's not a true enclosed mall like UTC is.

From what I've been reading, the mall is predicted to be a huge success! Thousands came out to the soft openings of the 3 anchor stores last week (labeled in the photo above), and the tickets for the mall's charity preview party last night sold out in hours. One article I read mentioned one shopper who traveled 500 miles from metro Atlanta just to come experience the first new mall in years. I really think the enclosed mall is not dead by any means. Many of our current dead malls were built in places that should have never had a mall to begin with, or were built in areas that were already overburdened with too many malls too close to each other. Also, people are attracted to new things. If a new "lifestyle center" opens on the other side of town from an older mall, of course everyone is going to want to shop at the new place because, well, most people are attracted to new things. I'm sure a new enclosed mall built in a similar scenario to what I just mentioned would still have a similar effect. Not keeping modernized has also hurt many malls as well (and Kmart suffers from a similar issue as well), and this makes the new places seem even more attractive to shoppers. The pictures posted online of this mall show an extremely nice, modern layout and interior (you can take a virtual tour of the mall here - I really like UTC's center court). People still like to go to the mall, and I think they'll still be around for a while. I hope UTC can prove a point to all the mall naysayers that the enclosed mall can still thrive and prosper in the so called age of the "lifestyle center". So, come on UTC, make us proud!

Satellite Image courtesy of Google Earth, and taken in April 2014 as construction was still being finished.

Taken in: United States / Florida / The Meadows (show map)

Taken on: October 15, 2014

Tags:

mall

Mall at University Town Center

Sarasota County

Florida

retail

store

stores

2010's

new

modern

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Sets appears in: • The Best of The Albertsons Florida Blog • Other Retail

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