Centre of Tallahassee

Centre of Tallahassee

Looking from Belk towards AMC.
Location Tallahassee, Florida, United States
Opening date 1971 (as Tallahassee Mall); 2016 (as Centre of Tallahassee)
Developer Cafaro Company[1]
Management Blackwater Resources LLC
No. of stores and services 93
No. of anchor tenants 3
Total retail floor area 747,000 square feet (69,400 m2)
No. of floors 1 (2 in AMC Theatres/Belk wing)
Parking 10,230
Website Centre of Tallahassee
The former Dillard's wing in Tallahassee Mall in Tallahassee, Florida in 2011. The former big box store is now being refitted as a home for a branch campus of a local charter school.

The Centre of Tallahassee, formerly Tallahassee Mall, is a local semi-enclosed shopping center and entertainment venue (formerly a fully enclosed regional shopping mall) located at the intersection of North Monroe Street and John Knox Road in Tallahassee, Florida. Since the official close of the faltering Northwood Mall in 1986 (and subsequent repurposing as a strip mall-styled office complex), The Tallahassee Mall became the older of two surviving enclosed malls in the Tallahassee area, the other being Governor's Square.

The mall's anchor stores include AMC Theatres, Belk, and Burlington Coat Factory. In addition, Tallahassee Mall featured several big box stores, including Barnes & Noble, Guitar Center, Ross Dress For Less, and Shoe Carnival. Remaining chain stores still open include Sam Goody, Bath & Body Works, Victoria's Secret, and GNC. While some of these stores will remain operational with the new Centre of Tallahassee, the fate of others is less certain.

History

Tallahassee Mall opened in 1971 with three anchor stores: Woolco, Gayfers and Montgomery Ward; other major tenants included McCrory Stores and Walgreens.[2] Woolco was closed in 1983 and subsequently replaced with Zayre. Seven years later, this anchor became Ames when the Zayre chain was acquired.[3]

A new wing was added behind Montgomery Ward in 1992. This new wing ended in a fourth anchor store, Parisian.[4] As a result of this wing opening, the Montgomery Ward store was bisected by a new mall concourse to connect the new wing to the existing mall. Despite the opening of Service Merchandise and the first Tallahassee-area Goody's Family Clothing store in the former Ames in 1995,[5] mall occupancy had decreased to forty-five percent by June of that year.[4]

A twenty-screen movie theater owned by AMC Theaters was added to the Parisian wing in 1996.[6] Gayfers was acquired by Dillard's in 1998, followed by the closure of two more anchors: Service Merchandise in 1999 and Montgomery Ward in 2000. Jones Lang LaSalle acquired the mall and then began renovations on it. The former was split between Ross Dress for Less and Shoe Carnival,[4] while the latter became Burlington Coat Factory and other stores. Several new big box stores were added, including Oshman's, Barnes & Noble and Guitar Center.

Feldman Mall Properties acquired the mall from Jones Lang LaSalle in 2005.[7] Belk acquired the Parisian chain in 2007 and re-branded the Tallahassee Mall store as Belk, while Dillard's announced its closure in early 2008.[8] The mall was foreclosed on in January 2011.[9] Later in the same month, a real estate company based in Miami bought its ground lease for $100. It was then announced that the mall was not expected to close,[10] in spite of its increasingly common reputation as a dead mall.

Renovation as The Centre of Tallahassee

Renovations on the mall began in September 2014, including a planned demolition of the former Dillard's space, prior to a change of plans that resulted in the continued presence of the big box store so that it could be refitted. At the time renovation began, only 12 stores were open.[11] At the same time, the mall was renamed Centre of Tallahassee.[12] Beginning with a liquor bar built into the AMC movie theater, a number of new establishments have found a home in the newly refurbished Centre of Tallahassee, including Urban Food Market, an organic food grocery store, wine bar, and deli, plus a branch campus of the popular Tallahassee charter middle school School of Arts and Sciences (locally known as SAS) soon slated to be located in the Centre of Tallahassee's former Dillard's anchor wing, and an outdoor amphitheater intended for public local concerts. As of 2016, popular and notable music artists such as Steve Miller Band, Dashboard Confessional, and Alice Cooper were booked and played successful live shows at the venue, drawing in a respectably sized audience from the Leon County and surrounding areas.

In addition to the anchor stores Barnes and Noble and Burlington Coat factory, remaining staples of the former Tallahassee Mall in the new Centre of Tallahassee include: Tara's, a hobbyist strategy board game store; Stone Age, a New Age paraphernalia store; and GameScape, a Desktop Computer-based video game arcade. All of these stores have remained consistently popular attractions with local clientele during the initial decline of the former Tallahassee Mall and its carefully directed transition into the Centre of Tallahassee.

While the renovation project has been criticized by some Tallahassee locals as a white elephant, the developers hope that the presence of a school as well as a number of new restaurants (including a planned Southeast Asian cuisine restaurant and craft beer bar and brewery plus the first expansion of the Dreamland Bar-B-Que chain into Florida) and entertainment venues (including a seasonal ice skating rink) will allow the new Centre of Tallahassee to thrive as a commercial success.

References

  1. ↑ http://businessjournaldaily.com/cafaro-brothers-retire-effective-jan-1-2009-12-15[]
  2. ↑ "Florida". Chain Store Age. Lehbar-Friedman. 1971.
  3. ↑ "Feldmans Days are numbered with the Tallahassee Mall". Urban Tallahassee. 4 December 2008. Retrieved 10 July 2011.
  4. 1 2 3 "Tallahassee Mall - Jones Lang LaSalle Retail". Jones Lang LaSalle. Retrieved 2007-12-05.
  5. ↑ Schneyer, Fred A. (1995-01-11). "OUTLOOK '95: Tallahassee, Fla., Retailers Ring Up Healthy Sales.". Tallahassee Democrat. Retrieved 2007-12-05.
  6. ↑ "Compass Retail, Inc. Managed Properties". The Partnership.com. Retrieved 2007-12-05.
  7. ↑ "Feldman Mall Properties Purchases Major Lease at Tallahassee Mall". Business Wire. 2005-12-28. Retrieved 2007-12-05.
  8. ↑ "Dillard's to Close Another Store, But Says Openings Outpace Closings". Arkansas Business.com. Retrieved 2007-12-05.
  9. ↑ "Tallahassee Mall for Sale". WCTV. 6 January 2011. Retrieved 29 January 2011.
  10. ↑ Portman, Jennifer (26 January 2011). "Tallahassee Mall lease bought by Miami-based company". Tallahassee Democrat. Retrieved 29 January 2011.
  11. ↑ Andy Alcock. "Tallahassee Mall Reconstruction Beginning". Retrieved 19 February 2016.
  12. ↑ "Progress continues at Centre of Tallahassee mall". Tallahassee Democrat. 29 July 2015. Retrieved 19 February 2016.
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Coordinates: 30°28′34″N 84°17′24″W / 30.476°N 84.290°W / 30.476; -84.290

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