When the Seminole Towne Center opened in the mid-1990s, its high-end anchor stores — including Burdines, Parsian and later Macy’s — were filled with well-heeled shoppers from nearby affluent communities, such as Heathrow and Alaqua.
Motorists would cruise the mall’s vast parking lots searching for a rare empty spot during the busy holiday seasons.
Today, the tony stores are gone and many of the spaces inside the split-level Seminole Towne Center are dark and vacant. The parking lots are empty acres of asphalt. An adjacent movie theater shuttered its doors years ago.
It’s all a casualty of online shopping and dozens of new retail stores that have sprouted in the nearby area surrounding the State Road 46 and Interstate 4 intersection, which gave shoppers more choices.
Now Sanford officials see an opportunity to transform the more than 100 acres of stagnant mall property into a vibrant community filled with multifamily residential buildings — such as apartments, condominiums and town homes — along with entertainment venues.
“I don’t see the mall coming back as a big retail center to what it was,” Sanford Mayor Art Woodruff said. “We’re just not seeing that success in other malls. … So it doesn’t do us any good to continue watching [the mall] decline and become more vacant. Our goal is to revitalize that area into a place where people will want to go.”
In recent months, Sanford has made efforts — including rezoning the property and creating a master plan — to encourage and allow developers to build residential units, a hotel and restaurants. The land was previously zoned to only allow a mall.
So far, it appears to be working.
A new Elev8 Fun, for example, opened in February within the 125,000-square-foot former Sears store. The two-floor entertainment center features an indoor go-kart track, video game arcade, bowling lanes, mini golf, laser tag and an eatery.
The Altman Co. has plans to build 354 apartments on the southeast end of the mall property, according to Growthspotter. There are also plans to redesign the old Macy’s store space into a lounge that showcases cars. And officials said a grocery chain has inquired about building a store.
“We want to see the mall property come back to life, however that is,” said Eileen Hinson, Sanford’s planning director. “We’re making our best effort to revitalize the Seminole Towne Center mall, which unfortunately suffered the same fate as many malls around the country. It’s to make it more of a lifestyle center, rather than just a shopping center.”
Felix Reznick, owner of 4th Dimension Properties, which co-owns most of the mall with Kohan Retail Investment Group under the name of Seminole Mall Realty Holdings, said large mall properties, such as the Seminole Towne Center, are being reconfigured into mini-communities depending on the needs of the local area.
“Regional malls are changing,” he said. “It just depends on how well the local governments work with a developer and what the community needs.”
He noted that it makes sense to fill an empty mall property with residential units.
“When you have 500 people waking up every morning, coming home from work every day, there’s more of a chance they are going to be visiting the [adjacent] mall and buying,” he said. “And you’re going to have more interest from other retailers.”
Washington Prime Group in March 2020 sold 1.1-million square feet of the mall property to the group for $52.3 million to avoid defaulting on its loans. The current Dillard’s and J.C. Penney stores at the Towne Center are owned by those retailers, according to county records.
Growth amid inflation
Still, city officials and others acknowledge that the current skyrocketing inflation and rising interest rates may put the brakes on any new developments. Recent price hikes have raised the costs of piping, asphalt, steel, wood and other materials needed for large projects.
But Woodruff and Reznick noted that Seminole’s population will continue growing in the coming years, and there will be an increasing demand for new apartments, especially in the area around the Seminole Towne Center. With nearly 61,000 residents, according to U.S. Census data, Sanford is Central Florida’s second most-populated city.
The mall property, which is already surrounded by scores of shops and restaurants, is the best place to add more multifamily buildings, they said.
“We would much rather see residential going in as redevelopment rather than going on vacant land,” Woodruff said. “The restaurants and the shops and the entertainment centers would certainly benefit from more residential.”
Allan Tram, owner of AA Jewelers store at the Seminole Towne Center, said more apartments nearby would certainly help the merchants.
“That would be good. More customers,” he said with a smile while standing behind his counter this week. “If they live here. They’ll shop here.”
Tram has been in business at the mall since 2002. He first tried to set up his shop in mid-1995 when the Seminole Towne Center opened. But there was no space as merchants rushed to the new mall at the time to set up their businesses, he said.
But now he points to the dearth of shoppers and empty corridors.
“Look at it,” he said.
City Commissioner Patty Mahany, whose district includes Seminole Towne Center, noted that the mall started struggling during the Great Recession of 2008 and then followed by the popularity of online retailers, such as Amazon and Etsy. It never regained its success.
Mahany has long advocated that the city help revitalize the property.
“Malls are under revitalization all around the country,” she said. “I think we need the [residential] density. We need people living around the mall area.”
mcomas@orlandosentinel.com
