Tampa Bay Center
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 | |
 An aerial view of Tampa Bay Center. | |
 | |
| Location | Tampa, Florida, U.S. |
|---|---|
| Address | 3302 W. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd |
| Opening date | August 5, 1976 |
| Closing date | 2002 |
| Demolished | 2005 |
| Developer | The Rouse Company |
| Management | Tampa Bay Buccaneers |
| Owner | Malcolm Glazer |
| Stores and services | 100+ (at peak) |
| Anchor tenants | 3 (at peak) |
| Floor area | 877,000 square feet (81,500 m2) |
| Floors | 2 |
| Website | tampabaycenter.com (2000 archive) |
Tampa Bay Center was a shopping mall located in Tampa, Florida, across the street from Tampa Stadium. The mall was developed by Rouse-Tampa Bay, LLC, a subsidiary of The Rouse Company.[1] When it opened on August 5, 1976 the 877,000-square-foot (81,500 m2) Tampa Bay Center was Tampa's fourth major mall and operated until 2001, when most of its tenants relocated to the nearby International Plaza. The mall opened one day after the nearby defunct East Lake Square Mall.[2] The mall was a two-story building that had an anchor at each end, plus one in the center of the mall: Burdines on the east side, Montgomery Ward in the center, and Sears on the west side.
Tampa Bay Center's main corridor was splashed in sunlight, a large portion of the roof was actually constructed with skylights; a bright and sunny day outdoors meant a bright and sunny day indoors. This was considered to be an inviting feature at a time when many malls were being built with dropped ceilings and finished with darker colors. The mall featured exposed, light-colored truss ceilings over the main corridor, tan-brown floor tiles, floor-based water fountains, and trees intermittently planted on the bottom floor of the main corridor, growing upwards toward the skylights. The open-and-airy interior was further augmented by what was thought to be one of the mall's most important trademarks, a glass elevator located in the center of the mall. The North Side parking lot had an unusual-for-flat-central-Florida slope to it that meant that the mall entrance on that side of the building was on the second floor, leading directly into the food court, which opened in 1987.[3]
In the 1990s, the mall's center court featured a 1922 Herschell-Spillman carousel with carved wooden horses, with the oldest horse carved in 1880. Discovered in a West Tampa warehouse by Lynne Beckett and Tommy Sciortino, the couple invested $100,000 into its restoration. The carousel's Wurlitzer band organ was replaced with taped music, and its canvas top was removed so shoppers upstairs could see in.[4]
Cinema
The mall featured a cinema with two screens from the beginning until it closed on February 28, 1990. The final movies shown were Roger & Me and Stella. Throughout its history, it was operated by the General Cinema Corporation.[5]
Montgomery Ward
Due to the success of the mall, a third anchor, Montgomery Ward, was proposed in November 1977; the third anchor pad on the south side of the facility had been planned since the center's opening.[6] It opened in October 1980.[7]