TAMPA, Fla. \u2014 The future of WestShore Plaza is top of mind for a lot of people, especially those small business owners who are still open inside the mall.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The company Third Lake Partners purchased the property in partnership with the St. Petersburg firm Echelon. As of now, the mall will be demolished and rebuilt, but the final plans for the redevelopment still haven\u2019t been made public.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Businesses inside WestShore Plaza say they want the message to be clear: they\u2019re here and open for business, but they don\u2019t know for how long.<\/p>\n
Erik Swope-Wise has worked in the mall for the past six years. He says he promises his customers at the Urban Native Store custom pieces. Now he\u2019s having to remind people he\u2019s still at the WestShore Plaza location.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve done very well for several years,\u201d he said. \u201cThe loss of anchor stores has hurt the foot traffic, and now the misinformation on what\u2019s taken place at the mall, cause Third Lake Partners has made zero announcements about it. So, assumptions have been made, and the story is we\u2019re closed, and we\u2019re not.\u201d<\/p>\n
A recent sale of the 57-year-old WestShore Plaza for $134 million has resulted in speculation about what\u2019s next for the 54-acre property.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cNothing is public other than that 2024 plan that was approved, and that\u2019s kind of boxes on a map. No tenants identified, no targets identified in terms of what can be there, but we know it\u2019s gonna be some version of mixed-use district. You\u2019re gonna have residential,\u201d said Westshore Alliance Executive Director Michael Maurino.<\/p>\n
Maurino said there are several possibilities after the demolition and rebuilding of the property, but they\u2019re going off of the approved 2024 plan for now.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s been a lot that\u2019s been rumored for this site. But as it kind of stands and what was approved in 2024, there are elements of public use, whether it\u2019s green space, a movie theatre, a band show, and concert venue. So, those can still be incorporated into those plans,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Maurino says the WestShore Alliance supports the development here, and they\u2019re hoping it will include a new convention center space.<\/p>\n
Whatever the plan ends up being, Swope-Wise said he wants to be part of it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the next level for Tampa. Whatever it is, that\u2019s gonna be amazing, and I want to be part of that, but in the meantime, small businesses got to keep going,\u201d Swope-Wise said.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s still no word on when the tenants here will have to vacate. In the meantime, their message is come in, keep shopping, and support small businesses.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The company that purchased the property did not return a request for comment about the demolition details or their final redevelopment plans.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA, Fla. \u2014 The future of WestShore Plaza is top of mind for a lot of people, especially…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":356876,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[2031,274,558,276,115,4368,202,204,203,199,201,200,135,278,835],"class_list":["post-357134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-app-local-business","tag-app-top-stories","tag-business","tag-hillsborough-county","tag-news","tag-saundra-weathers","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news","tag-tampa","tag-top-stories","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=357134"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357134\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/356876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=357134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=357134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=357134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}