![\"Black-and-white](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/Untitled-July-06-2026-at-13.37.25-36-74-1000x563.jpeg\")
Nordstrom at International Plaza, which opened Sept. 14, 2001, three days after the Sept. 11 attacks.<\/p>\nWhen Dick Corbett began imagining a shopping center near Tampa International Airport in the 1980s, the idea sounded less like a sure bet than a dare. Tampa had an international airport, a growing population and plenty of ambition, but it was not yet a luxury-retail destination, and it lacked the high-end department stores that could make a mall a regional draw. <\/p>\n
\u201cHow can a smaller city like Tampa bring in Neiman Marcus and Tiffany?\u201d Corbett recalled people asking.<\/p>\n
Corbett, whose family\u2019s net worth is estimated at just under $1 billion, was undeterred. He organized a planning exercise with architecture students at Harvard Graduate School of Design and asked them to imagine what could be built near the airport. One student proposed the name International Plaza, which appealed to airport officials who wanted Tampa to be more connected to international business.<\/p>\n
But the project stalled before it could get off the ground. Macy\u2019s, expected to be one of the mall\u2019s anchors, went bankrupt. <\/p>\n
\u201cIf you\u2019re in this business, you need to have an elephant,\u201d Corbett said. \u201cYou really needed to have a Macy\u2019s. When Macy\u2019s went away, you had to wait for Nordstrom and others to come in.\u201d<\/p>\n
The wait lasted years. Eventually, Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue and Tiffany signed on. By September 2001, the 1.26-million-square-foot mall was ready to open, and Nordstrom held its opening party Monday night, Sept. 10, three days before International Plaza was scheduled to welcome the public. <\/p>\n
Corbett and his equal partner, veteran mall developer Bobby Taubman, had planned food, drinks, a band and a celebration for Friday. Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf\u2014the retired U.S. Central Command chief, Tampa resident and friend of Corbett\u2019s\u2014was expected to attend. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe day before, Nordstrom had their big party, and everything was optimistic and elevated,\u201d Corbett said.<\/p>\n
Nordstrom at International Plaza, which opened Sept. 14, 2001, three days after the Sept. 11 attacks.<\/p>\n
The next morning, television coverage showed the World Trade Center under attack, and when a second airplane struck the South Tower, Corbett watched in what he remembered as \u201ctotal disbelief.\u201d <\/p>\n
He was at his house near Tampa International Airport, with MacDill Air Force Base only a few miles away. The base was home to U.S. Central Command, which oversaw American military operations across the Middle East and Central Asia, putting one of the military\u2019s combatant commands beside the airport and the mall.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur military was there, and they very well could have had another attack. MacDill Air Force Base was very close to the runways at Tampa International. The whole thing\u2014we were, you might say, right in the center of the storm.\u201d Corbett said, comparing the feeling to boxing. \u201cI used to box, and that reminds me of struggling, rolling with the punches, and suddenly getting a left coming up,\u201d Corbett said. \u201cYou have to absorb it, right?\u201d<\/p>\n
At MacDill, Timothy Fitzpatrick was in a meeting at the U.S. Army Special Operations Command\u2019s Battle Lab. A working group was discussing how special operations forces might be used in future conflicts when someone entered the room and said a plane had hit a building in New York. Fitzpatrick assumed it was a small aircraft accident. The group went to a television, and by the time they arrived, the second plane had struck the South Tower.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere wasn\u2019t a sound or a movement in the room and I think everyone instantly recognized that we were being attacked,\u201d Fitzpatrick recalled in a 20th-anniversary remembrance published by Fenwick High School\u2019s Friar Files.<\/p>\n
MacDill quickly became one of the nerve centers of the American response. U.S. Central Command began assembling the international coalition that would support the military campaign. <\/p>\n
By the end of September, senior representatives from about 15 nations were working from the base; the coalition eventually grew to 46 countries. <\/p>\n
The base\u2019s 310th Airlift Squadron had only recently arrived and was still completing its initial training, according to a 2019 account by Senior Airman Rito Smith published through the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service.<\/p>\n
Retired Air Force Maj. Sidney Eskridge, one of the squadron\u2019s first pilots, said members had been preparing for a training flight when they saw the first plane hit the World Trade Center. \u201cThe most memorable day was on September 11, 2001,\u201d Eskridge said. \u201cWe were getting ready to fly a training sortie since we were still in our initial spin up phase; we walked into the lounge and watched the first airplane hit. At this point we weren\u2019t operational yet but we went immediately into alert status and launched an aircraft on September 12 in order to help transport advisory council members to the president.\u201d<\/p>\n
International Plaza was still scheduled to open Friday, Sept. 14, and Apple had announced that its first Florida store would open there at 9:15 that morning. Corbett wanted to cancel, while Taubman wanted to keep the date they had promised. <\/p>\n
\u201cMy instinct was to cancel the whole thing,\u201d Corbett said. \u201cHe followed the same principles that he\u2019s done and said, \u2018We have to open, and on the date that we said we were going to open it,\u2019 so I finally agreed with my partner to open it on the day that it was planned.\u201d<\/p>\n
The celebration was abandoned. Schwarzkopf would no longer appear, the band would not play and the food and drinks were canceled. Commercial air travel had also stopped, creating another problem inside the mall as shipments expected before Friday could not reach Tampa. About 15 retailers were expected to miss opening day because their merchandise had not arrived.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was really a marvelous day for Tampa, and suddenly, instead of having a celebration, you had snipers on the roof and you had all sorts of military trying to protect against something else that could happen,\u201d Corbett said. \u201cWhen we opened it, it was somber, and the first thing we said was that the safety of the people in the country and the safety of everyone was more important than a celebration.\u201d<\/p>\n
Twenty-five years later, when Corbett was asked what else he remembered about the days between Nordstrom\u2019s Monday-night party and International Plaza\u2019s Friday opening, he paused before answering.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, I don\u2019t\u2014and I really don\u2019t want to remember; it was a disaster, is all I remember, and all I remember was that we had to be highly protective of everything because nobody knew whether there was going to be another attack,\u201d Corbett said.<\/p>\n
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