While on my honeymoon,
my new husband and I were exploring Sarasota
during a thunderstorm
and he took me to explore Westfield Sarasota Square,
the mall that he had "grown up" with.
Sarasota Square is the mall for middle and lower-middle class families.
One anchor is a Costco.
One large, vacant storefront has been converted to a public library.
On the way, we accidentally discovered
the other Westfield mall, Westfield Southgate, that is stationed
just a mere 10 miles north of the Square mall,
also on highway 41.
It had been the "neighborhood" mall before Square arrived.
This little elbow-shaped mall was dying until a revival was called for:
Remodel it to have an airy tropical vibe,
fill it with designer stores and boutiques.
The concept sounds eerily like the plan behind
defunct Grande Boulevard Mall in Jacksonville.
Fast forward to June 2016.
On our summer vacation, we went back to Sarasota and
we took a leisurely walk through Southgate.
Southgate is not only 10 miles north of Square,
its also just 11 miles southwest of shiny new
University Town Center.
UTC is placed directly by interstate 75,
filled with luxurious wonders such as
Arhaus, Z Gallerie, Tessla and Saks,
home to four popular dine-in restaurants
(instead of a food court)
and surrounded by plazas full of all the other
dining and lifestyle goodies that middle and upper class
Sarasotans are seeking (Target, Hobby Lobby, Pier 1, car dealerships, hotels....)
This means that upscale-shopping experiment
Southgate is literally "the monkey in the middle".
And we know what happens to the middle-man...
they try to cut him out.
After taking a walk through it,
it was clear that this experiment wasn't working out.
inside UTC,
White House Black Market being one of them.
(Some lady asked me where it was, I told her it was gone from this location.)
I wanted to get a drink at Starbucks, which I remembered
going to when we went on vacation last summer (2015).
Starbucks was nowhere to be found.
There is a free-standing store outside a grocery store up the road,
and one that is part of a strip-mall
so Starbucks must have decided to shutter its quiet little store
in the mall.
Now the only places to get refreshments,
besides "Cinebistro" (only open certain hours)
is a Toojay's and some pretzel shop.
There is no coffee.
I can't walk around in a mall without an ice cold drink.
Dillard's had been present a few years ago
but now it has been shuttered too,
leaving only one anchor: Macy's.
The Macy's is bi-level and sprawling
but it is also strangely stale and dated inside,
compared to the rest of the mall,
which had gotten its lovely "Miami-esque"
makeover a few years back.
Everyone who seeks the finer things in life
can locate them at UTC,
and about 20 miles away,
everyone who is just looking for the affordable things
in life can find them at Sarasota Square.
So now the question is:
How long until Southgate is replaced with a Walmart?
