Bucking conventional design, Clearwater Mall will feature clusters of stores and wide open spaces.
By ROBERT FARLEY
Published August 4, 2003
CLEARWATER - Like a boxer rising from the canvas, the Clearwater Mall is nearly back on its feet.
The outline of the rebuilt retail center is already evident to passing motorists, and stores will continue to open intermittently over the next three months. The Costco warehouse club opened in June. Next on the list is Ross Dress for Less, due to open later this month.
September openings are expected to include Petsmart, Lowe's and Borders. On tap for October are SuperTarget and Michael's.
Despite its name, the new Clearwater Mall is not a newer version of the old one. Rather, it is riding the wave of new retail shopping trend that is sweeping the nation. Unlike the traditional enclosed mall, this one is open-air. It is different in that it has freestanding stores and clusters of shops scattered over the property, instead of all stores being under one roof, sharing common areas.
Even the stores are different. The anchors aren't the usual Burdines, Dillard's or Sears. They are such discount alternatives as Costco, Target and Ross Dress for Less.
"You're seeing this all around the country," said Patrick Berman, retail specialist for the Cushman & Wakefield real estate company.
Open-air malls are much cheaper to operate - mostly due to the reduced overhead costs for common areas. And consumers, more pressed for time than ever, like the convenience of driving right up to the store.
"People don't want to park two football fields away to walk to the mall," Berman said. "They want to park within 50 to 100 feet and walk in the door."
There's also a bit of an anti-mall sentiment these days, Berman said. Or maybe, he said, just boredom with the same old mall formula.
Clearwater Mall seeks to cash in on the trend toward discount shopping.
"Consumers are more educated these days," Berman said. "They are more savvy. They don't want to pay full price."
WalMart, with its low-frills, low-cost strategy, changed the rules, said Patrick Duffy, president of Colliers Arnold Commercial Real Estate Services.
Discounters such as Costco and SuperTarget (an "upscale discounter") are the stores faring best these days.
"Especially in this type of economy right now, people are extremely cost-conscious," Duffy said.
Gone are the "greed is good" days of the 1980s when people proudly showed off their Gucci labels, he said.
"If people can buy something for 20 percent less than at a department store, it's a badge of honor - "Look at the great deal I got on this!' " Duffy said. "Now people are bragging about the deals they get."
The new Clearwater Mall is not all discount centers, added Greg Sembler, vice chairman of Sembler Co. of St. Petersburg, which is developing the mall with New Plan Excel Realty Trust of New York.
There's also several so-called "category killers," such as Lowe's and Borders, stores that sell just about everything in a defined category. These stores, and the discounters, might be just as likely to go it alone on U.S. 19, Sembler said, but prefer the draw of a regional shopping center.
Sembler believes the trend toward open-air malls is mostly a matter of economics.
"The expenses in some of these malls has gotten out of control," Sembler said.
In addition to heating and cooling the common areas, they must be managed and staffed with security. Those costs are usually shouldered by the retailers between the anchors, Sembler said.
Clearwater Mall also had to consider its competition: Westfield Shoppingtown Countryside to the north, Tyrone Square Mall to the south.
"Their trade areas actually bump into each other," he said. "So the reality is, you are not going to try to do anything in the middle to compete with higher-end department stores."
And consider, Berman said, that it was Countryside Mall that conquered Clearwater Mall in the first place.
Berman gives credit to Sembler for creating a new niche for the Clearwater Mall.
"They took an old mall and gave it new life," Berman said. "I'm a big fan of it."
Duffy believes that's also a testament to the vibrancy of this market.
"It didn't turn into a call center," Duffy said. "It was able to maintain its retail character. And it has a wildly successful retail mix. I think that speaks volumes about this area. I think they are going to be enormously successful."
