Only the theater and Applebee's are to remain unchanged. That goes for the mall's name, the size and the neighbors.
By ANNE LINDBERG
Published January 18, 2004
PINELLAS PARK - Apparently the ParkSide name will die with the mall. The team trying to breathe new life into the moribund commercial center said the name will be changed to Park Place.
The announcement came Wednesday in a letter from Avid Engineering to the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council. Avid's Robert Pierro is the project manager.
Pierro also submitted updated plans to Pinellas Park officials that now show apartment complexes on both sides of 70th Avenue N.
Meanwhile, as Pierro concerned himself with the mall's future, Dillard's was holding a closeout sale. Footaction moved out over the holidays. The candy store and Chick Fil-A are also gone.
And the mall's five maintenance workers were fired. "Tuesday, (we) had a meeting at 10 o'clock," said Earl Hoxter. "They came in, gave us a letter that said we were eliminated. No warning. No nothing."
The five thought they'd have their jobs at least through June when, they said they were told, the renovations would begin.
Mall managers told the workers they could be hired by the maintenance company that will take over, but that's a bad deal, Hoxter said. The maintenance company pays $6.50 an hour. Hoxter was making $7 an hour for a 40-hour week.
"That is a blow. ... I'm up in age," said Hoxter, 71. "I've been trying to get a better job, but I don't know."
Mall managers could not be reached for comment. Mall owner Robert Schmidt did not return a phone message asking for comment.
The mall, at 7200 U.S. 19 N, has been in trouble for at least the past decade. John Hancock Real Estate Investment Group took ownership of Pinellas Square Mall in the mid '90s and spent millions trying to renovate it.
They turned management over to Divaris Real Estate LLC, which brought in the ice skating rink and opened offices where people could pay their cable bills and visit their doctors.
In 1998, about 18 months after Divaris and Hancock took over, they changed the name from Pinellas Square to ParkSide.
That decision came after leasing agents found that retail tenants associated the Pinellas Square name with the exodus of tenants that began in 1991. The goal was to show prospective tenants that the mall was poised for a comeback.
But ParkSide never took off, and last May Schmidt's Boulder Venture South LLC bought the mall for $12-million.
In October, he submitted a radical plan to raze everything except the 16-screen theater and turn the mall inside out. The property containing Leverocks and the Amoco station were included as part of the mall. The new stores would be along the perimeter, with parking toward the center. Apartments would be put on mall property on the south side of 70th Avenue N.
A refined version of that tentative plan was submitted to Pinellas Park officials Thursday, and Pierro's letter to the Planning Council outlined the plans.
"The movie theater and Applebee's will be the only two buildings to remain unchanged," he wrote. "The existing two-story enclosed mall will be transformed to a single-story shopping center."
Redevelopment will begin this year when permits are issued. Construction is expected to be completed by 2014, Pierro said.
The new plan given to the city shows apartments on both sides of 70th Avenue rather than only on the south side. A couple of the proposed retail spaces at the northeast portion of the property have been moved and resized.
When finished, Pierro said, the retail space would have decreased from 690,000 square feet to 523,000 square feet.
The acreage, however, would increase from 59.7 acres to 66 acres. And the number of apartments from zero to 124.
And, of course, the name will change.
"The new name of the project is "Park Place,"' Pierro wrote.
- Information from Times files was used in this report.
