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Talk of the Bay
International Plaza plans tasteful birthday party
By MARK ALBRIGHT
Published July 17, 2006
International Plaza is cooking up plans to celebrate its fifth birthday on Sept. 14. The Tampa mall will be distributing a Tampa Bay Favorites cookbook filled with 700 recipes submitted by mall workers, restaurant and hotel chefs, local celebs such as Tampa Bay Bucs coach Jon Gruden and media types ranging from six TV news anchors to St. Petersburg Times food editor Janet Keeler. Priced at $10 or offered free to shoppers who spend more than $250 at the mall during a promotion, the net proceeds will be donated to St. Joseph's Hospital. Mall officials wouldn't be specific but confirmed a double-digit increase in retail sales in each of its first four years. Sales per square foot, a measure of a mall's sales productivity, exceeded the Taubman Centers Inc. mall portfolio average of $508.32, which is almost $200 more than the national average. Taubman, IP's operator, decided to spruce the place up after five years of torrential Florida rain and torrid heat took a toll. "It wasn't just the weather," said manager Chris Balish. "We estimate 80-million people walked over it."
[Last modified July 17, 2006, 05:59:27]
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