Burdines to exit Clearwater Mall in 2001

"Business has been declining because of the lack of traffic and the uncertainty of the mall's future, and the expansion of our Countryside store,'' a company official said.

By CHRISTINA K. COSDON

© St. Petersburg Times, published June 8, 2000

CLEARWATER -- Burdines department store is leaving Clearwater Mall after 25 years, marking the third anchor store to leave the struggling shopping center.

The store will close its doors early next year.

With the closing, Wards will be the only remaining anchor store in the mall. Dillard's closed in the fall of 1998, followed by Gayfers early last year.

Wards spokesman Chuck Knittle said he was told the mall's owners, organized as a partnership, are splitting up, and the mall will be sold to a new owner.

Speaking from the company's Chicago headquarters, Knittle said the Wards in the mall would stay open for now.

The decision to close Burdines was made last week, said Mike Osborn, president and chief operating officer of the department store chain.

"Business has been declining because of the lack of traffic and the uncertainty of the mall's future and the expansion of our Countryside store," Osborn said.

Burdines' Countryside Mall store is undergoing a renovation and 70,000-square-foot expansion, which will give the store 212,583 square feet when the project is completed this upcoming spring. The Miami-based chain has 51 stores in Florida.

Burdines had been working with New Plan Excel Realty Trust in New York City, which owns the mall with Wilton Partners, to be part of the mall's future. At one point, New Plan was going to tear down the mall and replace it with an outdoor retail center.

"We were trying to see how we could fit into their plans," Osborn said. "But something happened with the deal they were working on."

With that project indefinitely on hold, he said, it was time to make a decision on the store's future.

The partnership bought the mall in December 1997 for $20-million.

In April, the owners announced the mall would remain open another two years. New Plan spokeswoman Stacy Lipschitz said at the time that plans for the mall were being re-evaluated. "Nothing has changed," she said Wednesday.

Bob Keller, Clearwater's assistant city manager for economic development, said Wednesday that he had not heard from the mall owners in a couple of months.

Some 40 stores still operate in the mall, which has a little more than 100 spaces. The food court also remains open, but some restaurants there have closed. There are no lease signs in the vacant spaces.

Osborn said the 160,000-square-foot Burdines building, which the company owns, probably will be sold, and the chain may open a furniture store there.

"We've been looking for a long time now for a place to have a furniture gallery," Osborn said. "We've had great success with our free-standing galleries and we think there is a real customer need for a store in Clearwater."

The Clearwater store's 120 employees are being offered jobs in Burdines' other area stores, which include stores in Clearwater, St. Petersburg and Tampa. "We have plenty of opportunities and we need good people," Osborn said.

Among the businesses remaining in Clearwater Mall are Express, Brass Interiors, Smoke & Snuff, Ritz Camera, The Gap, Hallmark's Write Occasions, Radio Shack and Waldenbooks.

Smoke & Snuff manager Jason Williams said the shop plans to stay put as long as possible "because we have a large customer base." The business has been in Clearwater Mall since it opened in 1973.

Shopper Jean S. Karinja of Oceanport, N.J., said she has shopped at the Clearwater store for a decade and even has a Burdines credit card. Her daughter lives in Clearwater and she shops at the store whenever she is in town.

"It's convenient," she said, "and I like what they offer." She said she will take her business to the Countryside store when the one in Clearwater closes.

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