Waccamaw HomePlace to open at Gateway

The "home decor super store'' will offer linens, draperies, cookware and casual furniture and will employ more than 100 people.

By JON WILSON

© St. Petersburg Times, published July 16, 2000

ST. PETERSBURG -- A national home decor store is the latest addition to the renovated Gateway Mall, which already boasts several other widely known chain stores in the city's far north end.

Waccamaw's HomePlace will open Aug. 10, said store manager Aurelio Rivas.

Three days of grand opening hoopla is planned, including specials on merchandise and other events to introduce the 35,000-square-foot store.

An earlier, quieter "soft opening" is possible, but Rivas wasn't committing to one late last week.

"We might try if we're ready," Rivas said. "But we don't ever know that for sure. The idea is to be ready a couple days before, but you never know."

Billing itself as a "home decor super store," Waccamaw's HomePlace sells such items as linens, cookware, decorative accessories, draperies, dinnerware and glassware, silk flowers and casual furniture like futons.

The store, at 7777 Dr. M.L. King Blvd, will be open seven days, 9:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. Monday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Sunday.

It joins Target, Office Depot, TJ Maxx, Party City, Shoe Carnival, Ale House, Steak 'n Shake, a renovated Publix and some other businesses on the Gateway site, which is now being called Gateway MarketPlace.

MetroGroup Development, based in Atlanta, began the $20-million revival two years ago when the old mall was struggling with just few a tenants left from its glory days in the 1960s and early 1970s.

The developers proceeded to change the mall's face with a "power center" retail approach, in whichfree-standing "big box" stores are concentrated on one large site. Gateway's total area, for example, is about 400,000 square feet.

Interior roadways link the stores and parking areas, which can accommodate about 2,000 vehicles.

MetroGroup officials weren't available to comment late last week.

"I think the mall's almost finished,"Rivas said. Waccamaw's HomePlace, whose headquarters are in Myrtle Beach, S.C., has more than 100 stores nationwide, including 16 in Florida. There is one in Palm Harbor and one in Seminole, where Rivas was manager before coming to Gateway.

The new store will employ more than 100 people, Rivas said.

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