Will there be a Target at the revamped Pinellas Park mall? A Costco? Rumors are flying, but no one's saying just yet.
By ANNE LINDBERG
Published May 30, 2004
PINELLAS PARK - With only a month to go before ParkSide mall is flattened to make way for the Shoppes at Park Place, rumors are rampant about the next tenants.
"People are curious," Pinellas Park spokesman Tim Caddell said. "They want to know what's coming. Of course, they've lived with what was there for so long, I do think people are excited abut the prospect of something new."
Among the stores running through the gossip mill are Costco and Target. Other tales cover the gamut from an upscale bread and sandwich shop (think Panera, which has restaurants in St. Petersburg and the revamped Clearwater Mall) to a Wachovia bank. There's some truth to that last one: Plans submitted to the city show a "bank" on the eastern portion of the property.
"The biggest rumor is that it's a Target. Not a Super Target but a Target," said Nancy Hodges, a former president of the Pinellas Park/Mid-County Chamber of Commerce and owner of Optek, a mall neighbor.
Those rumors take many forms: That Target representatives toured the mall property at 7200 U.S. 19 N. That a former mall employee applied for work at the Tyrone Target and was told he might get transferred back to the mall when the new Target opens there. And the latest drawings of the mall anchor, which show a pharmacy and an area for plants, like most Target stores.
City officials and mall owner Boulder Venture South LLC are asked repeatedly if the buzz is true.
Said Caddell: "People ask, "Is there a bull's eye involved? Does it have anything to do with big red circles?' And of course, they have not responded to any of that. But people keep trying."
Neither Target nor Boulder Venture spokesmen returned phone messages Friday asking for comment. In the past, John Sabow, Boulder Venture's development director, has declined to comment.
Boulder Venture is not being coy, Sabow has said. The tenants want to make the announcements in their own time and have barred Boulder Venture from comment, he said.
The silence also allows folks to dream about the types of stores they'd like to see once the mall is transformed.
Some folks are not real demanding.
Pinellas Park resident Kathy Martin said she would be happy with "a store. It's been without them for so long."
A kitchen store would be nice, Martin said, as would a Rave Girl, which stocks girls' clothing. As for her, Martin would love to see a Starbucks. That's something people could go in and enjoy, she said.
"Not everyone in Pinellas Park drinks beer," she said.
Hodges would like to see Dillards return. It closed earlier this year to make way for the renovated mall. Short of that, Hodges said she hopes for an upgraded department store so she won't have to drive to Tampa to shop for business clothes.
In addition to restaurants, Hodges said she would like to see a hobby store and a bookstore, like a Barnes and Noble.
A bookstore would be nice, local poet and storyteller Billie Noakes said, but not a big chain. Noakes would prefer an "honest-to-God, old-timey bookstore."
