The Florida Mall is a super regional enclosed

shopping mall A shopping mall (or simply mall) is a North American term for a large indoor shopping center, usually anchored by department stores. The term "mall" originally meant a pedestrian promenade with shops along it (that is, the term was used to ref ...

located south of

Orlando Orlando () is a city in the U.S. state of Florida and is the county seat of Orange County. In Central Florida, it is the center of the Orlando metropolitan area, which had a population of 2,509,831, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures re ...

in unincorporated

Orange County, Florida Orange County is located in the central portion of the U.S. state of Florida. As of the 2020 census, the population was 1,429,908, making it Florida's fifth most populous county. The county seat is Orlando. Orange County is the central count ...

, United States, on the southeast corner of

Orange Blossom Trail U.S. Route 441 (US 441) in Florida is a north–south United States Highway. It runs from Miami in South Florida northwest to the Georgia border north of the Lake City area. Like all AASHTO designated highways in Florida, US 441 always ...

and Sand Lake Road; it opened in 1986. The facility was developed by a Joint Venture of Eddie DeBartolo of DeBartolo Realty & JCP Realty, Inc. (Subsidiary of J. C. Penney Company) starting in 1979-1984; it is currently managed by

Simon Property Group Simon Property Group, Inc. is an American real estate investment trust that invests in shopping malls, outlet centers, and community/ lifestyle centers. It is the largest owner of shopping malls in the United States and is headquartered in India ...

, which owns 50%, having fallen to Simon following the 1996 merger of Simon and DeBartolo Realty into Simon DeBartolo Group. With of

gross leasable area In architecture, construction, and real estate, floor area, floor space, or floorspace is the area (measured as square feet or square metres) taken up by a building or part of it. The ways of defining "floor area" depend on what factors of the buil ...

and 294 retailers, it is one of the largest single-story malls in the United States and the largest mall in

Central Florida Central Florida is a Regions of the United States#Florida, region of the U.S. state of Florida. Different sources give different definitions for the region, but as its name implies it is usually said to comprise the central part of the state, in ...

. The Florida Mall is mostly a draw for entertainment and normal mall retailers as the nearby Mall at Millenia handles most of Central Florida's upscale shopping. The mall is anchored by

Dillard's Dillard's, Inc. is an upscale American department store chain with approximately 282 stores in 29 states and headquartered in Little Rock, Arkansas. Currently, the largest number of stores are located in Texas with 57 and Florida with 42. The ...

Macy's Macy's (originally R. H. Macy & Co.) is an American chain of high-end department stores founded in 1858 by Rowland Hussey Macy. It became a division of the Cincinnati-based Federated Department Stores in 1994, through which it is affiliated wit ...

JCPenney Penney OpCo LLC, doing business as JCPenney and often abbreviated JCP, is a midscale American department store chain operating 667 stores across 49 U.S. states and Puerto Rico. Departments inside JCPenney stores include Mens, Womens, Boys, Gir ...

, Sears,

Dick's Sporting Goods Dick's Sporting Goods, Inc. (stylized as "DICK'S Sporting Goods") is an American sporting goods retail company, based in Coraopolis, Pennsylvania. The company was established by Richard "Dick" Stack in 1948, and has approximately 854 stores an ...

, and the Crayola Experience.

Location

The Florida Mall is located in an unincorporated area of

south of the city of

. The mall is close to

Orlando International Airport Orlando International Airport is a major public airport located 6 miles (10 km) southeast of Downtown Orlando, Florida. In 2021, it handled 19,618,838 passengers, making it the busiest airport in the state and seventh busiest airport in ...

and many other Orlando attractions including

Universal Orlando Resort Universal Orlando Resort, commonly known as Universal Orlando or simply Universal, formerly Universal Studios Escape, is an American theme park and entertainment resort complex based in Orlando, Florida. The resort is operated by Universal P ...

Walt Disney World The Walt Disney World Resort, also called Walt Disney World or Disney World, is an entertainment resort complex in Bay Lake, Florida, Bay Lake and Lake Buena Vista, Florida, Lake Buena Vista, Florida, United States, near the cities of Orlando ...

SeaWorld Orlando SeaWorld Orlando is a theme park and marine zoological park, in Orlando, Florida. It is owned and operated by SeaWorld Parks & Entertainment. When combined with its neighbor Discovery Cove and Aquatica, it forms SeaWorld Parks and Resorts O ...

, and

International Drive International Drive, commonly known as I-Drive, is a major thoroughfare in Orlando, Florida, United States, and is the city's main tourist strip. I-Drive is located several miles southwest of proper Downtown Orlando in the southernmost limit ...

. The Florida Mall is located at the southeast corner of the intersection between

US 17 U.S. Route 17 or U.S. Highway 17 (US 17), also known as the Coastal Highway, is a north–south United States Highway that spans in the southeastern United States. It runs close to the Atlantic Coast for much of its length, with ...

US 92 U.S. Route 92 or U.S. Highway 92 (US 92) is a 181-mile (291 km.) U.S. Route entirely in the U.S. state of Florida. The western terminus is at US 19 Alt. and SR 687 in downtown St. Petersburg. The eastern terminus is at SR A1A in Daytona ...

US 441 U.S. Route 441 (US 441) is a auxiliary route of U.S. Route 41. It extends from US 41 in Miami, Florida to US 25W in Rocky Top, Tennessee. Between its termini, US 441 travels through the states of Florida, Georgia, N ...

(Orange Blossom Trail) and SR 482 (Sand Lake Road) and is situated near the junction of SR 528 (Beachline Expressway) and

Florida's Turnpike Florida's Turnpike, designated as unsigned State Road 91 (SR 91), is a toll road in the U.S. state of Florida, maintained by Florida's Turnpike Enterprise (FTE). Spanning approximately along a northwest–southeast axis, the turnpike is in two ...

Description

The Florida Mall has a

of and contains over 250 stores, making it the largest mall in

. The mall is one level and is anchored by

, Sears,

, and the Crayola Experience. Attached to the mall is The Florida Hotel & Conference Center, which contains 511 rooms. The Florida Mall contains numerous smaller stores and entertainment venues including the only

American Girl American Girl is an American line of dolls released on May 5, 1986, by Pleasant Company. The dolls portray eight- to fourteen-year-old boys and girls of a variety of ethnicities, faiths, and social classes from different time periods throughou ...

and

Disney Store The Disney Store is a chain of specialty stores selling only Disney related items, many of them exclusive, under its own name and Disney Outlet. It was a business unit of Disney Consumer Products with the Disney Parks, Experiences and Products se ...

locations in the Orlando area,

Apple Store The Apple Store is a chain of retail stores owned and operated by Apple Inc. The stores sell various Apple products, including Mac personal computers, iPhone smartphones, iPad tablet computers, Apple Watch smartwatches, Apple TV digital med ...

, A/X Armani Exchange,

Banana Republic In political science, the term banana republic describes a politically unstable country with an economy dependent upon the export of natural resources. In 1904, the American author O. Henry coined the term to describe Honduras and neighboring ...

Michael Kors Michael David Kors (born Karl Anderson Jr. August 9, 1959) is an American fashion designer. He is the chief creative officer of his brand, Michael Kors, which sells men's and women's ready-to-wear, accessories, watches, jewelry, footwear, and f ...

, Zara, H&M, XXI Forever,

Victoria's Secret Victoria's Secret is an American lingerie, clothing, and beauty retailer known for high visibility marketing and branding, starting with a popular catalog and followed by an annual fashion show with supermodels dubbed Angels. As the largest re ...

MAC Cosmetics MAC Cosmetics, stylized as M·A·C, is a Canadian cosmetics manufacturer founded in Toronto, Canada in 1984 by Frank Toskan and Frank Angelo. The company is headquartered in New York City after becoming a subsidiary of Estée Lauder Companies i ...

Sephora Sephora is a French multinational retailer of personal care and beauty products. Featuring nearly 340 brands, along with its own private label, Sephora Collection, Sephora offers beauty products including cosmetics, skincare, body, fragrance, ...

, and Bath & Body Works. The mall offers various dining options including 25 quick-service restaurants and 8 sit-down restaurants. The Florida Mall features a Dining Pavilion that contains a total of 25 restaurants. The mall offers various services to shoppers including

valet parking Valet parking is a parking service offered by some restaurants, stores, and other businesses. In contrast to "self-parking", where customers find a parking space on their own, customers' vehicles are parked for them by a person called a ''valet ...

currency exchange A bureau de change (plural bureaux de change, both ) (British English) or currency exchange (American English) is a business where people can exchange one currency for another. Nomenclature Although originally French, the term "bureau de chan ...

, and package and baggage check. The Florida Mall attracts over 20 million visitors annually, including domestic and international tourists to the Orlando area.

History

The mall opened on March 12, 1986, with Sears,

Belk Belk, Inc. is an American department store chain founded in 1888 by William Henry Belk in Monroe, North Carolina, with nearly 300 locations in 16 states. Belk stores and Belk.com offer apparel, shoes, accessories, cosmetics, home furnishings, a ...

and the

Crowne Plaza Crowne Plaza is a British multinational chain of full service, upscale hotels headquartered in the United Kingdom. It caters to business travelers and the meetings and conventions market. It forms part of the InterContinental Hotels Group family ...

hotel (built by E.J. DeBartolo and owned in partnership with Pratt Hotel Corporation of Dallas Texas), followed by Robinson's in September of that year. Many of the mall’s design features were borrowed from other DeBartolo malls like

Aventura Mall Aventura Mall is a shopping mall located in Aventura, Florida. It is the 5th largest mall in the United States by total square feet of retail space and the largest mall in Florida. The anchor stores are Bloomingdale's, Nordstrom, 2 Macy's stor ...

for many expansions and Coral Square for its layout and

space frame In architecture and structural engineering, a space frame or space structure ( 3D truss) is a rigid, lightweight, truss-like structure constructed from interlocking struts in a geometric pattern. Space frames can be used to span large areas with ...

ceiling. A year later, store acquisitions and consolidations started varying the anchor lineup. Robinson's converted to Maison Blanche in August 1987, and the Crowne Plaza rebranded as a Sheraton Plaza in 1988.

opened two stores in 1991 at the east end filling the two remaining anchor pads. Maison Blanche was rebranded by Gayfers in early 1992 as a result of Mercantile Stores. In 1996, Belk became

Saks Fifth Avenue Saks Fifth Avenue (originally Saks & Company; colloquially Saks) is an American luxury department store chain headquartered in New York City and founded by Andrew Saks. The original store opened in the F Street shopping district of Washington ...

, while the Sheraton hotel was sold to Adam's Mark. Then, in 1998, Gayfers transitioned into Parisian, whereas Dillard's added a second floor to their newly consolidated store at the east end, closing the other store on the southeast side that was razed for a new wing featuring

Burdines Burdines (} ) was an American chain of department stores operating in the state of Florida, headquartered in Miami. The original store opened in Bartow, Florida in 1896 as a carriage-trade shop. Over its nearly 110-year history, Burdines grew in ...

, which opened in 1999.

Lord & Taylor Lord & Taylor was the oldest brick and mortar department store in the United States, in business from 1826 to 2020. The brand was purchased during former owner Le Tote's 2020 liquidation bankruptcy and relaunched by new owner, Saadia Group, as ...

replaced Parisian in 2002 (as part of a plan to convert 9 Proffitt's stores into May), and the east wing was expanded again with Central Florida's first and only

Nordstrom Nordstrom, Inc. () is an American luxury department store chain headquartered in Seattle, Washington, and founded by John W. Nordstrom and Carl F. Wallin in 1901. The original Wallin & Nordstrom store operated exclusively as a shoe store, a ...

, in order to compete with the newly built Mall at Millenia. Burdines merged with

in 2003, and in 2004, the hotel was purchased by a group headed by the

Bank of Scotland The Bank of Scotland plc (Scottish Gaelic: ''Banca na h-Alba'') is a commercial and clearing bank based in Scotland and is part of the Lloyds Banking Group, following the Bank of Scotland's implosion in 2008. The bank was established by the ...

and was renamed The Florida Hotel & Conference Center. Burdines-Macy's simply became Macy's in 2005. The Florida Mall later lost all of its luxury anchor stores, Lord & Taylor closed in 2006, three years after the company announced the store would close. Saks Fifth Avenue closed in 2014 after it was chosen as one of the stores to be closed when purchased by Hudson Bay Co. A few months after Saks closed, the mall received its biggest loss when Nordstrom announced that it would be closing its Florida Mall location on August 16, 2014, due to underperforming sales compared to the rest of the stores. Retail analysts blamed the poor sales at the Nordstrom location at The Florida Mall on competition from the Mall at Millenia and outlet malls, a lack of local affluent shoppers in the Orlando area, and a higher demand for casual clothing over formal clothing. Many Orlando residents were upset after Central Florida's only Nordstrom was closed. It led to much controversy on whether or not Nordstrom would have done better in Orlando if it was located with more upscale shopping like at the Mall at Millenia. The Florida Mall looking north from Macy's

The Florida Mall looking north from Macy's

Lord & Taylor was demolished in 2007 and turned into a new outdoor plaza with stores

Forever 21 Forever 21 is a multinational fast fashion retailer headquartered in Los Angeles, California, United States. Originally founded as the store Fashion 21 in Highland Park, Los Angeles in 1984,Forever 21History & Facts, n.d. Retrieved 27 April 2014. ...

, H&M and Zara in 2009, with

being added in the Fall of 2014. In June 2015, Nordstrom was divided into

and the Crayola Experience. The Saks Fifth Avenue store was gutted and was repurposed as a new wing with a new Dining Pavilion. The old food court was closed and renovated into a to include more retail and dining space. the new stores are

Champs Sports Champs Sports is an American sports retail store, it operates as a subsidiary of Foot Locker. Products sold at Champs Sports include apparel, equipment, footwear, and accessories. As of June 2019, there were 540 store locations found throughou ...

and Footaction that are next to the existing

Foot Locker Foot Locker Retail, Inc. is an American sportswear and footwear retailer, with its headquarters in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, and operating in 28 countries. Although established in 1974, and founded as a separate company in 1988, Foot ...

store. El Meson opened its first American store at the Florida Mall in 2015. In 2017, Shake Shack opened at the mall in the space formerly occupied by Ruby Tuesday, which closed in June 2015. In early 2019, the mall hosted the

Cirque du Soleil Cirque du Soleil (, ; "Circus of the Sun" or "Sun Circus") is a Canadian entertainment company and the largest contemporary circus producer in the world. Located in the inner-city area of Saint-Michel, it was founded in Baie-Saint-Paul on 16 ...

touring show '' Luzia'' under the big top. This limited engagement was the first time Cirque's iconic big top has been raised in the Orlando area. In late 2019, Mars Retail Group announced that their M&M's World Orlando location would be closing its Florida Mall shop and would be moving to

Disney Springs Disney Springs (previously known as Lake Buena Vista Shopping Village in 1975, Walt Disney World Village in 1977, Disney Village Marketplace in 1989, and Downtown Disney in 1997) is an outdoor shopping, dining, and entertainment complex at the ...

in 2020. Along with The Gardens Mall in Palm Beach Gardens and a standalone store in

Miami Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a coastal metropolis and the county seat of Miami-Dade County in South Florida, United States. With a population of 442,241 at t ...

, The Florida Mall is home to one of three last remaining Sears stores in Florida.

Current anchors

* Sears (original tenant) (March 12, 1986 – present) *

(original tenant) (March 12, 1986 – present) *

(1993–present) *

(March 6, 2005 – present) *

(June 2015 – present) * Crayola Experience (June 2015 – present)

Former anchors

* Belk-Lindsey (March 12, 1986 – 1996) *

(October 27, 1999 – March 6, 2005) * Gayfers (1992–1998) * Maison Blanche (1987–1992) *

(2002 – August 16, 2014), now Crayola Experience and Dick's Sporting Goods * Parisian (1998–2001) * Robinson's (March 12, 1986 – 1987) *

(1996–2014), now the Dining Pavilion *

(2002–2006), now XXI Forever, Zara, H&M and

Place * M&M's World (2005–2020)

Junior anchors

Old Navy Old Navy is an American clothing and accessories retailing company owned by multinational corporation Gap Inc. It has corporate operations in the Mission Bay neighborhood of San Francisco, California. The largest of the Old Navy stores are ...

(opened 1998) * Zara (opened 2015) * XXI Forever (opened 2009) * H&M (opened 2009)

In popular culture

The Florida Mall was prominently featured in a 1989 episode of the TBS cable television series '' The New Leave It To Beaver''.

Transportation

Right next to the mall stretches SR 528 (Beachline Expressway) which has an interchange with

(

) at exit 4. The exit is only few exits away from the

. The mall is also accessible from exit 254 of

, which connects to Orange Blossom Trail. The mall is serviced by

Lynx A lynx is a type of wild cat. Lynx may also refer to: Astronomy * Lynx (constellation) * Lynx (Chinese astronomy) * Lynx X-ray Observatory, a NASA-funded mission concept for a next-generation X-ray space observatory Places Canada * Lynx, O ...

buses (links) 7, 37, 42, 107, 108, 111, 418, and 441 at the Florida Mall SuperStop. The Florida Mall SuperStop has direct bus service from several points in the Orlando area including Lynx Central Station in

Downtown Orlando Downtown Orlando is the historic core and central business district of Orlando, Florida, United States. It is bordered by Marks Street in the north, Mills Avenue ( SR 15) in the east, Orange Blossom Trail (US 441) in the west, and Kaley Avenue in t ...

, Kissimmee, Orlando International Airport,

, and

References

External links

The Florida Mall Official Website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Florida Mall Shopping malls established in 1986 Simon Property Group Shopping malls in Florida Tourist attractions in Orlando, Florida Buildings and structures in Orlando, Florida 1986 establishments in Florida