Gulf View Square Mall is an enclosed mall in

Port Richey, Florida Port Richey is a city in Pasco County, Florida, United States. It is a suburban city included in the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area. History In 1883, Aaron M. Richey arrived from St. Joseph, Missouri, and ...

. Opened in 1980, it is anchored by

Best Buy Best Buy Co. Inc. is an American multinational consumer electronics retailer headquartered in Richfield, Minnesota. Originally founded by Richard M. Schulze and James Wheeler in 1966 as an audio specialty store called Sound of Music, it was rebra ...

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 ...

Clearance Store and is owned by

Namdar Realty Group Namdar Realty Group is an American shopping mall investment company based in Great Neck, New York. They primarily purchase shopping malls with partner Mason Asset Management. Namdar and Mason are both family owned, and as of 2021, own over 400 p ...

History

Edward J. DeBartolo Corporation first proposed Gulf View Square in 1974. At the time, its

anchor store In retail, an "anchor tenant", sometimes called an "anchor store", "draw tenant", or "key tenant", is a considerably larger tenant in a shopping mall, often a department store or retail chain. They are typically located at the ends of malls. Wit ...

s were slated to be

Sears Sears, Roebuck and Co. ( ), commonly known as Sears, is an American chain of department stores founded in 1892 by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck and reincorporated in 1906 by Richard Sears and Julius Rosenwald, with what began a ...

Maas Brothers Maas Brothers was a leading Tampa, Florida department store founded by Abe and Isaac Maas in 1886 that grew from a small store to a chain of 39 stores throughout the Gulf Coast of Florida. The Maas Brothers brand went defunct in 1991 when it wa ...

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, ...

-Lindsey, and

Robinson's of Florida Robinson's of Florida was a chain of department stores on Florida's Gulf Coast and Orlando and based in St. Petersburg, Florida, starting with a store at Tyrone Square Mall in 1972. It had been founded in the 1970s as an attempt by Associated Dry G ...

. The mall opened in March 1980 with Belk-Lindsey and

Montgomery Ward Montgomery Ward is the name of two successive U.S. retail corporations. The original Montgomery Ward & Co. was a world-pioneering mail-order business and later also a leading department store chain that operated between 1872 and 2001. The curren ...

as its anchor stores. Maas Brothers opened in August 1981, with Sears following in July 1982.

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 ...

opened on the fifth anchor slot, which was originally planned for

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 i ...

, in 1990. Burdines ultimately entered the mall by taking over the Maas Brothers store a year later. Dillard's bought the Belk-Lindsey store in 1992. A

food court A food court (in Asia-Pacific also called food hall or hawker centre) is generally an indoor plaza or common area within a facility that is contiguous with the counters of multiple food vendors and provides a common area for self-serve dinner. I ...

was added in 1998. In 2001, Dillard's relocated from the former Belk to the former Montgomery Ward. As a result, the former Dillard's store was demolished in 2002 for

Linens 'n Things Linens 'n Things was a Clifton, New Jersey-based big-box retailer specializing in home textiles, housewares, and decorative home accessories. The chain operated 571 stores in 47 U.S. states and six Canadian provinces, and had 7,300 employees as ...

and

. Linens 'n Things closed in 2008 and

TJ Maxx TJ Maxx (stylized as T•J•maxx) is an American department store chain, selling at prices generally lower than other major similar stores. It has more than 1,000 stores in the United States, making it one of the largest clothing retailers in ...

opened in 2010 and closed in 2021. Burdines became Burdines-

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 wi ...

in 2003 and Macy's in 2005.

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 its ...

, which opened in 2000, closed in 2009. A new management team began managing the mall in 2011, and announced plans to bring new stores. On January 15, 2014, JCPenney announced that they would be closing as part of a plan to close 33 stores nationwide. JCPenney ended its 24-year run as anchor on August 2, 2014. On January 8, 2015, Macy's announced that its store would be closing as part of a plan to close 14 stores nationwide. The store closed in May 2015.

Washington Prime Group Washington Prime Group Inc. is an American real estate investment trust that invests in shopping centers. The company is organized in Indiana with its headquarters in Columbus, Ohio. From January 2015 to September 2016, the company had the name WP ...

sold Gulf View Square Mall to

in February 2017 for $15 million. On December 28, 2018, it was announced that Sears would be closing as part of a plan to close 80 stores nationwide. The store closed March 2019.

References

External links

Official website
{{Tampa Bay Area malls Shopping malls established in 1980 Buildings and structures in Pasco County, Florida Tourist attractions in Pasco County, Florida Shopping malls in Florida 1980 establishments in Florida Namdar Realty Group