Tampa Bay Center opened on August 5, 1976. The mall featured Tampa’s first Burdines (now Macy’s), and was Tampa’s first mall designed with a “food court.” It was opened to coincide with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers first season. In 1994, the mall was accused of racism, closing early during the Florida Classic football game. In 1997, the game moved to Orlando, although FAMU will now be coming back to play USF next month. The Buccaneers bought the land on New Year’s Eve of 2002, and it has been empty since then. For the past five years, it has been only used as a bus stop and a parking lot on game days. The building was torn down earlier this year, and the bus will have to move soon; the Buccaneers plan to build a new training facility on the property.
I remember watching the live broadcast of Super Bowl XXV (NFL site) projected on the outside wall of Sears. They showed it there for the knuckleheads who wanted to be part of the action, but didn’t actually, you know, have tickets.
John
4 years ago
I haven’t been out to the old TBC site in a while — is the land entirely cleared now?
tommy
4 years ago
I’ll get over that way soon for football season and post an update…
marc
4 years ago
It is completely cleared. Looks a LOT different.
Sticks of Fire: a Tampa blog » mall for sale
3 years ago
[...] In the market for some real estate?  It’s hard to find a place with enough room, so why not skip the house and just buy a shopping mall? The University Mall is up for sale. Less than a year ago, current owner Glimcher Realty Trust was talking about big changes for the mall. Some subtly positive signs of changes had been taking place, though the biggest changes had been negative – JCPenney left months ago, with Dillard’s following soon. But overall University Mall still performs fairly well, so it’s not easy to assume that it will soon go the way of Eastlake Mall or Tampa Bay Center.  It could go the way of the late Clearwater Mall, shifting over to the big boxes popular today in commercial real estate. But there are more than enough big boxes on Bruce B Downs – not to mention an upcoming new mall – for that to make sense. Rumors have always been floating around that USF wants to buy the place – they already hold classes in the movie theatres. But those rumors have been denied before. What should we do with all that space? Give us some suggestions, ridiculous or otherwise. [...]