Developer shares more details on $15 million plan to transform vacant Sears at Westfield Citrus Park into family entertainment center
By Ashley Gurbal Kritzer
Tampa Bay Business Journal
Published: Nov 11, 2020

One of Tampa Bay's dark Sears boxes is on its way to a new life as a "family entertainment center."

David Goldfarb, owner of Fort Lauderdale-based PrimeTime Amusements and a partner in the redevelopment project, told the Tampa Bay Business Journal on Wednesday that demolition work is already underway within the 125,000-square-foot Sears box.

The project cleared its final round of approvals from Hillsborough County on Tuesday.

The redevelopment is a $15 million project, Goldfarb said. A Miami-based corporation registered to a Brickell law firm acquired the Sears box for $5.3 million in late 2019 in a cash transaction.

Ideally, Goldfarb said, the entertainment center will open by the end of 2021. It will include bowling, arcades, virtual reality, mini golf, conference rooms, full bar, sit-down restaurant, esports and a special area for children 10 and younger.

Retail developers have turned to entertainment concepts to revive dying enclosed shopping malls for several years. Even International Plaza — a top-tier luxury mall in Tampa's Westshore business district — was pursuing a deal with a movie theater and upscale bowling concept prior to the novel coronavirus pandemic.

The pandemic has been devastating for restaurants and entertainment concepts, but Goldfarb said he believes that business will bounce back once a vaccine is widely available. He said the construction timeline for his concept is a minimum of eight months from the time construction documents are finalized.

Goldfarb said the project he and his partners are planning in Tampa could serve as a prototype for a national expansion, especially with a glut of underperforming department stores ripe for redevelopment. Three additional sites have already been identified, he said.

"We have the opportunity to really change the game of these malls," Goldfarb said. "So many of these malls are in trouble."

Westfield Citrus Park is not an anomaly in the world of the enclosed shopping malls. It occupies prime real estate, just off the Gunn Highway exit of the Veterans Memorial Expressway, but its struggle to stay relevant began long before the pandemic arrived on U.S. shores. Sears closed at the mall, which was built in 1999, in 2018. E-commerce sales have been climbing every year that the mall has been open — and the pandemic has only accelerated the transition to online shopping.