Bargain hunters who head to the Swap Shop — the unusual decades-old shopping destination in South Florida — may start seeing its surrounding neighborhood spruced up with a string of redevelopment projects.
Lauderhill is eyeing properties around town, preparing to buy real estate, bring in food markets for lower-income areas and clean up a deteriorating part of the city.
A proposal calls for creating a newly expanded redevelopment area of 186 acres that includes the landmark Swap Shop at 3291 W. Sunrise Blvd. The venue opened in 1963 as the Thunderbird Drive-In Theater, with just one movie screen. The main building opened in 1979.
Today the Swap Shop’s drive-in theater is closed, but it has scores of retail vendors hawking shoes, clothing, electronics, jewelry, knives, among other items, and services such as a barbershop and produce stands.
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