SARASOTA – Some local business owners and chain stores are flocking to University Parkway and Interstate 75 to be a part of the buzz surrounding the new Mall at University Town Center.
Others want to avoid it completely.
The only certainty is that Southwest Florida’s retail scene is undergoing a potentially seismic shift.
How downtown Sarasota, poised before the Great Recession to be the shopping and dining epicenter of the county, fares once the dust settles is still anybody’s guess.
Sarasota-Bradenton is the only place in the country getting a new, enclosed mall this year.