Sunshine Mall

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Sunshine Mall is a demolished mall that was located in Clearwater, Florida, built on the site of a former garbage dump. It was located just north of Lakeview Road on the west side of Missouri Avenue. It was one of the first enclosed air conditioned malls in the state. The mall was large for its time, occupying 36 acres and 416,000 square feet.

On the day of its opening on September 26, 1968, traffic backed up for 8-10 miles as 60,000 people came to witness its grand opening. In its early days the mall was such a special place that several couples got married there and a local high school even held its senior prom there.

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A partial list of the Malls tenants included:
*Garden Gate Restaurant
*JCPenney
*J Byrons
*GNC
*McCrorys Variety store
*Wicker World
*Roberts Cafeteria
*Sports Unlimited
*Fantastic Sam's
*Selmas Kiddieland (Toy Store)
*Stuarts Women's Clothing
*Office Depot
*Phar-mor
*Able Medical Aids
*Merle Norman Cosmetics
*candy store
*hearing aid store
*shoe store
*barber shop
*dental office
*tobacco shop
*pet shop
*magic shop
*video arcade

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It also had a free standing 5 screen, 20,000 square foot movie theater at the north end of the mall complex (Plitt Theaters).

By 1993 the mall had more vaccancies than tenants and most were gone by 1995. The owners of the mall, Fusco Management Corp. of New Haven, CT, announced in early 1995 that they planned on a redevelopment of the property. They planned on spending $10 million on the renovations which would be completed in the spring of 1996. The plan was to rename the location "Sunshine Plaza", gut the inside, attract large anchore store and add a marble facade. None of this came to fruition and the mall fell prey to the wrecking ball in July of 1998. This made way for the building of 644 apartments on the site named "Renaissance Square".

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