Mall at UTC reopens after being closed for more than a month because of COVID-19
After being closed for 47 days because of the coronavirus pandemic, the Mall at University Town Center reopened at 11 a.m. Wednesday.
Not lost on anyone was the fact that the Florida National Guard was staying busy nearby offering free, drive-thru testing for COVID-19 in a parking lot east of mall anchor Dillard’s. The mall is located on the southwest corner of the intersection of Interstate 75 and University Parkway.
About one-third of the mall tenant stores reopened Wednesday, and mall general manager Jose A. Ayala said he expects that number to increase to 50 percent by this weekend. The 880,000-square-foot mall has about 135 stores.
Many of the stores had signs welcoming customers back, and saying, “We missed you.”
Just as businesses were reopening cautiously, customers, too, were started to venture carefully into retail stores, some wearing masks. The Mall at UTC had a respectable number of shoppers browsing stores on Wednesday.
Amber Hagen and her niece Virginia Slay, 14, weren’t shopping for anything in particular.
“We just wanted to get out and do something. We wanted to see if the world has come back to regular,” Hagen said.
Vann Herring, and his wife, Marita Herring, wanted to visit some of their favorite stores, like Robert Graham and James Craig, and found some of them open and some them closed.
“We are so excited to see everyone coming out. It is so great to see people outside again. We just hope for the best,” Marita said.
Ayala, who has been the general manager at the Mall at UTC since November, said that he, too, is excited that mall stores are reopening.
Mall anchor Dillards was open, but other big stores like Macy’s were not.
“We will recover from this. Most of the restaurants are open for dining,” Ayala said, adding that cleaning and sanitizing work is continuously being done to keep guests and employees safe.
“We are confident that we are well positioned in the market. The combination of stores that we have cater well to the market,” he said.
Preliminary mall hours are 11 a.m.- 7 p.m. Monday – Saturday and 11 a.m. - 6 p.m. Sunday.
Other malls in Manatee County, including DeSoto Square and Ellenton Premium Outlets, began reopening on Monday. Bradenton-based Bealls also reopened their stores on Monday.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis lifted his stay-at-home order last week, that allowed retail stores and restaurant dining rooms to partially reopen.
This story was originally published May 6, 2020 at 3:25 PM.
