Catherines Plus Sizes opens its first store in Manatee

The speciality store, one of 400 Catherines nationwide, is expected attract a lot of customers

EAST MANATEE -- Catherines Plus Sizes celebrated its grand opening Friday at the Creekwood Crossing shopping center with prizes, refreshments and style consultations.

Catherines, a women's plus size specialty retailer that also offers petite plus sizes, opened its first Manatee County store in the shopping center off of State Road 70, near Interstate 75. The retailer is a wholly owned subsidiary of Ascena Retail Group, Inc.

Because there are so few plus-size shops throughout the area, the store expects to attract a lot of customers. Sandra John and Linda Cohen are the managers of the shop at Creekwood Crossings.

Catherines has 400 stores nationwide, including a shop at the Sarasota Pavilion shopping center in south Sarasota and several stores in the Tampa-St. Petersburg area. The retailer also has an online presence at Catherines.com.

This story was originally published September 5, 2015 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Catherines Plus Sizes opens its first store in Manatee ."