Ondademar closes location at The Mall at University Town Center; moves store to Hawaii Taubman mall

UNIVERSITY PARK -- Ondademar, a swimwear and swim accessories store, closed its location in the Mall at University Town Center.

Ondademar is the third store to close in the mall since it opened in October 2014. Jackie Z closed her store just after the mall's one-year anniversary and Cache closed in May as a part of the chain's nationwide closings.

Lucas Ocampo, U.S. Sales Director for Ondademar said the company decided to move their store to another Taubman mall, International Market Place in Waikiki, Hawaii. Ondademar is headquartered in Medellin, Colombia.

It will be 8 months before the Hawaii Ondademar opens. The brand decided to close the Sarasota location months before the Hawaii mall opened because they had some staffing issues.

"Basically it's because the operation is getting complicated because of distance," he said.

Without having a recruiter in the area, as it does in Hawaii, it's "very hard for us to find qualified sales people in the area," Ocampo said.

Taubman confirmed this summer told Ondademar the Hawaii mall was set to open. At that point, Ocampo said, Taubman approached the swimwear retailer about opening another store in International Market Place.

"They presented the project and asked if we wanted to open another store in Hawaii and we don't have the capital to open another store," Ocampo said. "We decided to move it to Hawaii and I think for obvious reasons it will be better to have a swimwear store in Hawaii."

Saks Fifth Avenue and Grand Lanai are the major tenants in International Market Place, according to the Taubman website. The mall opens on Aug. 26, 2016.

Janelle O'Dea, business reporter, can be reached at 941-745-7095 or follow her on Twitter@jayohday.

This story was originally published December 9, 2015 at 3:35 PM with the headline "Ondademar closes location at The Mall at University Town Center; moves store to Hawaii Taubman mall ."