WINTER PARK MALL: WINTER PARK, FL
Dale Newby's Commentary
User submitted January 4, 2013
The Winter Park Mall was built around 1960, to compete with the downtown Winter Park shopping district. Penny's and Ivey's were two of the anchor stores in the early 80's, and a couple smaller stores were Radio Shack and Woolworth.
In the 1970's the mall faced increased competition from newer built malls including the large, ultra-modern Altamonte Mall. The Winter Park Mall suffered further decline throughout the 1980's. In the mid 1990's, the mall corridor was torn down (the two anchor buildings were left standing, one of which is now a Cheesecake Factory), and the property was redeveloped. It is now an open-air lifestyle center known as Winter Park Village.
Links
http://mallsofamerica.blogspot.com/2007/07/winter-park-mall-now-winter-park.html - Malls of America post on the mall
http://winterparkmag.com/winterparkmag/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=314 - History of the mall via Winter Park Magazine
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Brett Castleberry’s Commentary:
User submitted Nov 2006Well do I remember Colonial Plaza. My family lived in the Audubon Park subdivision around 1960 when I was in elementary school. We had moved there from Pinecastle, south of Orlando.
Before Belk-Lindsey opened, Dickson & Ives was Orlando's only department store, downtown on Orange Avenue. Belk's provided the clothes I wore as a boy. I remember the somewhat scary escalator to the second floor, with its corrugated, slinky-like handrails. The meshing teeth of the steps frightened me. Belk's sold Scout uniforms and accessories, and seeing them on display made me dream of joining the Cub Scouts, which I did when I was old enough.
I was never taken to Ronnie's. My father often took us to the nearby Driftwood Cafeteria. But as a teenager, Ronnie's became the place to go late on a weekend night.
I bought most of my records at Jordan Marsh: Jimi Hendrix, Steppenwolf, The Cream. Orlando's only head shop opened as a stand-alone store there. Memory fails, the Magic Mushroom, the Psychedelic Mushroom?
My wife's father was a buyer for Maas Brothers out of St. Petersburg then, and would have bought the menswear sold in Jordan Marsh at the time.
We moved to Maitland, a turn-of-the-century citrus town to the north that became a suburb of Orlando, in 1962. Soon after that, the Winter Park Mall opened, within bicycling distance of my new home. Colonial Plaza had ceased to be unique.