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Burlington Coat Factory sells name-brand items at lower prices.
By SHARON L. BOND
© St. Petersburg Times, published August 27, 2001
SEMINOLE -- Burlington Coat Factory just opened a huge store in Seminole Plaza, filling a large vacancy in a shopping center that lately has had more vacancies than tenants.
"We're doing terrific," said Pat Packman, general manager of the new store. "The community has received us, and we have received them."
Burlington opened informally Aug. 18 and will stage a grand opening Thursday, Packman said.
Jimmy Johnson, executive director of the Greater Seminole Area Chamber of Commerce, describes the new store as an upscale discounter and said it might be the type of destination spot needed to jump-start the plaza.
Burlington Coat Factory began in 1924 as a wholesale business in outerwear in Burlington, N.J. It branched out to other items in the 1950s and became a retailer in 1972, according to information from the company. Now its 295 stores are more like general department stores.
Burlington sells name-brand items at discount prices and has women's and men's clothing. Its newer stores feature "Baby Depots," which sell infant clothes, some toys, furniture and car seats, and "luxury linens departments" that showcase designs by Christopher Lowell. And of course the stores have large selections of coats, even in Florida in August.
Burlington joins Shoe Carnival and TJMaxx in the center, about half of which remains vacant.
Johnson said Burlington approached the city about joining the plaza and spent $1-million to renovate the 87,000-square-foot store that had been vacant since the Roberds furniture store closed last year.
"A furniture store is not really a draw for the everyday shopper," Johnson said. "You've got to have a destination store. Burlington Coat Factory may be the destination store." If it proves to be a draw for shoppers, he said, other businesses will see that activity and decide Seminole Plaza is a good location.
Johnson said one of the reasons it faltered over the years is that many people think the plaza, on Seminole Boulevard at Park Boulevard, is hard to get in and out of. "But it really isn't," he said.
However, the Florida Department of Transportation is adding lanes to the roads, so heavy equipment is parked alongside Seminole Boulevard in front of the shopping center. That work is supposed to be finished in November, Johnson said.
Seminole Plaza opened in February 1971 as Grant Plaza, home to W.T. Grant's effort to become more of a department store than variety store. Other retailers were Winn-Dixie, Superx Drugstore, Mae Fabrics, Grandfather's Quill card and gift shop, a dry cleaner and a coin laundry.
Grant closed in 1975. Kmart then spent more than a decade in the space, followed by Roberds Inc. Kmart moved to the nearby Seminole Mall to get a larger space, Johnson said.
When Kmart left, the plaza started to go down, Johnson said. Roberds helped revive it by improving the large retail space. But the furniture chain closed its Tampa Bay stores last year.
Mark Higgins, a State Farm insurance agent, was president of the Seminole chamber in the early 1990s. He says that too many of the businesses in Seminole have absentee landlords. That includes the plaza and Seminole Mall.
Seminole Plaza is owned by New Plan Realty Trust in New York, which bought it for $4.3-million in 1998. The trust is described as a specialist in reviving strip shopping centers. It bought the plaza from Mutual Life Insurance Co. of New York.
"Their concern is money. They don't really have hands-on experience working with the community," Higgins said.
Stacy Lipschitz, vice president of corporate communications for New Plan Realty Trust, said a pizzeria is to go in Seminole Plaza. She would not name the restaurant but said it would take 2,400 square feet.
"With that open, we will be left with 9,000 square feet," Lipschitz said, which the company is aggressively marketing. She also said the rest of the plaza will be painted to match Burlington Coat Factory.
- Times researcher Mary Mellstrom contributed to this report.