Take the Initiative

A $315 million mall, less than four months from a celebrated planned grand opening, is rightfully the belle of the current retail real estate conversation in Sarasota-Bradenton.

But that development, The Mall at University Town Center, an 880,000-square-foot luxury center scheduled to open Oct. 16 just west of Interstate 75 in north Sarasota, isn't the only hot project around.
Buzz is also percolating on another retail-infused center, a few miles south.

The less heralded project, not even out of the ground and at least five years in the making, is the Fruitville Initiative.