Momentum builds at massive shopping mall transformation

Already more than $100 million in, a New York developer has big plans for the reinvention of a Tampa shopping mall.

By Mark Gordon
| 6:00 a.m. February 26, 2021
| 0 Free Articles Remaining!

Courtesy. An interior rendering of the planned 215,000-square-foot, mixed-use office building, named Base Camp, at Rithm At Uptown. The building replaces what was the J.C. Penney in the former University Mall.

Commercial Real Estate

Real estate executive Chris Bowen knows what the former University Mall site in Tampa isn’t going to be when the massive transformation of the property is complete. It won’t be a mall, for sure. It won’t even be a lifestyle center, following a path several developers have taken to reimagine the traditional enclosed shopping center.

What’s unusual, admits Bowen, a veteran commercial real estate developer and executive, is that three years into the project he’s not really sure what it will be when it’s completed. “The focus being not retail, not lifestyle, this is a shift to an urban innovation community model,” Bowen says. “Our anchors are scientists, engineers and corporate professionals — not department stores. This is almost 180 degrees from a mall.”