Elev8 Fun is coming to Tampa Bay! It springs to life from inside the remains of an old Sears at Citrus Park Mall. Can go-karts, arcades, and booze save the dying malls of Florida?
Possibly. Elev8 Fun believes it has something to offer everyone: go-karts, omni arena VR, mini-golf, food, and rope courses. The entertainment center is housed inside a long-closed Sears connected to one of Tampa’s few remaining indoor malls.
The Sears building was purchased by Elev8 Fun’s parent company PrimeTime Amusements, in 2019, according to the Tampa Bay Times. So will that traffic spill out into the rest of Citrus Park Mall’s 1M square feet of retail space? We’ll find out this month.
The original Elev8 Fun location is in Sanford, about 35 miles north of Walt Disney World.
It was a long while before many of us knew something was happening inside the old department store since signage for Elv8 only started appearing several months ago. This move could reinvigorate interest in a mall that opened in 1999.
Although Tampa is mainly known for Busch Gardens, the not-quite-theme-park attractions have grown in numbers. While beaches are our main attraction, we’re slowly getting the secondary attraction market, like TopGolf and Dave & Busters.
Oddly, the initial push for these types of tourist spots didn’t go over well. Then, in the early 2000s, newly constructed hot spots like Channelside and the Centro Ybor offered the boozing and gaming fare, only to quickly dwindle in popularity.
However, this was when driving to Orlando and going to the parks was a more leisurely journey with fewer crowds. Now that nearly every attraction at Walt Disney World or Universal requires a digital queue or separate fast pass, the allure of staying closer to home and getting some thrills has increased. Just at the right time, too.
We’ve lost several major indoor malls in Tampa within the past thirty years. The ones that remain are currently struggling through bankruptcy since Westfield defaulted.
[Source: Tampa Bay Times]
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