SANFORD, Fla. — Seminole Towne Center in Sanford now has a new owner who says they plan to revitalize the mall so local communities can have a place to enjoy.
The current building suffers from many issues, including empty retail space and significant rusting near one of the mall’s entrances.
With new ownership and a new plan, retro video game store manager Ozzy Perez says the mall could hopefully see some upgrades.
“So as of right now businesses are pretty scarce in terms of the mall,” said Perez. “So we really engage in deep conversation with people who pass through and it’s a fun thing to stop by and you have people that are shopping around for clothes and say oh there’s a video game store over here.”
Perez says since COVID-19 the mall started to see a decline, but Hudson’s Video Games were able to keep a customer base.
“We had a huge customer influx because people needed things to do at home,” said Perez. “We had enough people where we would host tournament in our store and stuff like that so we had a really good customer flow going on and we’re hoping that’s coming back soon.”
The mall was previously owned by Kohan Retail Investment Group, and in February, power in the common areas was turned off after the group failed to keep up with their bills.
4th Dimension Properties was an investor of the mall but couldn’t make executive decisions. They now are the new owner with plans to revitalize the space.
Felix Reznick with the company says they plan to fix the mall’s escalators, give the mall a paint job and deal with other maintenance issues first.
The new owners currently maintain 13 other malls throughout the country say that they’re excited to be a part of this journey.