WestShore Plaza — which opened in 1967 as the Tampa region's first fully air-conditioned indoor mall — has sold for $135 million to a local real estate firm. The buyer plans to demolish the structure entirely and redevelop the 54-acre Westshore Boulevard property into a mixed-use district, according to the announcement. The transaction is being characterized as one of the most significant changes to arrive in the Westshore business district in years.
The acquiring firm has not been named. No demolition start date, redevelopment timeline, or program breakdown — whether the mixed-use plan calls for residential, office, hotel, or retail components — has been disclosed alongside the sale. A full report is expected to follow the initial announcement.
At $135 million for 54 acres, the deal works out to roughly $2.5 million per acre. That figure reflects the site's value as a development canvas rather than its current retail position. The plan for full demolition — rather than adaptive reuse or a phased repositioning of existing structures — indicates the buyer is not working around what's already there.
The mall's origin carries some weight in the local record. WestShore Plaza launched in 1967 as what the announcement describes as the region's first fully enclosed, climate-controlled shopping center — a distinction that, if it holds, placed the Westshore Boulevard project at the leading edge of the indoor-mall format in the Tampa market. Nearly six decades of continuous operation followed. What tenants currently occupy the property, and what their lease terms look like as demolition approaches, has not been addressed in the public announcement.
A cleared 54-acre site on Westshore Boulevard would represent one of the more substantial development parcels to open up in that corridor. The scope and timing of the mixed-use program — along with the development team, design partners, and city entitlements yet to be named — will determine the project's footprint and its effect on the surrounding district. Those disclosures are expected as the redevelopment moves toward permitting.
