13 May 2013

Santa Rosa Mall, Mary Esther, FL

A dead mall

-UPDATE BELOW-
14 September 2024


Truth be told, I was never much of a fan of the Gulf Coast. Having grown up in other oceanside cities, I thought that the "redneck riviera" coastline must pale in comparison to the beaches of California, Hawai'i and the Atlantic Seaboard. It only took one visit to Destin, Florida to change my opinion completely.



-UPDATE-  1- Santa Rose Mall’s original main entrance.  2- The final touches are being made before the mall opening.  3 & 4- Original anchor Gayfer’s exterior and interior entrances.  5 & 6- The crowds arrive soon after the grand opening.  (Source for all)

I must have visited my sister at least a dozen times when she was living in the Fort Walton Beach area while stationed at Eglin Air Force Base. We made side treks to the town of Seaside, the planned community where The Truman Show was filmed, as well as to Pensacola Beach just to the west. But, during those many visits, I think that we may have gone to the city's only enclosed shopping center, Santa Rosa Mall, once or twice.

-UPDATE-  Santa Rosa Mall lease plan ca. 1978. View the full PDF version here.

Santa Rosa Mall didn’t make much of an impression on me.  During my visit(s) in the early 2000s, it was decked out just like many other of its peers with white ceramic tile floors, pastel mauve and blue highlights with a basic drop ceiling held up by basic circular columns.  I did like the curvy ceiling elements, but that really was about it.

Santa Rosa Mall Mallmanac ca. 2000. View the full PDF version here.

Santa Rosa Mall opened in 1976 as a basic, straight-line facility with three anchors.  Sears and JCPenney made their homes at either end while Gayfer's held the middle spot.  A new wing with a food court and a fourth anchor, McRae's, was added in 1984 between Gayfer’s and Sears.  Later that decade, however, Gayfer’s was taken over by Dillard’s while McRae’s soon saw the nameplate for Belk over its doors.



-UPDATE-  1- The main entrance.  2- Santa Rosa Mall from above.  3- The Sears store.  4- The former Belk, the newest anchor and the first to close. (Source for 1 to 4)  5- The JCPenney building. (Source)  6- Dillard’s. (Source)

Since my last visit in 2004, there has been a building boom of new retail facilities in Okaloosa County, most of them open-air to capitalize on the region's sub-tropical climate. All of these are filled with businesses aimed at the many vacationers who make their way to the Emerald Coast each year.  Santa Rosa Mall, containing nothing distinguishing itself from any other mall in the region, fills the needs of the local population fairly well, but not much else. But, yeah, at least they had mallmanacs.

-UPDATE-  Santa Rosa Mall lease plan ca. 2013. View the full PDF version here.


-UPDATE-

-10 February 2024

Santa Rosa Mall Mallmanac ca. 2018. View the full PDF version here.

Not long after my original post, the pieces started falling in place for Santa Rosa Mall’s decline.  In 2013, Belk announced that it was shuttering their location, the facility’s newest anchor.  In December, their pad at the end of the 1984 expansion wing was darkened.  Subsequently, many of the smaller stores occupying that concourse left as well.



1- One of the many empty storefronts at Santa Rosa Mall. (Source)  2- Center court hosting a community event.  3- The Dillard’s mall entrance.  4- The JCPenney interior opening.  5- Sears before their closing.  6- Though community events still bring in the crowds, there’s not a whole lot else.  (Source for 2 to 6.)

Former national juggernauts Sears and JCPenney announced their departures in 2018 and 2020, respectively, while the former Belk was demolished in 2019.  After first downgrading their store to an outlet location, Dillard’s called it quits in 2023, leaving Santa Rosa Mall anchorless.  New apartments have been built where Belk used to stand and there are plans for more, but today Okaloosa County’s only enclosed shopping center sits empty and dead.

Santa Rosa Mall Mallmanac ca. 2023. View the full PDF version here.

5 comments:

  1. Since your last visit, the Belk's wing past the food court has been completely abandoned. There are no stores past 55 or 56 on the 2000 directory. Belk's shuttered a few years ago. There are also a number of stores that shuttered in the Old Navy wing as well. I think what it is people are driving to Destin to go to the Destin Commons. It's a fairly good sized outdoor complex with a lot more to offer. It's sad to see malls like this one start declining over an outdoor complex. I would choose to be inside rather than out. Weather being the main factor.

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    1. I agree, inside is so much better. And it seems like the Commons isn’t doing well either.

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  2. Update.....Sadly there is practically no mall here anymore. No food court and maybe 6-8 stores.

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  3. I don’t think this mall is going to be here much longer. The only thing keeping it alive is the Planet Fitness. I give it two years. It’s sad, there’s nothing to do in Fort Walton.

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  4. Researching the history of the mall (specifically, trying to figure out why it was named Santa Rosa Mall), came across your page. Thought I'd update the substantial changes to the mall in the last few years.
    The mall all but died after Sears, JCPenney's, and Dillards closed. More and more of the regular mall chains started closing as well. The food court lost almost every mall chain brand, and was manned by a few local restaurants that came and went just as fast.
    As of TODAY, the mall has more it less reverted back to it's original layout; the McRae's building (later Belk, and finally Macy's before closing for good) and part of that wing built with it has been demolished and replaced with a "luxury" apartment/townhome complex that isn't physically attached to the mall. The closest thing we have to an anchor store now is Old Navy and Planet Fitness; pretty much all of the other occupied units are now local businesses. The theater is still there and open. The JCPenney's building has been used for both a haunted house and a spirit Halloween store. The Sears building has been turned into a mini storage factory. Dillard's building is still there, but vacant and appears to be used for random storage.
    They don't have any plans to close the mall from what I understand, but honestly it wouldn't be a big shock if it was announced tomorrow that it was closing for good. Sad that it declined so far; I remember how busy it was when I was younger, and then all the time I spent there as a teenager with friends in the early 2000's, but that's when it started it's decline. I couldn't really tell you why it happened, but the environment just got worse and worse (fights, groups of people walking around causing problems with everyone and stores, etc.) got to the point where it wasn't worth going anymore. For me, that was especially true after the arcade shifted their focus to younger kids and got rid of the games a lot of us were going there to play as teens.

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