Westfield Brandon Facts for Kids

Quick facts for kids
Westfield Brandon
The main entrance of Westfield Brandon
Location	Brandon, Florida, USA
Address	459 Brandon Town Center, Brandon, FL 33511
Opening date	1995
Developer	Urban Shopping Centers, Inc.
Management	Westfield Corporation
Owner	Westfield Corporation
No. of stores and services	253
No. of anchor tenants	7
Total retail floor area	1,100,000 sq ft (100,000 m²)
No. of floors	1 (2 in Dillard's, JCPenney, and Macy's)
Website	westfield.com/brandon

Westfield Brandon is a popular shopping mall located near Tampa, Florida. It's in the town of Brandon. This mall used to be called Brandon Town Center and later Westfield Shoppingtown Brandon.

The mall is owned by a company called Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield. It is one of five Westfield malls in Florida. You can find Westfield Brandon right off Interstate 75. It sits between State Road 60 and the Lee Roy Selmon Expressway.

History of Westfield Brandon
Anchor Stores
Images for kids
See also

History of Westfield Brandon

How the Mall Started

The idea for this mall came about in the late 1980s. It first opened its doors in early 1995. Back then, it was known as Brandon Town Center. In its first 17 days, over a million shoppers visited the mall!

When it first opened, Brandon Town Center had a huge amount of shopping space. It had about 974,000 square feet (90,500 square meters) of stores. The main stores, called "anchor stores," were Sears, JCPenney, Burdines, and Dillard's. Before the mall was built, the land was a cattle farm.

Changes Over Time

In 2002, the Westfield Group bought the mall. They changed its name to "Westfield Shoppingtown Brandon." This was to match their other shopping centers. Many of the cool fountains with metal sculptures of Florida animals were removed. They were replaced with small vendor kiosks.

Today, the mall has about 986,000 square feet (91,600 square meters) for shops and restaurants. Westfield Brandon is the second most visited mall in the Tampa area. Only International Plaza and Bay Street gets more visitors.

In March 2005, the Burdines store changed its name to Macy's. It was briefly called Burdines-Macy's before that. Even after becoming Macy's, the store kept its unique palm tree columns. These columns were a special part of the "Burdines style." In June 2005, the "Shoppingtown" part was dropped from the mall's name. It became simply "Westfield Brandon."

Mall Expansion

On January 11, 2006, Westfield announced big plans. They would add 150,000 square feet (14,000 square meters) to the mall. This expansion included a new anchor store, Dick's Sporting Goods. It also added more shops and restaurants. Popular places like The Cheesecake Factory and Starbucks were included. This expansion was finished in the spring of 2007.

The new part of the mall brought in many exciting stores. These included the Apple Store, Books-A-Million, DSW, Fossil, Sephora, Tillys, Torrid, and The Walking Company.

On January 29, 2021, it was announced that the Sears store would close. It was part of a plan to close 23 Sears stores across the country. The Sears store at Westfield Brandon closed on April 18, 2021.