Festival Bay Mall; Orlando, Florida
Opened in 2002 near a former Belz Factory Outlets site, Festival Bay Mall is the Orlando area’s newest enclosed mall; however, it is anything but typical. For one, its location almost certainly dictates Festival Bay Mall’s positioning. Leased and managed by General Growth and owned by Belz, Festival Bay Mall is situated on the north end of International Drive (locally known as I Drive), a tourist-oriented strip loosely connecting Universal, Sea World, Orlando Convention Center and Disney areas. Most of the businesses along I Drive attempt to grab the dollars of tourists who came to see Orlando’s theme park offerings, and consist of destination stores, outlet malls, and even the world’s largest McDonald’s. In addition, two larger, more traditional malls with traditional anchors exist within 10 minutes of Festival Bay Mall: the massive Florida Mall and the very upscale Mall at Millenia, which opened in 2001.
As such, the positioning of Festival Bay Mall is themed with the tourist in mind. The larger anchor stores are destination specialty stores such as Ron Jon Surf Shop (with Surfpark opening in Summer 2007), Vans Skatepark, Steve & Barry’s University Sportswear, Putting Edge miniature golf, Bass Pro Shops Outdoor World, Sheplers Western Wear, and a Cinemark 20-screen movie theater. There’s even a small outpost of Hawaii-based Hilo Hattie, which bills itself as the store of Hawaii. And although the anchors are non-traditional, the in-line offerings are much more typical of a suburban enclosed mall, with retailers like BCBG MaxAzria, Pac Sun, Icing by Claire’s, and Journeys. The food offerings at the mall are also typical, with Auntie Anne’s pretzels, Villa Pizza, A&W/Long John Silver’s, and Fuddruckers.
The layout of Festival Bay Mall is also unique. The main entrance is off I Drive, and features a man-made lake which extends from the outside into the building’s center court, which is at the main entrance. This is the first mall I have seen with a body of water which exists both outside and inside. The center court also feels very grand and impressive with the lake as the centerpiece. The floorplan of the mall itself is also atypical. A hallway runs around the perimeter of the center in a circle, in addition to hallways which begin at center court and cut directly through the mall and reconnect at the circle. Take a look at the directory picture for a reference. It was definitely kind of fun getting lost here.
Another atypical feature of Festival Bay Mall is the vacancy rate. For being less than five years old, the mall is alarmingly empty. So much so, in fact, that there have been numerous mentions of this on both the mall’s deadmalls.com article and its Wikipedia entry. Most brand new malls open with almost no vacancy as retailers clamor years in advance to put their stores in the new mall. I would venture to blame the mall’s location and tourist-positioning for its relative inability to find stores. Until now, that is. It appears that Festival Bay Mall is finally on the upswing. Many new stores are opening or are planned to open in 2007, which will hopefully fill the place up. That said, at least one of the radials from center court is almost completely vacant.
The pictures featured here were taken in January 2007. Feel free to leave your own comments about Festival Bay Mall and how it’s progressing.
Chris Whittaker
January 22nd, 2007 at 10:45 pm
Having lived in Orlando while this was being built, I have to add a couple of things to the discussion. First, Belz Outlets never had anything on this intersection, having all of its buildings to the north of Oak Ridge. Second, the movie theater and the Bass Pro Shop store predate the building of the rest of the mall by 3 or 4 years and the rest of the mall was built to connect into these stores, since the final design and concept of this mall was in the air, in part due to the building of the Mall at Millenia, the dual expansions of Florida Mall (adding Burdine’s and Nordstrom’s as well as about 300,000 additional square feet of in-line retail), the building of the Orlando Premium Outlets at the south end of I-Drive, and the rapid development of the Dr. Phillips area to the west of I-4 causing a glut of retail space to appear in a 4 year span wthin a 5 mile radius of this site. An interesting sidenote, at one point, a large amusement ride manufacturer was going to use part of the Festival Bay site as an amusement park to showcase their company’s wares, but that was not to be. I do agree with everyone about the emptiness of the mall’s corridors, since even on a Saturday night the mall is fairly desolate, at least the last time I was there (March of 2006).
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Kristen
January 23rd, 2007 at 11:55 pm
I love Festival Bay. Villa Pizza is yummy and this is one of the few Hilo Hattie’s on the mainland. We stopped here once on the way to Belz and now it has become one of our usual stops.
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XISMZERO
January 24th, 2007 at 1:52 am
Mall at Millenia is a beautiful center. It should be; it’s a Taubman. Not exactly the legendary Taubman series of the 70’s era (Eastridge, Woodfield, Westfarms, etc) but very intimidating to those making under six-digit incomes. I’ve been there a few times in my visits to Florida, frankly it’s too uncomfortably rich for me. But then again so is the Florida Mall, owned by SIMON, which recently got an enormous upper-class renovation.
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Chris Whittaker
January 24th, 2007 at 12:12 pm
Florida Mall isn’t quite as bad, since you still have the Sears/Penney’s side of the mall for those of us not making six figures. I do agree with XISMZERO, though about the Mall at Millenia, in that it’s the only mall I’ve ever been in that I realize how broke I am the second I walk in the door.
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Jonah N.
June 25th, 2007 at 9:11 pm
The surfpark isn’t enclosed, is it?
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Bobby
June 25th, 2007 at 9:41 pm
Yes it is.
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sue s
September 30th, 2007 at 10:35 am
what every happened to the caddy shack ?
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Jamie
December 4th, 2007 at 3:28 am
I really like the look of this mall. There is so many different colors throughout. The many different ceiling design and all the ironwork and skylights are just stunning. The pond inside the mall is the coolest. All the posts and signs throughout the mall, and everything else is so colorful and festive, no wonder it is called “Festival Bay”. The vertical signage is a nice touch too. Is there a food court? The Long John Silvers and A&W Cafe are in a normal space. The non traditional anchors are interesting too. Although the mall layout did look a little confusing, I found it to be very unique and different than just a straight line.
Maybe one problem with this mall is that it is so close the Mall at Milenia. I did a msn map search and found it is just a few miles away from Mall At Milenia. I would think that being so close to such an upscale mall that was built one year earlier would be tough to compete with.
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Aaron
January 15th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
I would also venture that this mall kind of strikes a bizarre balance between ‘Orlando-themed’ and ‘modern-non-themed’ mall. Mall at Milenia is essentially unthemed, parlaying expense with some interesting techno-bits.
In Orlando especially and in Florida generally, there are plenty of thematically-engineered places to shop, from Disney’s ‘authentic’ rescued warehouse district of ‘Downtown Disney,’ to Church Street Station, CityWalk and beyond. There are also tons of themed stores in strip malls, from the ‘Wizard’ gift shop to the most over-themed and rideeculous McDonalds in history. In short, Orlando needs respites from the themes, which is why Mall at Milennia succeeds. This sounds strange, but after a day in fake Japan, or fake future, or fake comic book city…and perhaps after a hotel stay in fake Bimini, or fake antebellum South, or fake Toy Story…I kind of want to shop in a real mall, if that makes sense. Take ‘Festival Bay’ and drop it in the middle of Detroit, however, and I could see it succeeding wildly.
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andrea
April 26th, 2008 at 2:45 pm
you know how in the festival bay mall theres a Vans Skate park? Well theres also a little spot in that skate park that you can buy vans stuff how can i order something from there and whats the website i can use to see the skate park with the shopping area of vans to buy the vans i want??
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Kelly
May 26th, 2008 at 9:14 pm
We have been tenants in the mall for over 2 years now, & although it is struggling to fill it does OK. We pretty rely on regular clientelle, so extra passing trade would be nice
Comparing this mall to other malls there are flaws, once these have been dealt with, LIKE ADDING THE WORD MALL to the signage, well having signage!! Many tourists dont even realize its a mall….. The mall is so cool & isnt like any other mall I know!
We look forward to the surf park’s EVENTUAL opening, in turn the occupancy rate improving & I think it’ll be the most popular family shopping experience around, that is If we can all last that long!!!!!!!!!
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Prange Way
May 27th, 2008 at 11:52 am
Yeah, I had no idea it was a mall at first glance either. I kind of assumed since it was on the tourist strip and in Orlando that it would be another outdoor thing, but I was surely wrong.
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, JJ Jones
June 10th, 2008 at 9:08 pm
I wonder how any store outside of Bass Pro Shop can stay open. I went to Festival Bay for the first time last March and was amazed how dead it was. The Hawaiian store was closing and had great deals. Even with that, it was mostly empty. The Ron Jon had a few browsers, Fuddrucker’s had a few tables sat. Steve and Barry’s was very busy but upon returning this year, it was nearly empty too. I drove by the movie theater last March and there was hardly anybody there. The location is terrible. And when will the Surf Park ever open? Probably never. Bill Murray should be happy he never opened here.
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Darren
April 4th, 2009 at 12:45 am
When will this mall ever shut down? Steve and Barrys, one of the mall’s largest anchors is now gone. The surf park is now DOA. Dixie Crossroads finally pulled out. Still…this place still limps along. How long are the leases in this place? 30 years?
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