The Atlanta developers’ plans to transform the once-shining Seminole Town Center lined up the first retailers, with Costco having a contract, buying a portion of the property and building a new store there.
Costco Wholesale recently submitted plans to the city of Sanford, seeking a 156,454 square feet of membership warehouse store, 847 parking spaces and gas stations, replacing the former Macy building and parking lot south of the mall, according to a GrowthSpotter report. JP Andrews, Costco’s Director of Real Estate Development, confirmed that he has a contract to purchase parcels from Ardent Companies, which purchased the property at Shuttermall in March.
“We have a contract here, so we’re working on a specific timeline. We need to bring the budget together to the CEO in August to move forward with this project,” Andrews said at a pre-applicant meeting with Sanford staff on Tuesday. “We present a rather conceptual plan here, understanding that we have some degree of massage on this based on the city requirements and all of it. What we’re looking at here is the footprint of one prototype of our building.”
Ardent currently owns a 324,681 square feet of vacant local mall, a 160,000 square feet former Macy building that has been vacant since 2020, and a parking lot south of Macy’s. Ardent has not revealed any details other than planned cost-costs, but the developers aim to redevelop the site with multi-family, hotel and retail use.
Malls’ main retail anchor businesses such as JCPenney, Elev8 Fun, Dick’s Sporting Goods, and Dillard’s remain open with separate parcels that were not part of Ardent’s recent purchases. However, the remaining malls, which were permanently closed in January, are expected to be demolished and redeveloped.
“We’re working with Ardent on their masterplan and what they’re doing towards their projects. The goal of our project is to get first before Costco starts any of their masterplanning,” Thomas Engineering Group principal Edward McDonald said during the meeting.
According to McDonald’s, the gas station is located south of the planned Costco and is as far away from the mall properties as possible.
Several developers have tried and failed in recent years to redevelop adjacent parking lots with former Macy’s. The Boca Raton-based Altman company previously had a plan to build a 354-unit apartment community and had a deal to buy the parcel. However, the developer withdrew the contract in 2022. Shortly afterwards, the Pikarn Real Estate Group submitted plans to the 350-unit apartment community on the same site, but the project never made any progress.
The mall also switched ownership multiple times before purchasing Ardent.
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