DAYTONA BEACH — There’s a new shopping mall in town, just in time for the holidays.
Tomoka Town Center is the name of a 235-acre development area along the east side of Interstate 95 in Daytona Beach that became home to the Tanger Outlets mall that opened in November 2016. The 350,000-square-foot outlet mall brought 70 stores as well as a handful of restaurants to the area.
Now a new, even bigger retail complex has opened alongside Tanger: a 400,000-square-foot “power lifestyle” center featuring larger “junior box”-size stores.
In the coming months, the new center, known simply as Tomoka Town Center, is set to add more stores as well as several eateries, including the Volusia-Flagler area’s first Blaze Pizza and Dave & Buster’s restaurant/video arcade.
Stores that have opened so far at the new power lifestyle center include Hobby Lobby, Five Below, Burlington, T.J. Maxx, Ross Dress For Less, DSW Shoes and Tuesday Morning.
The area’s first Academy Sports + Outdoors recreational gear store quietly opened its doors on Monday with plans to hold its grand opening festivities this weekend including product demonstrations, games and giveaways.
“It’s fantastic,” said Port Orange resident Rick Winters last week as he and his wife Brenda were checking out Tomoka Town Center for the first time.
“It’s wonderful and it’s new and refreshing,” he said, noting that the new Hobby Lobby, T.J. Maxx and Burlington stores at Tomoka Town Center are “a whole lot cleaner and more modernized” than their respective now-closed old locations along West International Speedway Boulevard.
Other tenants set to open this fall include Ulta Beauty on Nov. 2, Bealls Outlet and Home Centric in either November or December, and in early December Blaze Pizza, the rapidly growing fast casual restaurant chain, whose investors include NBA star LeBron James.
“Everything is as positive as we could hope for, based on the reports we’ve been getting from the retailers (that have opened so far) and the community,” said Jeff Preston, managing partner of the U.S. operations for North American Development Group, the power lifestyle center’s developer.
North American recently erected a large sign for Tomoka Town Center along I-95, as well as monument signs at each of its various entrances along LPGA, Williamson and Cornerstone boulevards. Each list some of the growing number of tenants at the center.
That tenant list is set to grow even more in the new year, with the anticipated openings of Culver’s, Arby’s, Chipotle, Barnes & Noble, and T-Mobile, along with Dave & Buster’s and Ford’s Garage.