Coral Square



Coral Square, often referred to as Coral Square Mall, is a regional enclosed shopping mall located northwest of Fort Lauderdale in Coral Springs, Florida, on the northeast corner of Atlantic Boulevard and University Drive; it opened in 1984. The mall features 120 retailers, including JCPenney, Kohl's and 2 Macy's locations as its anchors.

Originally developed by a joint venture of Eddie Debartolo of DeBartolo Realty & JCP Realty, Inc. (a subsidiary of JCPenney) and the second mall in western Broward County (the first was Broward Mall in 1978), it is currently managed by Simon Property Group, which owns 97.2%, having fallen to Simon following the 1996 merger of Simon and DeBartolo Realty into Simon DeBartolo Group.

History
The mall opened on October 3, 1984 with four anchor stores: two Miami-based chains, Burdines and Jordan Marsh (the latter followed a year later), along with New York-based Lord & Taylor and national retailer JCPenney. Initially the second its kind with a single level and three bi-level anchors in Broward County (the first was Pompano Fashion Square 15 years earlier), the mall is almost identical to Boynton Beach Mall and The Florida Mall for its space frame ceiling, among other DeBartolo properties.

There was also room to accommodate a fifth anchor, and in 1989, Sears joined, thus making Coral Square the second mall in Broward with five anchor stores. No other mall countywide had five anchors at the time except for The Galleria at Fort Lauderdale, and eventually Pembroke Lakes Mall (1992) six years later.

Shortly after, department store consolidations started varying the anchor line-up. In 1991, Lord & Taylor was replaced by Mervyn's and Burdines converted the Jordan Marsh into a men, children and home store. The 1997 withdrawal of Mervyn's caused the switch to Dillard's, which lasted until 2010 and transitioned into Kohl's in 2011.

The mall was renovated in 1995, 2008 and 2022, but never expanded aside from the aforementioned addition of Sears. Meanwhile, Burdines merged with Macy's in 2003, so their two store operation simply became Macy's in 2005.

On November 26, 2016, a shop owner shot and wounded an employee, then turned the gun on himself and killed himself. Coral Springs Fire Department took the wounded to a nearby hospital, where they were expected to be ok. The mall was closed for the morning then reopened later in the afternoon with heavily armed Coral Springs Police Officers.

On February 6, 2020, it was announced that Sears would be closing as part of a plan to close 39 stores nationwide. The store closed in April 2020. A contract with Round 1 Entertainment was pending as well.

Current Anchors

 * JCPenney {ORIGINAL TENANT} (1984-present)
 * Kohl's (2011-present)
 * Macy's; 2 locations (2005-present)

Former Anchors

 * Burdines; 2 locations:
 * Original store {ORIGINAL TENANT} (1984-2005)
 * Men, Children & Home) (1991-2005)
 * Dillard's (1997-2010)
 * Jordan Marsh {ORIGINAL TENANT} (1985-1991)
 * Lord & Taylor {ORIGINAL TENANT} (1984-1991)
 * Mervyn's (1991-1997)
 * Sears (1989-2020)