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Wiregrass mall opens in south-central Pasco

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BY KEVIN WIATROWSKI THE TAMPA TRIBUNE

Published: November 7, 2008

WESLEY CHAPEL - Book lovers, your years of driving to Tampa and Brandon are over.

Barnes & Noble Booksellers, one of the nation's biggest book retailers, opened this morning at The Shops at Wiregrass, granting the wishes of thousands of residents of east and central Pasco and northeast Hillsborough counties.

"We're so deprived at not having a bookstore in New Tampa that when we go on vacation we map out the bookstores," Stella Vegliante said as she sat with her daughter Heather and granddaughter Sophia in the store's upper-level children's section.

"It's long overdue," Heather Vegliante said as Sophia, 2, worked on a coloring project.

"When the Winn-Dixie went out on Bruce B. Downs (Blvd.)," Stella Vegliante said, "we said, 'bookstore, bookstore.' "The store became a church instead."

The glittering new bookstore was part of today's grand opening of the 810,000-square-foot open-air mall at S.R. 56 and Bruce B. Downs Boulevard. The 10 a.m. ribbon cutting included everybody from Pasco County Commissioner Pat Mulieri to a mime and stilt walkers.

An hour or more before the mall officially opened, lines began forming outside Macy's and at the mall's customer-service counter, where early birds could get $20 gift cards good anywhere in the mall.

Several hundred people waited patiently for Macy's to open. The line stretched from the store's front doors, then turned and ran down the sidewalk into the front of several nearby stores.

For months, the evolution of two-story Barnes &Noble, which is visible from the road, marked the progress of the enormous mall going up behind it.

Inside, the store has two escalators to ferry shoppers to the upper tier. A coffee bar carries Starbucks products, pastries and sandwiches. There's also an outdoor patio.

The store's community relations manager, Cynthia Mason, understands how long people have been waiting for something like this to come to area.

"We're looking to be a resource for the community," Mason said.

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