The story of Daytona’s enclosed buying facilities started in 1971, when Sunshine Plaza opened its doorways with 43 shops and a Woolco low cost mart. Two years later, the Daytona Mall debuted at Worldwide Speedway Boulevard and Nova Street. However it was Volusia Mall, opening on October 14, 1974, that rapidly turned the dominant drive within the area’s retail panorama.
Constructed on 93 acres close to the Daytona Worldwide Speedway, the $30 million mission was developed by the Edward J. DeBartolo Company, a Youngstown, Ohio-based agency that helped pioneer the idea of suburban buying malls. Based in 1944 by Edward J. DeBartolo Sr, the agency owned and/or operated almost 80 million sq. ft of retail house by the early Nineties. Opened in 1963, Jacksonville’s Normandy Mall was considered one of DeBartolo’s earliest in Florida. DeBartolo’s Florida footprint finally included Miami Worldwide Mall, Aventura Mall, Westland Mall, Lakeland Sq. Mall, and the Florida Mall, amongst others.
A Retail Powerhouse in Its Prime
Volusia Mall is the one mall within the nation with three Dillard’s shops.
When Volusia Mall opened, it was anchored by Ivey’s, Could-Cohens, Sears, and JCPenney. Expansions quickly adopted, with Burdines and Belk-Lindsey becoming a member of the lineup in 1982. Over the following decade, retail consolidation reshaped the tenant roster: Could-Cohens turned Maison Blanche, then Gayfers, whereas Dillard’s emerged as a serious presence by buying Ivey’s, Belk-Lindsey, and Gayfers. That uncommon sequence left Volusia Mall with three separate Dillard’s areas, a distinction unmatched anyplace else within the nation.
By 2005, Burdines was rebranded as Macy’s, additional cementing the mall’s standing as a regional hub. At its peak, Volusia Mall boasted greater than 1,000,000 sq. ft of retail house and served as a gathering place for residents throughout the Deltona-Daytona Seaside-Ormond Seaside metropolitan space.
The Decline of the Mall Period
The mall entrance of the closed Macy’s division retailer.
Like many enclosed buying facilities nationwide, Volusia Mall has struggled in recent times. The Piccadilly Cafeteria, considered one of its authentic tenants, shuttered in 2014 after 4 many years of enterprise. Sears closed in 2018, adopted by Macy’s in 2021. Each anchor areas have since been offered for redevelopment, with plans together with a self-storage facility and a four-story, 350-unit condominium advanced referred to as Legacy Daytona. The mall confronted recent setbacks in early 2025 with the closures of Applebee’s and Bahama Breeze, signaling the continued erosion of its once-diverse tenant combine.
Nonetheless the Area’s Largest Mall
Now owned by CBL & Associates Properties, Inc., Volusia Mall stays the biggest buying middle within the Daytona Seaside space, encompassing 1,060,283 sq. ft of retail house. Regardless of dropping main anchors, it continues to function a industrial anchor alongside Worldwide Speedway Boulevard, a reminder of the town’s retail previous and a query mark for its future.
Positioned at 1700 West Worldwide Speedway Boulevard, the mall’s legacy endures whilst redevelopment looms. For a lot of longtime residents, Volusia Mall is greater than only a buying vacation spot; it’s a marker of Daytona Seaside’s postwar progress and suburban enlargement, a spot the place recollections have been made, and the place the way forward for retail remains to be being rewritten.
Article by Ennis Davis, AICP. Contact Ennis at edavis@moderncities.com