The last of the businesses at the once-popular Festival Marketplace mall in Pompano Beach are packing up to leave as the decades-old retail spot that hosted boutiques, jewelers, electronics, furniture shops and eateries nears a June 1 shutdown.
The vast marketplace at 2900 W. Sample Road just east of Florida’s Turnpike will be demolished to make way for three warehouses after the city completes a lengthy review process for an industrial development undertaken by Foundry Commercial, a national real estate development firm that maintains offices in Boca Raton and Miami, among other Florida cities.
“The proposed project consists of three warehouse buildings catering towards smaller to medium-sized tenants,” Miami-based company principal David Blount said in an email.
“We are working through the standard site plan review process with Pompano Beach,” he added. “The city has been great to work with to date, and we have gone through multiple rounds of review with staff so far. We continue to address comments and will continue through the process over the next few months.”
Blount said Foundry Commercial will close on the property’s acquisition “later this year,” but no date is set.
“I wish we did not have to sell it,” Yoram Izhak, president and CEO of the property owner, IMC Equity Group of North Miami Beach, told the South Florida Sun Sentinel on Friday. “Flea markets don’t work anymore. It’s a dying business.”
Moving elsewhere
Foundry is not involved in the removal of long-time tenants, many of whom have done business at the mall for decades.
According to signs posted on the doors of the Festival Marketplace, vendors are migrating to the Lauderhill Mall, part of broad portfolio of retail properties owned by IMC Equity in South Florida and elsewhere in the state.
But not every business is headed there.
Pamela McCauley, co-owner of Romancing the Stones, said she and her partner, Carlos Ferreira, are moving to the Yellow Green Farmers Market in Hollywood.
Over their 24 years at the Festival Marketplace, she recalled, buses from as far away as Orlando dropped by, unloading tourists who bought handmade items at the crystal and gem shop. “It’s just sad this place is going,” McCauley said.
“We’re going to semi-retire,” she added. “We were fortunate to keep it going as long as we did.”
Nearby at the Shoe Palace, which is packed with countless pairs of shoes and sandals, owners Asam and Mabila Asad said their inventory is headed for the family-operated Brandy Shoes on Federal Highway in Pompano Beach, as well as Fort Lauderdale’s Galleria Mall and the Coral Square Mall in Coral Springs.
They showed a visitor photos of celebrities who stopped by the Shoe Palace over the years. They included boxing promoter Don King, the heavyweight boxer and kickboxer Riddick Bowe, NBA first-round draft pick Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf of the Denver Nuggets, and New York Congressman Charles Rangel. The now late lawmaker always favored white slip-ons, said Asam, pulling a sample pair from a nearby shelf. .
The business, he said, was like a “family affair.” And it employed local high school students who went on to become doctors, dentists, lawyers and accountants.
“This was the ultimate small business place,” he said of the market.
IMC Equity Group first notified tenants of the impending closure via a letter last August, saying the last day of operations would be May 31 with the doors closing for good the following day, June 1.
A followup letter from management gives retailers until June 3 to remove all of their inventory and equipment.
The change in the mall’s fortunes started in 2022, when the city rezoned the property from commercial to industrial use, opening the door to use the property for warehouses. IMC had a prospective buyer — a developer from Atlanta. But the deal failed to materialize and some 200 vendors ended up with a reprieve.
Foundry entered into a contract to buy the site earlier this year, but the deal won’t be closed until the property is vacated.
The nonprofit Becca’s Closet, which has provided free prom and formal dresses to high school girls in need for more than two decades, issued a statement saying it is searching for 1,500 to 2,500 square feet that would serve as a new home after operating rent-free at the mall for 21 years. Since its founding, Becca’s Closet has grown to 54 chapters nationwide.
Jay Kirtman is the organization’s president and father of the late high school student, Rebecca Kirtman, who founded the charity while in high school. He said the organization vacated its space at the mall a week ago and has 7,000 dresses in storage.
“We have to find a home,” he told the South Florida Sun Sentinel on Thursday. “We want to continue serving the community. We’d like the community to serve us the way the Festival Market did.”
“We’re kind of a little frustrated and hope somebody does the right thing,” Kirtman said. “We want to be in Central Broward so we can handle both [Broward and Palm Beach] counties.”
Girls get to keep the dresses they receive, Kirtman said. “Rebecca didn’t want a kid to go away to college and say, ‘I wish I had a prom dress.’”
Kirtman credited mall owner IMC Equity for being “absolutely phenomenal” with its generosity over the years and for being timely about notifying tenants about when they had to vacate the property.
But he said he hasn’t received a favorable reception at the Lauderhill Mall.
“We’re not getting anything there,” Kirtman said. “We’d love for the Lauderhill Mall to step up. They have 80,000 square feet of empty space.”
Asked about the situation Friday, Izhak said: “One of the people running it is a good friend. We are trying to work it out.”
He did not offer any specifics.
From tourism spot to casting calls
Opened as Pompano Outlet Mall in 1986, the Festival Marketplace mall transitioned into a flea market in 1991. It morphed into a tourist attraction, and was prominently featured on the state’s VisitFlorida’s website as a place for visitors to spend some time and money.
“Visitors from all over the world have discovered the shopping delights of the Festival Flea Market Mall, a 400,000 square foot, air-conditioned, bargain-hunter’s paradise,” the market said in a blurb on the site. “Festival combines the low prices of a marketplace with the comforts and amenities of a mall.”
The market was the scene for casting calls for ABC-TV’s “The Bachelor” reality show series, and for talent auditions for Univision’s “Sabado Gigante” variety show featuring Don Francisco.
It also served as a testing venue for COVID-19 infections during the pandemic.
