An aerial photo of the construction site for the Mall at University Town Center, a centerpiece to the shopping, sports and restaurant mecca on the county line for Manatee and Sarasota.
Credit: Troy Morgan and PhotosFromTheAir.com/Special to the Herald
Read more here: http://www.bradenton.com/2013/05/12/4522175/mall-rowing-venue-continue-momentum.html#storylink=cpy
I sifted through all the comments posted on the blog, tweets, phone calls and emails, and I organized all of them so you can see better what had the most votes. If someone said they agreed with having a certain store, it counted as a vote. If they objected to an idea, I noted it.
We have more than 120 suggestions from people, which could easily fill the mall. Way to go, Bradenton Herald readers!
Here's an update from Karen MacDonald, spokeswoman for Taubman, the leasing company for the mall:
"A lot of great names! I will be sharing this information with our leasing team. Stay tuned...good things come to those who wait! We appreciate the time your readers took to share their thoughts."
Here we go:
TOP VOTES
Cheesecake Factory 10
Apple 6
FOUR VOTES
Nordstrom 4
DSW 4
Sephora 4
THREE VOTES
Bar Louie 3
Charming Charlies 3
Container Store 3
Crate & Barrel 3
Hollister 3
TWO VOTES
Banana Republic 2
Barnes & Noble 2
Bass Pro 2
Christopher & Banks 2
Gilly Hicks 2
H&M 2
IMAX movie theater 2
Lucky Brand Jeans 2
Lord & Taylor 2
Mimi’s Café 2
Pottery Barn 2
Red Robin 2
Water Theme Park (lazy river in the mall) 2 (two objections, too)
West Elm 2
White House Black Market 2
Williams-Sonoma 2
THE REST
Abercrombie & Fitch
Alternative Outfitters
American Apparel
American Eagle
Anthropologie
BCBG-Maxazria
The Body Shop
Bose
Brighton
Brooklyn Industries
Buddy’s Pizza
Burberry
California Pizza 2
Cabela’s
Capital Grille
Cheddars
Clarks
Coldwater Creek
CPK
Delia’s
Diesel
Extreme Play
Fossil
Gap
Golden Corral
Grand Lux
Houlihan’s
Ikea
Intelligentsia
I.O. Metro
J Crew
Johnny Rockets
Johnston & Murphy
Jos. A Bank
Kipling
Little Miss Matched
Louis Vuitton
Maggiano’s Little Italy
Men’s Warehouse
Mellow Mushroom
Michael Kors
Microsoft
Native Foods Cafe
Neiman Marcus
Nine West
Oakley
Origins
Panda Express
Pink Berry
PGA Tour Superstore
Peete’s Coffee
PF Chang
Portillo’s
Quicksilver
Swatch
Soft Surroundings
Sur La Table
Texas de Brazil
Tommy Bahama
Top Shop
True Religion Jeans
Uniqlo
Urban Outfitters
Veggie Grill
Vera Bradley
White Castle
Who.A.U (Stands for “Who Are You”
Wildfire Café
World Market
Yankee Candle
Zaxby’s
Z-Gallery
General Suggestions
Jewish-style Deli
Neon bowling alley (i.e. Lucky Strike)
Roller skating rink
Nightlife area like Downtown Disney/CityWalk (One objection to a Downtown)
Time is ripe for Bradenton juice maker to open up doors
BRADENTON — Drive from Georgia into Florida on Interstate 95, and watch all the drivers at the first visitors' center dart to the free samples of orange juice and grapefruit juice, a signal they have arrived to the Sunshine State.
So you could imagine my surprise when I asked if Tropicana offered public factory tours in its hometown of Bradenton or had some sort of gift shop.
They don’t. It’s a head-scratcher considering that the Yuengling brewery in Temple Terrace offers tours, and the beer maker’s real home has been in Pottsville, Pa., since 1829.
I’m a fan of these types of tours with a treat at the end, even if it doesn’t mean I’m in the actual factory. It’s a fascination that lives in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, where those lucky visitors were in a world of pure imagination. I can rattle off a few of my favorites where Golden Tickets weren’t necessary: Hershey’s Chocolate World, Sam Adams Brewery and World of Coca-Cola.
I can’t tell you how many times I completed Hershey’s Chocolate World tour, riding in the plastic Hershey’s Kiss, just to hear the same presentation for a good decade, only to get my hands on free candy at the end of the ride. I still have the Hershey’s Chocolate theme song stuck in my head from visiting all those times. (When I was young, full-size candy bars would be handed out by smiling employees. (Now, there might be some fun size Hershey bars in a bowl on your way out if you’re lucky.)
Tropicana officials guard their operations as closely as possible, given the Pepsi versus Coke wars at the higher level. You don’t have to worry about snoops like Charlie Bucket finding out trade secrets at these tours. Hershey and Coca-Cola’s visitor centers aren’t at chief production facilities.
At World of Coke in Atlanta, visitors learn about the drink’s history, see a 4-D movie and taste Coke products from around the world. Heck, there is even a large vault with all sorts of security measures around it that supposedly contains the handwritten secret formula for Coca-Cola.
It can be done here, too. Let’s call Bradenton’s version Tropicana Town.
A strong citrus scent can fill the hallways, as visitors learn about Tropicana history, juice their own orange, watch a movie on Anthony Rossi’s journey, buy up all the orange juice and T-shirts they can, and get inspired to visit nearby Mixon’s Fruit Farm for a different experience or The Citrus Place in Terra Ceia thanks to the exposure given to Florida citrus growers.
The tours also tell the story of the brand, and Tropicana’s story doesn’t get any closer to the American Dream. Anthony Rossi, an Italian immigrant came on a boat at age 15 to New York with $30 in his pocket. When he came to Florida, he bought a Palmetto fruit shipper, and as the company evolved he moved the company to Bradenton in 1949 and transitioned into the fruit juicing business that eventually became Tropicana. He died in 1993 and PepsiCo, bought the company five years later for $3.3 billion.
Tropicana can easily fill a building with nostalgic Tropicana products and ad campaigns, mixed in with education about orange groves. Heck, just look at the small collection of videos I found that would serve as a start.
“Anytime you can partner with a company like Tropicana and it’s a partnership that benefits both organizations, it’s exciting,” says Elliot Falcione, executive director of the Bradenton Area Convention and Visitors Bureau. “It’s as simple as that.”
People like to go where the action is. Visit Cape Canaveral to see the space program in person. Go to Disney World to hug Mickey Mouse. Why not come to Tropicana to learn about OJ?
Debbie Meihls, executive manager of the CVB, shares some of my enthusiasm to rock these rinds for the betterment of Bradenton.
“You’re right,” Meihls said. “It seems like Florida is the little visitor center of the world, isn’t it? People come down here to do tours.”
Meihls says she trades ideas with PepsiCo and that the company was excited with some of the pitches she made to increase Tropicana’s community involvement and raise it’s profile. She plans to meet with PepsiCo and Tropicana officials in the late fall.
“We want to tie more into Tropicana, and that would be beneficial, actually” she says. “When we travel to Germany for the trade shows, and talk to the tour operators, they have such an affinity for the orange trees and the oranges. Of course, we have Tropicana in our backyard. They love that.”
Tropicana can develop up to 4 million square feet on its 283-acre campus, and could even buy more land. A new streamlined permitting process makes it easy for the juice maker to build structures as needed, as long as it fits in the guidelines agreed upon in the county-approved master plan on existing property. It shouldn’t be too hard to find space and spruce up the entrance to shout it out loud that you’ve reached Tropicana Town.
Plus it’s not like there aren’t workers nearby with experience in theme park-related attractions, creating video storytelling and managing these types of operations. This is Florida, after all.
Here comes the orange crush: Tropicana soured on the idea.
“We have no plans to create a public tour,” Steve Lezman, Tropicana’s director of governmental affairs, wrote in an email to the Herald.
Are you sure?
“While we do not have any plans at the present time for this type of facility and cannot speculate about the future, we are very proud to call Bradenton the home of Tropicana where it began more than 65 years ago,”
Lezman said.
The thing is, when you call someplace your home, you usually have a welcome mat for when neighbors to come over. We really need a front door to Tropicana for the community.
Well, I’ve squeezed all the juice I could out of this idea. Let’s hope Tropicana will bottle it.
Would you go on a Tropicana tour? Should Tropicana find ways to reach out more to the community? Post your comments below.
Charles Schelle, business reporter, can be reached at 941-745-7095. Follow him on Twitter @ImYourChuck.
Hey Manatee County, welcome to the blog where I'm going to be all Up In Your Business.
This blog isn't meant to be an in-your-face take on business deals, but more of a place to be lighthearted, share tidbits and details that didn't make it into the paper edition of the Bradenton Herald's business pages or the online section.
The phrase "up in your business" is a take off from "all up in your business," a slang phrase that means to get involved in someone else's affairs. The take-off stops at the rest of the meaning, where getting involved means you want to defeat whatever that person is trying to succeed at. By getting involved in your business, I want to know what's happening and share it with the world -- the good and the not so good -- but mostly what's on the up-and-up.
I have a tendency to come up with ideas that I think would be cool as a tourist attraction or business in the area, and this space will be a place where I'll spitball and put it out there, and it's ok if everyone tells me how harebrained they really are. But if someone likes an idea or wants to build on it, I'd love to hear your comments.
I really can't be up in your business unless you tell me about your business. Do you have a unique story about how your business operates? Is your business new to Manatee County? Post a comment below or email cschelle@bradenton.com with story ideas and tips.
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