WestShore Plaza Is Coming Down — and It Could Lift South Tampa Home Values
Tampa-based Third Lake Partners bought the 57-year-old WestShore Plaza for $135M and plans to level it for a mixed-use neighborhood. Here's what it means for nearby buyers.
On the map
A wider view of the neighborhood and its boundaries.
I drove past WestShore Plaza on Dale Mabry last week and honestly — it looks like it's waiting for something big to happen. Half the storefronts dark, the food court a ghost town. Well, something big is officially happening.
In July 2026, Tampa-based Third Lake Partners acquired WestShore Plaza — a 57-year-old, 1.1-million-square-foot regional mall — for approximately $135 million.
And they didn't buy it to keep the lights on.
The local real estate firm will tear down the mall and redevelop the 54-acre site.
For anyone thinking about buying or selling near the Westshore district, this is a headline worth paying close attention to.
What's Actually Getting Built Here
The deal comes with Tampa City Council's blessing for a full mixed-use redevelopment: homes, shops, restaurants, and office space on a site that has been slowly losing retail tenants for years.
Per court records and reporting by the Tampa Bay Business Journal,
the redevelopment is pre-entitled for retail, restaurants, office, apartments, medical offices, recreation, and even a transit station — entitlements the prior owner locked in during a 2024 rezoning that Third Lake Partners is keeping.
That last piece — the transit station — is worth flagging.
The area is already seeing major road improvements, and a larger regional transit system could eventually connect the airport, Westshore, Interstate 275, and downtown Tampa.
If that regional transit vision comes together, a walkable mixed-use neighborhood at the WestShore site would sit at the center of it.
WestShore Isn't the Only Property in Motion
This isn't an isolated flip — it's part of a broader structural shift happening across Tampa.
WestShore Plaza is not alone: Britton Plaza on Dale Mabry Highway is also in early stages of a similar transformation, and Stetson University is partnering with Bromley Companies to redevelop its Tampa Heights campus into a mixed-use district with a hotel, office, and residential uses.
Bromley Companies previously developed the nearby Midtown Tampa project
— a development that has measurably boosted interest in the surrounding residential streets.
Three major Tampa properties all moving toward mixed-use in the same calendar year is not coincidence — it is a structural shift.
Why the Price Tag Matters to Homebuyers
The buyer paid regional-mall dollars for what is effectively 54 acres of entitled infill land. The value is in the dirt and the zoning, not the building.
Investors don't pay $135 million for a teardown unless they are highly confident in the demand fundamentals of the surrounding submarket.
The transaction reflects investor confidence that Tampa's fundamentals — population growth, employment diversification, and infrastructure investment — can support long-term mixed-use yields.
For homebuyers, that investor conviction is a leading indicator. When a well-capitalized local firm pays top dollar to build a live-work-play neighborhood on 54 acres in the heart of Westshore, the residential streets nearby tend to follow the trajectory upward. It's the same playbook Midtown Tampa ran — and property values around that project tell the story.
What to Watch (and When to Buy)
No demolition or groundbreaking date has been officially confirmed yet, so this is still early innings.
Officials have not yet confirmed the exact timeline for when demolition or new construction will begin at WestShore Plaza.
That lag between announcement and shovel-in-ground is historically one of the better windows to buy in nearby neighborhoods — before the cranes show up and before prices fully price in the upside.
The Westshore district already has proximity to the airport, easy interstate access, and some of Tampa's more accessible price points compared to Hyde Park or Davis Islands. A future mixed-use anchor on 54 acres — with housing, walkable retail, and a transit connection — would change the neighborhood's identity in a meaningful way.
If you're a buyer sizing up South Tampa and wondering where the value play is heading into 2027, it's worth having a look at what's trading near Dale Mabry and Boy Scout Boulevard right now. Check out the South Tampa vs. Downtown St. Pete comparison if you're still deciding which side of the bay fits your life, or run a quick home value estimate on anything you're tracking in the Westshore corridor. I'm happy to pull comps and talk through what this redevelopment timeline realistically means for a purchase decision today.
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