By going to this mall, Bhola hoped to make an appealing case for reopening to his clients. Some of his clients in retail are afraid to reopen during the coronavirus pandemic. He noticed the signs still hanging on doors with closure announcements from March and watched how shoppers interacted with the mall, which he described as “slightly dystopian.”īhola works in advertising and retail marketing, which is partly what drew him to the Town Center mall. We missed you.”īhola said he spent the first hour of the reopening observing how different the familiar place was. Bhola snapped a photo of a touchscreen map kiosk that displayed the message, “Welcome back. Vinay Bhola traveled to the mall from Coral Springs. Though the mall itself is open, more than half of the stores and restaurants remained closed at lunchtime Wednesday. “But I expected it with what’s going on now.”ĭiners line up for meals at Chick-fil-a at Town Center at Boca Raton which reopened Wednesday, May 13, 2020. “It’s usually pretty crowded, so seeing it empty is a little bizarre,” Gelfand said. Her trip lasted a total of about 10 minutes.

She brought bags of items to return from home, but those stores were closed. Jennifer Gelfand, of Boca Raton, said she was disappointed when she entered the mall. We’ll see slowly,” Medina said as a customer walked into the store. I don’t expect it to be the same business as before. Most will be curious to see what’s happening, what stores are open. The rest of the employees were furloughed and won’t return to work until business picks up. Medina said she and one other employee at the Anne Fontaine store were the only two who returned to work so far. Medina said this particular mall is typically slow until noon and picks up in the afternoon until it closes. Gigi Medina, the general manager at Anne Fontaine, waited to welcome customers just after 11:30 at the Town Center. They include The Gardens Mall in Palm Beach Gardens, which will reopen Friday, and The Mall at Wellington Green will reopen Monday. Other shopping centers also are set to reopen in the region. Center Map of Town Center at Boca Raton - A Shopping Center In Boca Raton, FL - A Simon Property. The Palm Beach Outlets was one of the first shopping destinations to reopen in Palm Beach County on Monday.

According to the mall’s store directory, about 20 stores were open. But customers can visit the mall’s store directory online, at /mall/town-center-at-boca-raton, to check which stores are open and their adjusted hours.Īs of Wednesday, the Apple store, Macy’s, Bath & Body Works, Express and Foot Locker were some of the closed stores. In Orlando a couple of years ago numerous people were injured in a stampede to flee a mall after several large balloons popped during a test of fire systems at a mall.Colleen Wagner, a spokeswoman for Simon Property Group, which owns the mall, said it doesn’t know about each individual store’s opening plan. But the number one thing is to stay calm.'īoca Raton police say similar scares have happened in recent years involving balloons popping. You think something's not right, something's suspicious, call us. 'Absolutely, you see something, call it in. 'I think people have to be calm, is number one,' Economou said. As the days have worn on and police have gotten to what they believe is the cause of the panic, investigators say there's an important takeaway should something like this happen again. It wasn't until police looked through surveillance video that they determined the man hit his head on a door trying to evacuate. 'The reason that happened was we found that gentleman in the parking lot bleeding.'Įconomou said first responders thought the man was shot and police even tweeted that there was a gunshot victim. 'We quickly determined it wasn't an active shooter but we still were looking at a call of shots fired,' Economou said. He said in this real-time chaotic scene on Sunday an officer arrived and quickly found a man in a parking lot bleeding from the head and the man had trouble communicating.

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