Coral Square Mall is an enclosed regional shopping center in Coral Springs, in the northwest part of Broward County, about 40 miles northwest of Miami.
It sits at the northeast corner of West Atlantic Boulevard and University Drive, two major commercial roads in the area, making it easy to reach from many parts of the city.
The mall has more than 110 stores, including anchor retailers like Macy's, JCPenney, and Kohl's. It is the main shopping destination for Coral Springs and nearby communities in northwest Broward County.
It opened on October 3, 1984, as only the second enclosed regional mall in western Broward County, and it still remains the leading enclosed mall in its area today.
Coral Square Mall Opens in 1984 After a Decade of Planning
October 3, 1984. Vice Mayor Don Sanders stood at the entrance of a brand-new mall in Coral Springs alongside Coral Ridge Properties president Werner Buntemeyer and Ed Heafy.
Mayor Ben Geiger handed over a framed key to the city.
The anchors were Burdines, Lord & Taylor, JCPenney, and Jordan Marsh - four department stores filling the corners of a single-level center with a space-frame ceiling nearly identical to Boynton Beach Mall and The Florida Mall.
None of that happened quickly.
City planners had been circling this corner of Atlantic Boulevard and University Drive since at least 1973, when a proposal for a 130-acre center with a canal-fed lake and more than 1.5 million square feet was already being discussed publicly, with a target opening of 1976.
Coral Ridge Properties - the company that built Coral Springs itself - was behind the concept from the start.
By 1983, the site was under active construction, and a billboard advertising the 130-acre development was already up before a single store opened.
The mall that opened in 1984 was more modest than the 1973 vision. It came in at roughly 944,000 square feet.
The development joint venture behind it was Eddie DeBartolo's DeBartolo Realty and JCP Realty, a JCPenney subsidiary.
Coral Square was only the second major enclosed mall in western Broward County, following Broward Mall, which had opened in 1978.
Coral Square Adds Sears and Reaches Five Anchors
Space had been left deliberately at the northeast end of the mall for a fifth anchor. In 1989, Sears took it.
The addition made Coral Square only the second mall in all of Broward County to house five anchor stores at one time, with The Galleria at Fort Lauderdale being the other.
No other mall in the county had matched that configuration at that point.
Sears occupied a two-level building of roughly 164,000 square feet.
The mall's original four anchor stores were already operating across three bi-level structures on a single-level concourse - a format it shared with a handful of other DeBartolo properties in Florida.
With Sears fully open, the center held its five-anchor lineup through the end of the 1980s.
Pembroke Lakes Mall eventually reached five anchors as well, beginning in 1995. Coral Square became the second mall in Broward County to reach five anchors, joining The Galleria at Fort Lauderdale in that distinction.
The five-anchor configuration lasted for well over a decade, while department-store consolidation began reshaping the names that had defined the mall since opening day as early as the early 1990s.
Anchor Turnover at Coral Square: Lord & Taylor to Kohl's Over Two Decades
In November 1990, Mervyn's agreed to buy several Florida Lord & Taylor stores, including the one in Coral Springs, with conversions expected in early 1991.
Lord & Taylor's run at Coral Square ended after roughly six years. Mervyn's replaced it and pushed into South Florida as part of a broader expansion.
That phase lasted until 1997, when Dillard's acquired the Coral Square store as part of a ten-store Florida purchase from Dayton Hudson. Dillard's ran the space through 2010.
By the mid-2000s, the center carried Dillard's, JCPenney, Sears, and two Burdines-Macy's formats - one women's store and a separate men's, children's, and home store - after Burdines was renamed Burdines-Macy's in 2004 and completed the conversion to the Macy's nameplate by 2005.
Kohl's opened a 99,000-square-foot store at Coral Square in 2011. Kohl's took over the former anchor space that had cycled through Lord & Taylor, Mervyn's, and Dillard's across twenty years.
By 2011, the four active anchors were Macy's, JCPenney, Sears, and Kohl's.
How Simon Property Group Came to Own 97.2% of Coral Square
DeBartolo Realty and JCPenney's subsidiary built Coral Square together, and DeBartolo remained the dominant operating partner through the mall's first decade.
In 1996, Simon Property Group and DeBartolo Realty merged to form Simon DeBartolo Group.
The combined entity absorbed the DeBartolo mall portfolio, and Coral Square passed into that system. Simon's ownership interest in the property later rose to 97.2 percent.
The mall was renovated in 1995 and 2008, and received a city-backed exterior improvement project in 2022. None of those projects expanded the footprint.
The physical envelope of the mall remained essentially what it was in 1984, apart from the Sears addition five years after opening.
Simon has held a 97.2 percent ownership stake for many years, making Coral Square one of the more stable assets in its portfolio.
City Hall Moves into the Mall and Coral Square Becomes a Civic Hub
In August 2000, the City of Coral Springs opened "City Hall in the Mall" inside Coral Square.
The office sits near JCPenney at the west mall entrance and handles municipal services for residents who want to access city government without going to a separate government building.
It has remained open ever since, appearing in Simon's current store directory as an active tenant more than two decades after it first opened.
The civic function expanded further during the pandemic. The city held seven Feeding South Florida food distribution events at the mall, averaging roughly 700 families served per week.
A vacant restaurant space inside the mall was then converted into a vaccination site. On January 11, 2021, Coral Springs opened that site as the first municipally managed Covid vaccination site in Broward County.
Ample parking, outdoor waiting space, and a walk-up model made the mall the practical choice.
The vaccination operation ran out of a space that had previously been a food-and-beverage tenant, not a purpose-built medical facility.
Closure of Sears Leaves a Key Space Open at Coral Square
Sears announced in February 2020 that it would close its Coral Square location as part of a broader round of Sears and Kmart store closures nationwide.
The store closed in April 2020. The building, which Sears had used since 1989, covers about 164,000 square feet on two levels and has remained vacant.
By late 2021, officials in Coral Springs were considering redevelopment options for the site.
As of 2025, the property was still being marketed for lease with no tenant announced.
A planned deal with Round 1 Entertainment was in place when the closure was first announced, but no confirmed opening followed.
The former Sears building is still the most noticeable unresolved part of the mall. Simon Property Group lists Macy's, JCPenney, and Kohl's as anchor stores, without mentioning Sears.
The 204-unit Metropolitan at Coral Square residential complex sits next to the mall and includes a pool, fitness center, and playground.
It is listed in Simon's directory as an active part of the property.
The Knife Restaurant at Coral Square: Two Years Late and Finally Open
In 2023, Coral Square was set to get a steakhouse. The Knife was announced, and permits were filed, but then the project dragged on. By August 2025, workers were still inside the space.
The brand released new renderings, a common move for restaurants that have no opening date but want to show the project is still happening.
Getting permits in Coral Springs had become a problem, and the city's approval process was slowing down a project that had already taken longer than most mall construction projects from start to finish.
By February 25, 2026, The Knife was open. Second location in South Florida, first full-service sit-down restaurant inside Coral Square in years.
In the meantime, the mall had been making small improvements - a $40,000 city grant for repainting the outside and new signs in 2022, and up to $50,000 for a Perfumania store in 2025.
Useful, unglamorous work.
A steakhouse doing dinner service is a different proposition than a repainted facade, and Coral Square had not had a tenant generating that kind of foot traffic since the roster still included Sears.
