WHAT’S NEXT
SHOPPING
BONANZA
Once bereft of retail stores, Port St. Lucie is busting out all
over with millions of square feet of retail space under way
An architectural rendering of Village Pointe in Tradition reveals an attractive, friendly shopping center where shoppers can stroll at their leisure. Village
Pointe will include 400,000 square feet of retail stores, 200,000 square feet of office space, and a civic amphitheater with room for 5,000 people.
BY SUSAN BURGESS
IMAGES PROVIDED BY CORE COMMUNITIES
When Angel Tyrrell moved to Port St. Lucie 25 years
12
ago, she had to jump in her car and go out of town
to do most of her shopping.
Today it’s a different story. More than two million square
feet of shopping centers are in the planning stages or under
construction for a population that exceeds 163,000. “It is just
so different” she said. “There have been tremendous changes,
especially in the amount of retail shopping available.”
In contrast to modest beginnings as a two-lane road mostly
known for model homes, bustling six-lane Port St. Lucie
Boulevard is filled with shops and professional businesses,
with more shopping centers under way.
Sleekly efficient Gatlin Boulevard, formerly a two-lane
country road connecting to Port St. Lucie Boulevard to
Interstate 95, is the hub of commercial construction that no
one even dreamed of 20 or 25 years ago when the population
was a mere 16,000. Looming on the horizon from Gatlin to
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