Park Place Outlet Mall proposal may be changing its approach amid traffic flow challenges

Don't count on plans to shop at a new capital city outlet mall any time soon — the Park Place project is going back to the drawing board. 

Early renderings of Park Place PUD illustrated an outlet mall as a key piece of the large-scale development stretching across both sides of Capital Circle Northwest near I-10. Initial plans also called for a hotel, a restaurant, single-family homes, apartments, townhouses and a county park. 

The apartment phase, Park Place Tallahassee, is under permit review to build a seven-story, 171-unit building on 1.56 acres that includes 2,100 square feet of commercial space, according to permit reports. 

Back story:Park Place Outlet Mall forging ahead following idle years

Gary Yordon, a Tallahassee political consultant representing West Palm Beach-based Meyer Development, said traffic coming off the interstate isn't viable for a "true outlet mall."

“We have had site visits for three years, and retailers are just not terribly excited about the amount of traffic on I-10,” Yordon said. “We can’t change those numbers. It’s a work in progress to see what will work on the site.”

The project update came up Sunday during the last leg of the Tallahassee Chamber of Commerce Conference in Amelia Island during a Q&A period on developments on the horizon. While the project is likely to change from the initial concept, Yordon said there's been significant activity on what's possible in the last three months. 

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Residents looking for outlet mall shopping have to travel roughly 150 miles to Silver Sands Premium Outlets near Destin or about 200 miles to reach St. Augustine Premium Outlets.

Traffic flow around both outlets trounces the average annual daily traffic coming off of I-10 near the Park Place site. It saw daily traffic of 18,300 in 2018, about 2,600 more vehicles than the prior year, according to the Florida Department of Transportation.

By comparison, daily traffic coming off of I-95 near St. Augustine's mall averaged 79,000 in 2018. For the same year, the average daily traffic count on Emerald Cost Parkway near Silver Sands' mall was 52,000.

“The idea of it being a true outlet center, I’m not sure if that’s part of our future,” Yordon said of Park Place. “You can’t change the numbers on I-10.”

Contact TaMaryn Waters at tlwaters@tallahassee.com or follow @TaMarynWaters on Twitter.