SteinMart Closing Feb. 28!

By Gary Nager

I was surprised, but not stunned, when I walked into the SteinMart store in the City Plaza at Tampa Palms shopping center the week we went to press with this issue and saw that the location was closing.

A banner sign in front of the store announced “Entire Store On Sale,” with discounts (at that time; they’re likely to become even deeper as the store gets ready to close) of “30%-50%-off everything in the store.” A cashier told me the store was set to close by Saturday, February 28, so I had assistant editor Matt Wiley call SteinMart’s corporate office to get as much info as possible for our readers.

SteinMart spokesperson Linda Tasseff told Matt that the Tampa Palms location will indeed close at the end of February, despite the fact SteinMart recently was named the Readers Choice winner of the title “America’s Best Department Store” by the readers of USA Today newspaper and 10Best.com.

“We have four other SteinMart locations in the Tampa area, and (the Tampa Palms) location just hasn’t been meeting expectations,” Tasseff said. “The store is at the end of a natural lease with the landlord, so we’re moving forward with not renewing it.” She adds that there currently are no plans to open another SteinMart in the New Tampa or Wesley Chapel area anytime in the near future. The closest SteinMart to our readers will now be located at 13210 N. Dale Mabry Hwy. in Carrollwood.

Considering how difficult this plaza can be for non-Tampa Palms residents to find, and how bad things have been economically the past few years — especially when Publix closed for more than a year for remodeling — my only suggestion is that maybe the store wouldn’t have underperformed expectations by quite so much had the owners of SteinMart ever considered advertising in the only publication in our zip codes (33647 & 33543-45) that arrives in the most mailboxes and is actually read by the most people for information about their neighborhood. Speaking of which, how’s business for you in that plaza, Tuesday Morning?  

If you haven’t stopped in yet to the Tampa Palms SteinMart to check out all the savings (which should climb above 50-percent-off sooner than later), do it soon — and tell them (and Tuesday Morning!) where you got the info.