Longtime customers returned to the DeSoto Square Mall on Friday to take one last stroll around what once was Bradenton’s retail gem.
Only four shops remained open on the mall’s final day. The mall’s owners, DeSoto Owners LLC, gave tenants 30 days’ notice at the beginning of the month.
The 60-acre mall opened in 1973, during the heyday of indoor malls. But in recent years, the mall has faced the same challenges that have plagued its peers, with stalwart anchor stores closing and once-robust chains leaving the smaller boxes empty. It has spent at least the past decade in protracted decline, punctuated by occasional hopes of revival that never came to fruition.