Shopping in Gainesville Venues

Shopping in Gainesville provides a wonderful buying experience for people in Gainesville, Alachua, and all over North Central Florida. Gainesville was ranked in September 1995 by Money Magazine as the Number One city to live in America and for seven successive years has been identified as one of Florida’s most livable cities. Gainesville led the country in employment growth in 1995. It was an area where you could work in town, live in the backwoods and have at the utmost a 30-minute commute. A classic three-bedroom cost just $82,000. The University of Florida and its 50,000 enrolled students were, and are still, vital to Gainesville's job boom and identity. Gainesville is your typical, everyday small town in America surrounded by Waldo, High Springs, Hawthorne, La Crosse, Alachua, Cross Creek, Newberry, Archer, and Micanopy. In spite of this, Gainesville is a home to a prestigious center of higher learning, a world renowned medical hospital and research center, commercial industries such as Butler Plaza, and over 95,000 people.
Butler Plaza also known as Miracle Mile is located in the heart of the explosive southwest area of Gainesville. The Miracle Mile spans Archer Road, bordered by I-75 to the west and 34th Street to the east. Butler Plaza is not only the largest shopping center in Florida but it is also the largest in the Southeast. Butler Plaza is a Mega shopping mall with sixty-seven stores and twenty-three eateries like in an indoor setting. It is anchored by such big name stores as Target, Wal-Mart, Publix, Lowe’s, Office Max, Pier 1, and Best Buy.
The construction of Butler Plaza began after the closing in 1971 of the airstrip owned by Carl Stengel, the following year of 1972. Butler Plaza was started by Clark Butler and his daughter Deborah. Their once small store became a sprawling retail complex of over one million square feet and more than 75 stores that definitely exceeds all in size in the Southeastern United States. Butler Plaza is divided into three sections: East, Central, and West. Butler Plaza North is in its developmental stages and when completed it will add more than seventy thousand square feet for various stores and businesses. Other smaller retail shopping centers include Thornebrook Village, the Millhopper Shopping Center, Newberry Crossing, Newberry Square, the Tower Center, all in the northwest area, the Gainesville Shopping Center just north of downtown, Westgate and the Creekside Mall, both of which are just west of UF, and Union Street Station, which, along with the Sun Center, provides much of the retail liveliness in the downtown area. What once was the Gainesville Mall on 13th Street is now Gainesville’s one and only Super Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club. Many local residents and student of the University of Florida enjoy the comfort, convenience, and cost of Super Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club which provide every thing from medical clinics to internet service provider to tires for your car and all the other amenities of good ol’ Wal-Mart like electronics, toys, clothing, photo center, jewelry, and those famous back-to-school deals.
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