Suburban Archaeology - Casselberry & DeLand

Published October 8th, 2024

In my previous installment, we cruised along E Colonial in North Orlando. The latter half of that trip took me north, towards the ailing Seminole Towne Center in the suburb of Sanford. While that mall also has enough photos to warrant a whole post, on my way there I passed through Casselberry, and after the mall onwards to DeLand, to round out my trip, and both of those places held a few more interesting pieces of archaeology. 

Starting in Casselberry with a Salvation Army Thrift Store^[1] in a former Rooms To Go. I don't know much about the chain, founded in Orlando, but their former stores are distinctive and pretty photogenic owing to their all-glass fronts. This one opened in 1992, and lasted just over a decade, closing in 2003, taken over by Salvation Army within the year. Our next photo is of the newest location of Taino's Bakery, an Orlando-area chain of Puerto Rican bakeries & delis, occupying one of IHOP's distinctive A-frames, dating back to 1975. It closed in 2022, and Taino's was in the works by 2023.

Next door to Taino's is a small water treatment plant for the City of Casselberry, the front fence of which is painted with this very charming mural of marshland wildlife. Even if it's a bit saccharine in a sea of sprawl.

This brutalist vented-rectangle sits just up the road in Fern Park, between two shopping centers. Built in 1975 for Sun Bank, it survived into the modern SunTrust era, but finally closed amidst the SunTrust-BB&T merger in 2019, which cut the fat and closed a lot of awkward, older locations. It now sits, rapidly derelicting, and probably awaiting a wrecking ball. Brutalism is an oft-maligned movement, and I gotta say this isn't my favorite example either way; the parking layout is also straight up bizarre. I invite you to view it from above, two blocks of parking split by a separate lane, and for unclear reasons, the drive-through lanes are set behind a further 120 ft of grass lawn^[2]. 

Adjacent the flyover intersection of US 17-92 and FL-436, sits the largely vacant Casselberry Exchange Shopping Center. This plaza actually has a lot of history- there's been a shopping center here since 1962, when Eastern Diversified Inc developed the open-air Seminole Plaza, with major stores including Montgomery Ward, McCrory-Otasco, Publix, Eckerd, Eagle Army-Navy Stores, and a theater^[3]. However, like many centers of it's era, it decayed in the coming decades. Newer strip malls, and particularly Altamonte Mall (1974), drew away tenants and shoppers, and cracks had begun to show by 1975, when Montgomery Ward quietly closed their store. Eckerd went in 1986, followed by Publix in 1989, both for newer shopping centers. The Seminole Cinema left around this time as well, as the center couldn't supported planned upgrades to add more screens. By the early 90s, the center was mostly vacant, and borderline falling apart, becoming a major eyesore amidst the city's busiest intersection.

By 1995, excavators were ripping apart the once prime shopping center, and the site slinked into several years of back and forth between developers and retailers. By the turn of the millenium, plans had solidified for Casselberry Exchange, a 'power center' with tenants including Kash n Karry^[4], Staples, and Petco. While seemingly pretty strong at first glance, the plaza almost immediately lost two major tenants- Kash n Karry, following the chain's flight from Central Florida wholesale, and (a new) Eckerd, when CVS bought the chain and closed the Casselberry location, both in 2004. Petco, as far as I can tell, never materialized. New owners would pull Bed Bath & Beyond to replace KnK in 2007, but the center still had rough times ahead. 

By 2024, the plaza is all but totally vacant. BB&B, Books A Million, and Staples have all closed, and the only remaining stores are a vape shop, hair salon, nail salon, and Gamestop, all but a greatest hits album of low-rent staples. I can't tell you why this plaza has such bad luck- ultimately, I think retail still favors other parts of the greater Orlando metro, and the intersection may be too busy, with drivers not wanting to deal with traffic to get into the plaza^[5].

As of now, BJ's Wholesale is attempting to demolish the majority of the plaza for a new store. I wish them luck.

Skipping up to DeLand, we have a nice collection of mid-century architecture. The Boulevard Motel dates to 1952, and is a clear bootleg of the famous Holiday Inn "Great" sign. The Orange Tree Inn is listed in the property appraiser as having been built between 1957-1961, and the sign might date from then, though it could be from later in the 1960s. It's not as classic as the Boulevard's neon, but it's still sharp.

B&O Cleaners used to have a quite tired neon sign, but it was cleaned up when the business was sold earlier this year. Right next door is one of 3 branches of Surety Bank, a slightly scattered bank who seem to make most of their money serving "controversial" businesses other banks would just rather not bother with, like cannabis, cryptocurrency, and payday loans. They took over this building in 1993 from Security First, who went bankrupt the previous year and was absorbed by acquisition-hungry First Union.

Finally, we have something decently rare: a former McDonalds! America's favorite fast food chain doesn't often close locations, and often when they do, those buildings are torn down. However, we get lucky here in DeLand; this Moe's is a decently preserved "mansard roof' McDonalds, increasingly rare in their original form as corporate embarks on a relentless renovation campaign. Note the brick stripe around the lower third of the building, the now defunct drive through window on the side (that car's just parked), and the wonderful little angled bay window on the building's side.

And that's another installment of Suburban Archaeology! I'm hoping to get a nice sized dead mall writeup soon, either Seminole Towne Center or Orlando Fashion Square. Until next time

[1] - Boo hiss etc
[2] - Possibly a former drainage pond?
[3] Because those names mostly mean nothing to anyone younger than Gen X: department store, auto parts store, grocery store, pharmacy, discount store. respectively bankrupt, bankrupt, still with us, bought out, bought out, divorced beheaded died
[4] A Tampa-area grocery store chain, acquired by multinational grocery conglomerate Delhaize in late 1996, who used them to rebrand their floundering Food Lion stores in Florida
[5] or perhaps it has been cursed by Seminole Plaza's expectedly racist for the 1960s Native American mascot