Drive the west end of Forest Hill Boulevard this month and two things compete for your attention. One is a brand new swimwear boutique tucked near the mall's main entrance. The other is a hundred-thousand-square-foot box that has sat dark since before most Wellington kids in middle school were born. For years the two facts had nothing to do with each other. Now they do.
What actually opened this summer
Bikini Bar opened June 27, 2026 in a compact space just under 1,500 square feet, its flagship location according to the company. The boutique carries swimwear, resort wear and handcrafted jewelry, including 14-karat gold-fill chains and shell-inspired pendants. Owner Laura Zamorano Rios has said the goal was a space where shoppers feel confident and excited to express their own style, not just another rack of suits.
Two floors away near Grand Court, Kids Empire took a different bet entirely. The 10,223-square-foot indoor play attraction has floor-to-ceiling climbing walls, ball pits, slides, go-karts, a dance room, a toddler-only area and a family snack bar. Kids Empire CEO Cyrille Bessiere has described the company's mission as building active, social play that pulls kids away from screens.
Neither of these openings is dramatic on its own. Together they tell you something about how the mall's owner is filling small vacancies right now: not with another mid-tier apparel chain, but with things you cannot get delivered to your door. That pattern matters more once you look at what is happening on the other side of the building.
The box that has been empty since 2019
Nordstrom closed its Wellington Green store in April 2019, part of a broader retreat the company announced that January. The building it left behind runs close to 100,000 square feet on roughly 18.4 acres, and it has sat vacant for just over seven years while the mall around it kept operating. A first attempt to do something with the space, back in 2019, called for demolishing the store and building a hotel, about 700 apartments and a four-acre swimmable lagoon with a manmade beach. That plan never broke ground.
A second concept surfaced at a Village workshop in April 2024, this time floating a hotel and residences for up to 1,000 people alongside pickleball courts and a holiday tree lighting space. Village officials treated it at the time as an early concept rather than a formal application, and it did not move forward as filed.
The plan that is actually advancing now is smaller and more specific. In spring 2026, Bainbridge Companies filed a master plan amendment with the Village of Wellington to build 620 multifamily units across three seven-story buildings, plus a clubhouse and a parking garage, on the 18.4-acre former Nordstrom site. The filing lists Spinoso Real Estate Group and TM Wellington Green Mall LP as the property owners of record, with Bainbridge as the applicant. According to reporting on the deal, Bainbridge has the parcel under contract from a court-appointed receiver for roughly $36 million, with the sale still subject to court approval. No construction timeline or final cost has been announced, and the plan still needs to clear Wellington's planning and zoning process.
Why the mall's own manager isn't worried about the anchors that remain
Village Manager Jim Barnes has been on record about how the mall's surviving anchors are actually performing while this plays out. He has called Macy's, Dillard's and JCPenney high-performing stores, adding a detail that stands out:
"I heard that the Macy's at the Mall at Wellington Green is the highest-performing store in the state."
That is not the language of a building in decline. It is the language of an owner treating one specific vacancy, the Nordstrom box, as a problem to solve with housing rather than as evidence the whole property is failing.
The stat that undercuts the easy story
It is tempting to read an empty department store as proof that online shopping killed the mall. The trade group that tracks this nationally says otherwise. According to the International Council of Shopping Centers, physical retail still captures 86 percent of all retail spending, with e-commerce accounting for the remaining 14 percent. Malls nationally are not disappearing so much as changing what fills their gaps, leaning into restaurants, entertainment and wellness tenants that cannot be replicated by a delivery truck. Wellington Green's own moves this year, an indoor play attraction and a swimwear boutique, and its earlier expansion of Arcade Time into a larger 13,000-square-foot entertainment venue, track exactly with that shift.
Three attempts, one contract
It helps to see how we got here in order:
- 2019: Starwood Retail Partners files plans for a hotel, roughly 700 apartments, and a four-acre lagoon on the Nordstrom site. The plan stalls.
- April 2024: Mall managers pitch a hotel and up to 1,000 residences at a Village workshop, framed as an early concept rather than a formal application. It does not advance.
- Spring 2026: Bainbridge Companies files for 620 apartments in three seven-story buildings on the same 18.4 acres, with the parcel under contract from the property's court-appointed receiver. This is the version currently moving through Wellington's review process.
The mall itself has changed hands and changed in value along the way. Starwood Capital Group bought the majority of the property in 2014 for $341.1 million. Its estimated worth has since fallen to around $70 million, a decline tied in large part to years of dark space where Nordstrom used to be. That drop is a big part of why the current owner is willing to trade a dead anchor box for a residential project instead of holding out for another department store that may never come.
What this actually changes for anyone who already lives here
None of this means the mall is going anywhere. It means the property is quietly becoming two things instead of one: a retail core that is getting smaller, more experience-driven tenants like Kids Empire and Bikini Bar, and a new residential footprint rising on what used to be Nordstrom's parking lot. If the Bainbridge project clears the remaining approvals, expect construction activity around that end of the property, additional traffic on Forest Hill Boulevard during the build, and eventually several hundred new neighbors living inside a building most people currently associate with an empty parking lot they cut through on the way to Macy's.
For now, the two openings worth noticing on a Saturday are still Bikini Bar and Kids Empire. The bigger story is the one moving through Village Hall a few hundred feet away, and it is worth watching whether you shop at the mall every week or just drive past it on your way somewhere else.
If you are weighing what any of this means for property values or timing near Wellington's commercial corridors, Matt Johnson tracks these shifts as part of daily work in this market. Request a Private Consultation to talk through what you are seeing on the ground.
