On the morning of January 29, 2025, about 200 people lined up along Tamiami Trail North waiting for novelist Janet Evanovich to cut a ribbon. The space behind her had been a Big Lots a year earlier. That morning it reopened as a 35,000-square-foot Barnes & Noble, with a full Starbucks cafe and an expanded vinyl section where a discount retailer once stacked closeout housewares. For Park Shore residents who already treat The Fresh Market a few doors down as their default grocery stop, watching Park Shore Plaza rewrite its tenant roster has become part of the errand run.
A year and a half later, the plaza is mid-shuffle again. Saks Off 5th, a fixture there for a decade, closed this spring. If that's the only thing you clocked driving past on 41, it would be reasonable to read the empty storefront as a plaza thinning out. It's the opposite. What's actually happening at Park Shore Plaza is consolidation, not decline, and the tenant who is expanding fastest already lives there.
The math behind the empty storefronts
Saks Off 5th's exit wasn't a verdict on Park Shore. Saks Global filed for Chapter 11 protection and closed all but 12 of its 50 Off 5th locations nationwide this year, a restructuring decision made in a boardroom, not a reflection of foot traffic on US 41. The Saks anchor at Waterside Shops, a few minutes north, remains open and unaffected. What closed at Park Shore Plaza was one storefront in a much larger national retreat.
The company backfilling that 27,000-square-foot space, TJ Maxx, is the flagship of TJX Companies, the same corporate parent behind HomeGoods, which already anchors the plaza. TJX isn't just leasing the old Saks space. It's also opening Sierra, its outdoor and activewear banner, in the 18,676-square-foot spot vacated last year by Party City, tucked between Burlington and Kirkland's Home. Once both open, Park Shore Plaza will carry three separate TJX brands under one roof. Brixmor Property Group, the New York firm that owns the center, put it plainly through its marketing VP Maria Pace, who said the addition of Sierra and TJ Maxx alongside HomeGoods "means Park Shore Plaza will be home to three TJX brands."
That's a specific bet, not a generic one. Sierra currently operates more than 150 stores nationwide, but its only other Florida location is in Jacksonville. A Naples opening puts Park Shore on a very short list. Sierra is expected to open before the end of 2026, according to the latest information Brixmor has from TJX, while TJ Maxx is targeted for the first quarter of 2027, in the space between The Fresh Market and Barnes & Noble.
Here's how the plaza's anchor spaces have turned over since early 2024:
| Space | Previous tenant | Incoming tenant | Size | Timeline |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Former Big Lots | Big Lots (closed Jan. 2024) | Barnes & Noble | ~35,000 sq ft | Opened Jan. 29, 2025 |
| Former Saks Off 5th | Saks Off 5th (10 years) | TJ Maxx | 27,000 sq ft | Targeted Q1 2027 |
| Former Party City | Party City (closed 2025) | Sierra | 18,676 sq ft | Expected before end of 2026 |
Barnes & Noble didn't downsize to get here
The bookstore's move is the clearest evidence that this plaza is gaining ground, not losing it. Barnes & Noble had been an original tenant at Waterside Shops since 1992, occupying a two-story freestanding building of about 24,000 square feet for more than 30 years. When it relocated to Park Shore Plaza, it didn't shrink into a leftover space. It grew into one, moving to just over 35,000 square feet, a jump the company's own senior director of store planning summed up simply: "We're going up here." The new store added a full Starbucks cafe and a larger children's and vinyl section, and the move came during a stretch when Barnes & Noble opened more new stores nationally than it had in the entire decade before it.
Naples has watched national bookstore chains come and go before, and the pattern makes this move stand out more, not less. Borders closed its North Naples store in 2011, and Trader Joe's occupies that spot today. Books-A-Million shut down in 2012 and was replaced by Nordstrom Rack at Mercato the following year. Waldenbooks and B. Dalton Bookseller both disappeared from Coastland Center by 2013. Family Christian Stores closed its Park Shore Plaza location entirely in 2017. Against that history, a national chain choosing to expand its footprint at this address, rather than exit it, is worth noticing. Barnes & Noble is now the last national bookstore chain operating anywhere in Collier County.
The one that almost left, then didn't
Kirkland's home decor store announced it was closing at Park Shore Plaza earlier this year and ran an everything-must-go sale. If you shopped that sale, you'd be forgiven for assuming the space was next in line to turn over. It didn't. The store is still open, restocked with new inventory, because Bed Bath & Beyond Inc. acquired the Kirkland's Home brand assets last fall and is folding the chain into a rebrand expected sometime in the next year. The storefront never actually closed. The company that owns it changed hands.
That's the pattern running under almost every headline at this plaza right now. What looks from the parking lot like a retailer failing is, more often, a retailer being absorbed, restructured, or replaced by a corporate sibling. Saks Off 5th's closure was a national bankruptcy filing. Kirkland's near-closure was an acquisition. The TJX additions are one company consolidating three of its own banners into a single center. None of it is a comment on how Park Shore residents shop.
The small stuff still lands here too
Not every change at the plaza is a corporate chess move. Juice Society opened in May 2026 in the space Duck Donuts vacated after five years in business. It's a smaller footprint and a smaller story, but it matters for the same reason the bigger ones do: the plaza keeps refilling fast enough that empty storefronts don't sit empty for long. Between a bookstore growing by nearly half in square footage, a discount retailer's national parent placing three of its brands under one roof, and an independent juice bar taking over a five-year-old donut shop, Park Shore Plaza is proving to be more resilient than any single closure headline suggests.
For residents who route their week through this stretch of US 41, the practical upshot is straightforward. Sierra should be open before the end of the year, tucked between Burlington and Kirkland's Home. TJ Maxx follows in the first quarter of 2027, next to Fresh Market and Barnes & Noble. Everything anchoring the middle of the plaza, the grocery store, the bookstore, the home decor shop, stays put. What changes is what flanks it, and the flanks are getting bigger, not smaller.
If you're weighing what a home near this stretch of Park Shore is actually worth as the neighborhood's everyday retail keeps evolving, Bates | Ives is glad to talk it through. Request a private consultation whenever the timing is right.
