A Disney Character Warehouse is coming to Tampa Premium Outlets in Wesley Chapel, marking the first time Walt Disney World has planted an official retail flag in the Tampa Bay area since it pulled out of the market five years ago. The roughly 6,000-square-foot outlet store is expected to open this winter and will sell overstock and retired Walt Disney World merchandise at discounts typically ranging from 50% to 80% off original theme park prices.
The store has a renovation permit filed with Pasco County, and Disney Careers listings published in August confirmed the project is moving ahead, according to the Tampa Bay Times. Those job postings include a full-time Merchandise Inventory Specialist starting at $20.10 per hour and a Guest Experience Manager with a salary range of $56,700 to $76,000 annually, per the Wesley Chapel Record. Inventory is expected to include park-themed apparel, pins, Spirit Jerseys, and Loungefly bags.
A Return Five Years in the Making
The Wesley Chapel outlet would be Disney's first dedicated brick-and-mortar retail presence in Tampa Bay since 2021, when the company closed its full-line Disney Store at Tampa's International Plaza that March and shuttered an outlet at Tampa Premium Outlets that September. Those closures were part of a nationwide wave in which Disney shut down dozens of physical mall stores to pivot toward e-commerce and Target shop-in-shops.
Since then, official park merchandise has largely been confined to theme park shops, Disney's e-commerce site, and two outlet locations near Orlando. The new Wesley Chapel store would become just the third active Disney Character Warehouse in Florida and the entire country, joining existing outlets at Orlando International Premium Outlets and Orlando Vineland Premium Outlets.
Supply Lines Run Straight to Orlando
Behind the scenes, the store's inventory will connect directly to Walt Disney World's primary distribution center and Central Florida Data Maintenance Cast Members, who will handle inventory transfers and cycle counts. That means stock will change continuously as merchandise cycles out of park shops in Orlando and lands on Wesley Chapel shelves.
The Pasco County location gives residents across Pasco, Hillsborough, and Hernando counties a way to score discounted park goods without making the drive down Interstate 4 to Orlando, a route notorious for heavy traffic delays. Tampa Premium Outlets itself is a 441,000-square-foot outdoor shopping center developed and operated by Simon Property Group, which opened in October 2015 at the junction of Interstate 75 and State Road 56 and now houses more than 100 retail suites.
All Sales Are Final — No Exceptions
Shoppers hoping to snag a deal should know that Disney Character Warehouse stores enforce a strict all-sales-final policy, with no returns or exchanges allowed. The rule was updated in February specifically to deter commercial resellers and live-streamers from bulk-buying discounted stock, a response to organized reselling on secondary digital markets that has pushed Disney to tighten its retail policies.
That crackdown comes even as Disney's outlet footprint has shifted elsewhere in Florida. A previous Disney Character Warehouse at Sawgrass Mills in Sunrise, near Fort Lauderdale, permanently closed on April 15 after Disney elected not to renew its commercial lease — a location that sat nearly three hours from Walt Disney World itself. The Wesley Chapel store, by contrast, gives Disney a foothold much closer to a large regional customer base while still tethering supply directly to its Orlando distribution network.
What's Still Unknown
Disney has not yet published an exact consumer-facing opening date or confirmed the exact suite location within Tampa Premium Outlets, leaving an open timeline question for local shoppers even as permits and hiring point toward a winter launch. The new tenant would fill space at a center that has seen turnover elsewhere too — the anchor Saks Off 5th spot went vacant in April, prompting mall management to court other high-drawing brands, as Hoodline reported when a discount fashion chain claimed that spot.
