TAMPA - The owners of University Mall say they have more than one prospective buyer for the more than 30-year-old retail landmark and expect to close a deal within a few months.

Glimcher Realty Trust, a Columbus, Ohio mall owner that also runs WestShore Plaza, did not identify the prospects, but called some of them "institutional investors" that typically buy retail real estate and hire companies such as Glimcher to run it.

The real estate investment trust expects to fetch about $250-million to $260-million for a portfolio of malls it is trying to sell while weeding its collection. Most of the amount would come from University Mall.

The news comes as some local commercial real estate experts said word on the street is that Macy's will be joining J.C. Penney and Dillard's at a new mall 12 miles north in Wesley Chapel called the Shops at Wiregrass. Penney already gave up its space at University to Steve & Barry's University Sportswear when it opened at the first phase of Wiregrass last year. Dillard's has not confirmed it will leave University after it opens a store at the part of Wiregrass still in the government permit mill. Macy's officials in Miami and at the parent company headquarters in Cincinnati declined to confirm any deal with Wiregrass or that Macy's will leave University.

Michelle Seifert, a retailing leasing expert with Grubb and Ellis in Tampa, said at a real estate forecast luncheon in Tampa on Wednesday that the Shops At Wiregrass, a joint venture between Forest City Enterprises and the Goodman Co., had lined up Macy's.

That could be a blow to University.

"I haven't heard anything about Macy's leaving but frankly, there are other department stores here that operate stores within 12 miles," said Tom Locke, manager of University. "Frankly, we don't get that much business from Pasco."

Glimcher, trying to sell University Mall since last May, has been aggressively repositioning the 1.2-million-square-foot enclosed mall to appeal to a younger crowd that lives close by, attends the University of South Florida next door or works in the area's four hospitals and nearby businesses.

The mall is 97 percent leased and has several new stores lined up. Among them are apparel retailers K&G, Camille LaVie, Anchor Blue, cosmetics outlet Hair Cosmopolitan and a Dairy Queen.

Chuin-Wei Yap and James Thorner contributed to this story. Mark Albright can be reached at albright@sptimes.com or 727893-8252.