A full color aerial view of CORTEZ PLAZA, taken in the early 1960s. The structure in the lower left opened, in February 1960, as an Adventurer's Cafeteria. By the late '60s, it had been rebranded as a William Tally House Coffee Shop.
Photo from Malls of America Blogspot

Another November 1959 image shows the central mallway at CORTEZ PLAZA. The camera is pointed toward the corridor's southwest entryway, which is off in the distance.
Photo from Library of Congress

Here we see another view of the front facade of Belk-Lindsey. The store encompassed a modest 40,000 square feet, but was still the chain's largest single-level operation.
Photo from Library of Congress

Another view of the mallway, also looking toward the southwest. A Gordon's Jewelers store is seen on the right.

Photo from Library of Congress

A straight-on view of Center Court and Belk-Lindsey. Concrete hyperbolic parabaloid structures covered the six-hundred-and-four-foot mall, providing some degree of protection from inclement weather.
Photo from Library of Congress 

The mall's southwest entry. Mary Jane Shoes is on the left, with Lerner Shops on the right.
Photo from Library of Congress

The Inter-City National Bank protruded from the south end of the complex.
Photo from Library of Congress

A picture postcard view of CORTEZ SOUTH, a circa-1966 addition to the original open-air mall.
Photo from Tropical Cards

A physical layout from 1971. Freestanding strip structures had been added to the basic shopping mall in the 1960s; the aforementioned CORTEZ SOUTH and one known as CORTEZ EAST. These included stores such as Sears Catalog & Appliance, Woolco and a Jerry Lewis Twin Cinema.

A newspaper ad promoting the new Jerry Lewis Twin Cinema at CORTEZ EAST, the strip center added to CORTEZ PLAZA in 1968. The motion picture venue opened in December 1971 and operated -under various names- until 1990. 
Graphic from http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/33467

The completion of a new and larger mall in the vicinity, in 1973, spelled trouble for CORTEZ PLAZA. A renovation in 1979-'80 failed to halt its decline. In 1987, the circa-1959 portions of the mall were bulldozed and replaced with a 289,000 square foot power center. The new & improved CORTEZ PLAZA was completed in late 1988.
Graphic from the Sarasota Herald Tribune