The storefront between the Regis hair salon and Kay Jewelers is naked empty, except for an old sales counter, a long table dressed with a Coastland Center emblem and three folding chairs.

You can imagine Simon or Paula in a similar circumstance, although it's unlikely that their audition space would include Select Comfort paraphernalia ("Now that I sleep better, I'm ready to take on my day," says poster-bound Jessie, who is a Sleep Number 35.)

Or that they'd be in a small town mall.

No matter. This isn't Fox's hit property, "American Idol," and these three judges — none of them music professionals — don't have to worry about ratings, a season of orchestrated tension or being clever at anyone's expense. They're here to handpick 10 singers, all over 55, for a promotion during the mall's current remodel.

One newspaper ad, posters in the mall and flyers distributed to mall walkers and senior centers has attracted more than 25 to try out for Boomer Idol, which will pit the finalists in a sing-off on June 3.

No one knows what kind of voices will show up. Retired professionals? Amateurs? This is the first time the mall has done this particular stunt.

"It's all in fun — not a big deal," says Michael Goodman, a partner in the Fort Lauderdale PR firm that represents Coastland Center. "There is a whole untapped market of boomers and seniors with a lot of talent. ... Maybe they sing in the shower and never have performed before. This is their chance."

Judge Sharon Downey nods and laughs. "But for us, it's American I-D-L-E."

The winner in June receives bragging rights, a $1,000 cash prize and for some, a glimpse of what might have been.

The opportunity

By 10:15, it's already a morning for the mall: a steamy blue 84 degrees that feels like 90. Inside, though, it's strangely still with a flotsam of mall walkers, uniformed workers and a few early shoppers drifting down the main drag.

A few people wait in the neat block of chairs set up for the audition not far from the wing's anchor, JC Penney. It's hard to tell if they're there to perform or just killing time between laps.

Pat Ardezzone orbits the chair island. A bald man with hard muscular edges under a Hawaiian shirt and shorts, he shifts from foot to foot. He looks worried.

He shrugs when I ask if he's nervous.

"I was supposed to be a singer," he says. Ardezzone, 62, worked for US Airways in Long Island for 31 years. He describes the customer service job, some of the time dealing with lost baggage, as hard.

"My dad was a singing waiter in Rockaway when Rockaway was still good," he starts, a voice with the blunt edges and thrown elbows of a kind of a northeastern accent. His father worked with Tony Bennett, he says.

But by the time he was 9, his mother decided Ardezzone the younger was getting too cocky about his singing.

"I was," he says. "Long story short, my mother wouldn't let me be a singer."

He leans a little to his left to look into the audition store. Rosemary Riotto, another native New Yorker, is starting. She's alone: Everyone must perform a cappella today. She barely moves as she sings.

Ardezzone is about 50 feet away and can't hear her. There's just the smiles on the faces of the judges: Downey, who works with seniors for Collier County, N magazine editor Susan Utz and Elaine Hamilton, executive director of the United Arts Council of Collier County. They're scoring the three-minute performances on a 100-point scale based on vocal quality, stage presence and style.

He looks back at me. "All those years I didn't sing," he says. "And I wasn't any good at nothing but singing."

He married and had three kids. He never forgot singing. He shrugs and laughs, to make a comfortable space for what comes next. "It's not like I had any guts to just quit and get another job," he says. He laughs again, a rumble of distraction from the admission.

Over the years, Ardezzone performed some. Not much, though, until he retired in Naples with his wife seven years ago. He doesn't get paid for it but he performs at parties sometimes. Usually dusty hits like "The Sheik of Araby" and "Margie," his dad's songs.

People tell him that when he sings, people stop to listen.

"I'm not arrogant about it, though," he says. "I'm not trying to reinvent myself."

Inside, Riotto's voice is quiet and earnest. The judges smile and applaud loudly when she's done with "Summertime."

She smiles back.

To her right, three pairs of digital numbers flash randomly on the wall — 20 and 90, 35 and 15, 5 and 75. Once hanging over the Sleep Number beds, they seem, in this context, disconcertingly like telepathic previews of the judges' scoring.

As he will throughout the day, Goodman explains what happens next: Calls — good news and bad — go out at the end of the week. Like the audition, you can choose any material you want in June, and then you can have an accompanist or a CD.

Riotto, 58, makes motions to leave. She turns.

"That was important," she says of the opportunity to audition. "Thank you very much."

The philosophy

Promotions like Boomer Idol are common in the lives of most malls.

Coastland Center also does a charity event during the holidays and is planning a month-long day promotion in tandem with back-to-school. The latter, along with "Idol," the first new ones they've done in a while.

"We just think it's a fun event for the community to participate in and be a part in," says marketing director Karen Hildebrand.

"There's a such a craze with 'American Idol.' It's hot. We thought it would be a nice way to reach out to the community."

The mall, she adds, is the new downtown; city centers for communities suffering from the fracturing effect of urban sprawl.

"You know, things happen here," she says. Life, she means. Eating. Meeting people. Hanging out. Spending money.

It's a philosophy that likely makes the "very multi-million dollar" cost of renovating the 29-year-old Coastland Center worth it. The project is grounded in the construction of four new restaurants backed by a new wing of stores between Sears and Macy's as well as a general mall renovation. It's expected to be finished in time for the holiday crowds.

Hildebrand and Goodman estimate the cost of Boomer Idol at $12,000-$15,000.

"It's not costly, I don't think," Goodman says to Hildebrand. "I don't think so, do you?"

She shakes her head. "We really want people and around the mall during the redevelopment."

An older man walks up to the check in table where Hildebrand stands. He examines the poster.

"Don't you want to sing?" she teases him. They'd hoped to draw some walk-ins.

"Oh, no, no," he says, moving away like a cat who's gotten its tail caught in the door. "I'm too young."

Hildebrand laughs as he disappears around the corner. "That's funny. Too young."

The heartbreak

A math teacher who performs in local musical theater approaches the judges next. He sings "This Could Be the Start of Something Big," gesturing and moving easily as if just on the verge of dancing.

Afterward, Ardezzone lumbers in.

"He looks like Chris," exclaims Hamilton, the judge. She means Chris Daughtry, a longtime favorite for an "American Idol" win this season. Coincidentally, Daughtry is voted out of the running later that same day.

"There are no Simons on this panel," she assures Ardezzone, the Long Island transplant.

Then he starts, his hands teepeed in front of him as if delivering a Sunday sermon. It's hard to know what to do with your hands when you're used to holding a microphone.

"You're mommy's bright and shining star," he sings, leaning into the judges. "You're the spirit of Christmas, my star on the tree. You're the Easter Bunny to mommy and me."

The hard edges of his speaking voice are gone now, a buffed golden baritone of bygone days swimming through the wedding favorite, "Daddy's Little Girl."

He finishes. Then he tells the judges his story. His dad. His mom. The heartbreak.

When he leaves, the judges talk.

"He's the kind of guy," Goodman concludes, "you put him in a show and he'd be happiest person on Earth."

Everyone nods.

The applause

The day wears on in fits and starts. Four singers in one hour and another five in the next. By late afternoon, two judges have left. Goodman and Hildebrand pinch-hit with Hamilton.

Some who perform can belt them out, but most have untrained voices not quite comfortable with a cappella: Some start in the wrong key and get trapped there; Others waver, gently, around the notes they're looking for. It feels vulnerable and hopeful and scary — like every high school musical you've ever decided not to audition for.

A retired furniture manufacturer from Tennessee sings a jazzy medley of "That Old Feeling" and "Is You Is or Is You Ain't My Baby?" A Fort Myers waitress in work clothes does "Over the Rainbow." A hairdresser at JC Penney works her way through "Stormy Weather."

By 5:15 p.m., the only person — a retired university professor and lead female vocalist for the Music Makers Show Band — was still waiting to audition.

"This is very silly stuff," says Elizabeth Lynn, who admits only to being over 55.

"But this is what I think people should do when they get older," says Lynn. "They should have fun. I worked hard. I had two jobs. I worked since I was a kid."

Then she describes seeing a local children's chorale at work. "If I'd had that chance," she says, "my life would have been different. I've had a good life, but it would have been different." As she talks, a sound escapes the store. It's not exactly musical at first, more like anguish with a long sustain.

It's Dick Bell, a 69-year-old tenor with the 125-voice Philharmonic Center Chorale. It's the beginning of "Summertime," which pours into the mall with all the dark, lazy ease the Gershwins and DuBois Heyward put there.

People stop in the mall. Stop. Some walk out of neighboring stores to find the sound. Others edge closer, peering into the store nervously as if they might stumble into the middle of a police interrogation. A few walk over to the table to ask about the audition.

When it's done, there is applause that spreads into the mall itself. Bell emerges a little later with the shopping bags he and his wife amassed while they waited for his audition slot. He's glowing.

Wife Dottie wanders over to listen to Lynn sing "A Good Man is Hard to Find," a la Sophie Tucker.

"She's got a voice, too," she whispers.

Bell never intended to audition today. He came to hear a friend from the chorale sing. He missed the performance, and then got talked into auditioning. If he's called back, he says, that's fine. If not, that's fine, too. Either way, it's all good.

So he hovers, bags in hand. Not smiling. Waiting.

Another guy at the mall.