Academy Sports + Outdoors, which has three area stores, plans to open a fourth at 9041 Southside Blvd. in the space that formerly housed Circuit City and Linens 'n Things.
An application for a building permit shows a $1.01 million build-out of 78,150 square feet at the shopping center. Target Contractors Inc. is shown as the contractor.
The property owner is Shamrock Land Trust LLC, whose trustee is Property Management Support.
Academy Sports + Outdoors has area stores at 11901 Atlantic Blvd., and 661 Blanding Blvd. in Orange Park. It plans to open a third soon in River City Marketplace in North Jacksonville.
The Texas-based company operates more than 150 stores in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas.
The academy.com site describes Academy Sports + Outdoors as one of the nation's largest sporting goods and outdoor stores. It is owned by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. L.P., a global investment firm, and is led by CEO and President Rodney Faldyn.
Before August 2011, the company was owned by the Gochman family and led by Chairman and CEO David Gochman. David Gochman's grandfather, Max Gochman, started Academy Sports + Outdoors 75 years ago when he opened Academy Tire Shop in 1938 in San Antonio, Texas.
After a few years, Max Gochman began selling military surplus goods and the store evolved into a sports, outdoor and lifestyle retailer selling hunting, fishing and camping equipment and gear along with sports and leisure products, footwear, apparel and more.
Annual sales reached $1 billion in 2004 and $2 billion in 2007 and now exceed $2.7 billion.
Dick's Sporting Goods remodeling for Under Armour
Dick's Sporting Goods wants to remodel the Under Armour section of its St. Johns Town Center store to include new finishes, fitting rooms and the installation of a structure to support a new multimedia billboard.
Plans filed with the City show remodeling of about 2,200 square feet on the first and second floors of the two-story building at 10390 Midtown Parkway.
The dickssportinggoods.com site shows three locations in the area – at St. Johns Town Center, the Orange Park Mall and the new store at River City Marketplace in North Jacksonville.
According to the site, Dick's Sporting Goods Inc., based in Pittsburgh, Pa., was founded in 1948 when 18-year-old Dick Stack was working at an Army surplus store in Binghamton, N.Y.
The site says Stack, an avid fisherman, was approached by the store owner to come up with a list of products needed to enter the fishing tackle business. After Stack presented his suggestions, the owner told him he was a dumb kid and had no idea what he was doing.
Stack promptly quit. He went to his grandmother's house where he spent a lot of time as a child and told her what had happened.
The site says Dick's grandmother asked how much it would cost to build the store himself. He said it would cost $300 and his grandmother went to the cookie jar where she kept her life savings and gave him $300 and told him to "do it yourself."
He opened a bait-and-tackle shop in Binghamton and by 1958 expanded the product line, according to the site.
Ed Stack, Dick's son, is the chairman and CEO. He and his siblings bought the company from their father and are responsible for growing the chain.
The company also owns and operates Golf Galaxy LLC, a golf specialty retailer.
As of Oct. 27, the company operated 511 Dick's Sporting Goods stores in 44 states, 81 Golf Galaxy stores in 30 states and e-commerce websites and catalog operations for Dick's Sporting Goods and Golf Galaxy.
Under Armour is a Baltimore-based developer, marketer and distributor of performance apparel, footwear and accessories.
Its underarmour.com sites says the brand's moisture-wicking fabrications are engineered in designs and styles for wear in nearly every climate and are sold worldwide.
Revenue for 2012 grew 25 percent to $1.835 billion from $1.473 billion in 2011.
Under Armour was founded in 1996 by former University of Maryland football player Kevin Plank.
Office Depot downsizing in Regency
Office Depot's Regency area move appears to be imminent in the wake of the City's approval Thursday of a building permit for the office-supplies chain to renovate a smaller space near its existing store.
The City approved tenant remodeling for 8,078 square feet of space at 9450 Arlington Expressway in Regency Pointe, not far from the 26,000 square feet that Office Depot has been leasing at 9230 Arlington Expressway in Regency Court.
Based on the application, the Daily Record reported in December that Office Depot appears to be downsizing its Regency location from a big box to its smaller concept. The permit application shows a tenant remodeling project to the "2012 Prototype."
Office Depot, based in Boca Raton, has more than 1,100 stores in North America. The NorthJersey.com news website reported last year the Office Depot chain was developing new-format stores that are one-fifth the size of its traditional big-box stores. It quoted company President Kevin Peters saying the big-box format "just doesn't work anymore."
The news site said Office Depot discovered it can shrink store sizes without slashing sales.
OfficeDepot.com shows at least eight Duval County stores. It's unclear what the pending merger of Office Depot and OfficeMax would mean for the move toward smaller stores. OfficeMax has five Jacksonville stores, including one at Regency Plaza at 9756 Atlantic Blvd., not far from the Office Depot.
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