The closed West Elm furniture store building at St. Johns Town Center is in review for demolition.
Simon Property Group applied to the city for a permit to demolish the 12,787-square-foot building at a project cost of $394,500.
The building is at 10274 Buckhead Branch Drive, No. 101.
VCC LLC of Little Rock, Arkansas, is the contractor for the project.
Fox Design Group of Twinsburg, Ohio, is the architect.
The work will be performed to maintain existing utility connections for future construction.
St. Johns Town Center, at northwest Butler Boulevard and Interstate 295, is considered the primary central retail shopping center of Northeast Florida and includes retailers from discount to luxury, such as Gucci, Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Tiffany and Nordstrom.
The West Elm demolition appears to match plans Simon Property Group filed in August 2019, several months before the March 2020 pandemic shutdown, for a fourth phase at St. Johns Town Center.
The fourth phase was designed among four parcels.
Two of those are built – RH Jacksonville, formerly called Restoration Hardware, and the AC Hotels by Marriott.
Another was a proposed 600-seat theater.
The fourth, Parcel 4, was a 15,300-square-foot addition to a 14,700-square-foot building near Nordstrom.
The West Elm building demolition is in the location of Parcel 4.
The 207-acre St. Johns Town Center opened in 2005 with many well-known retailers already represented in the market, including a prototype Dillard’s department store, and the area’s first Apple store.
The initial phase included Target, Staples and Ashley Furniture HomeStore. Staples has closed and was replaced with Marshalls.
It added a second phase in 2007, just before the 2007-09 recession. That phase brought in upscale retailers, like Tiffany & Co., Louis Vuitton and Coach. West Elm was in that phase.
Seattle-based Nordstrom opened a two-level, 124,000-square-foot department store in October 2014 as the anchor of the third phase.
