Luxury fashion retailer Nordstrom opened at Jacksonville’s St. Johns Town Center just five months before the regional mall’s 10-year anniversary this month.
It would be an almost poetic conclusion to the decade.
When Ben Carter first envisioned the Town Center in 1999, it was Nordstrom that had inspired it.
The Atlanta-based retail developer had just completed a Nordstrom deal at the Mall of Georgia, a 200-store regional center, 30 miles northeast of Atlanta. Talking with the head of real estate, Carter learned Jacksonville was a market the company was interested in.
“It’s the original reason I put the site under contract,” Carter said.
Between that day and now would come the 9/11 terrorist attacks that stymied retail, the Great Recession that stalled housing and a nationwide decline in malls so profound that no new enclosed malls have been built since 2006.
But the St. Johns Town Center managed to grow, drawing retail giants like Dillard’s, Barnes & Noble, The Cheesecake Factory, Coach and Louis Vuitton.
With its 1.41 million square feet of retail, it has transformed what was once a suburban neighborhood with office parks, strip malls and garden apartments into a second Jacksonville Downtown, covering any need from Target to Tiffany.
From cattle and hunting to retail and restaurants
When Butler Boulevard — where St. Johns Town Center lies — opened its first stretch in 1979, the highway saw little activity. It was cattle-grazing territory, Skinner family hunting grounds and sand dunes, a legacy of mining from decades earlier. Locals called the corridor “the road to nowhere.”
The Department of Transportation eventually eliminated the highway’s toll booths and the Southside’s office parks began to take shape.
From the beginning, it was an employment center and the area supported several suburban-style apartment complexes.
The St. Joe Co. would build two of the area’s few single-family home communities, Hampton Park and later, James Island.
“They were two of the few pieces that were zoned for single-family housing.” said Rose Bock, sales manager for St. Joe at the time. “Everything else was for multifamily.”
In 1999, when the St. Johns Town Center was conceived, Deerwood Park was already established and Merrill Lynch and Florida Blue were located on the Southside.
It drew a lot of daytime employment, but there was nowhere besides work to go. There was Tinseltown and The Avenues, but no equivalent to today’s Town Center where people could eat lunch and shop.
Selecting developer for key piece of property
Commercial developer A.C. “Chip” Skinner III of Skinner Bros. Realty Co. was among a group of relatives who collectively sold property from the family’s holdings for the Town Center.
As landholders of surrounding property, they thought carefully before choosing a developer.
The Rouse Co. and Ben Carter Properties had approached them, wanting to build a regional mall on land at the intersection of Interstate 295 and Butler Boulevard.
Carter didn’t live in Northeast Florida, but he owned a home in Ponte Vedra and had been vacationing there for years.
Also, he had a development partner who had grown up in Jacksonville.
“Ben impressed us with having a familiarity of the marketplace,” Skinner said. “He had a real vision for what could be done there.”
Carter pursued the project as a joint venture with Simon Property Group, the country’s largest real estate investment trust.
The two companies had teamed up before to build the Mall of Georgia.
The developers believed the Town Center could bring upscale retailers to Jacksonville.
Of the population growth in Jacksonville from 1995-2005, more than half came from households with incomes of $75,000 and higher. It’s the income level that better retailers want.
The Butler corridor was anchored by Ponte Vedra and Jacksonville Beach to the east — ZIP codes with the highest household incomes in the state. It was a lot of disposable income that wasn’t shopping in Jacksonville.
Also, Ponte Vedra was nearing build-out and single-family golf-course communities were heading west.
The Town Center would be closer to new upscale developments along Kernan Boulevard and Pablo Creek Road than The Avenues mall farther west.
But it was the location, at the intersection of I-295 (then called Florida 9A) and Butler Boulevard, that uniquely caught Carter’s attention.
“What a lot of folks really didn’t focus on was that 9A was going to eventually become a perimeter highway,” Carter said.
It would reach the northern and southern areas of Jacksonville, as well as make access easier for people coming from Savannah or St. Augustine.
There really wasn’t a great mall in Daytona Beach, Carter thought. There really wasn’t a great mall in Jacksonville, either.
“We saw that if we put together a project of size, variety and quality, in terms of retailers and restaurants, people would probably drive there on weekends,” he said.
A change in direction after 9/11 attacks
Carter put the property under contract and began talks with Jacobson’s, a local fashion department store. Lord & Taylor was interested, and there were conversations with both Dillard’s and Burdines, a Florida department chain.
Then 9/11 hit.
The country was reeling and retail sales plummeted. Jacobson’s and Lord & Taylor both went bankrupt.
That’s when stores like Target, Ross Dress for Less and PetSmart became part of the plan.
“To Ben’s credit, instead of abandoning the project, he just re-configured it,” said Skinner. “He came up with the idea of having the north side of the project be big box stores and having the south side as more of a high-end product.”
The work resumed.
The developers finalized contracts with Dillard’s, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Barnes & Noble, Maggiano’s Little Italy, P.F. Chang’s and The Cheesecake Factory. In 2005, the first phase of the Town Center opened.
More than a third of its retailers and restaurants were new to the market and planned to open only one store. It distinguished the Town Center from the other malls.
That contributed to retailers like Williams-Sonoma, Pottery Barn and Banana Republic signing on, Carter said.
The mall is what Carter calls a “super-regional” center. Not only did the Town Center succeed, its success reverberated.
“It’s changed that way retailers look at Jacksonville,” said Kate Clifford, a real estate broker who specializes in retail and office.
Today, the list of offerings at the St. Johns Town Center is like a menu of every major retail tenant in the North Florida market.
“They come into Jacksonville, and before they go someplace else, they’ve got to look at Town Center and decide, ‘Can I go here?’” Clifford said. “’And, if I go here, can I eliminate having to go to some other submarkets?’”
Toys “R” Us and Babies “R” Us opened a superstore at The Markets at Town Center, then closed other stores at other locations. So did West Marine.
Restaurants like Cheesecake Factory and P.F. Chang’s that needed $6 million to $10 million in annual sales had a place in Jacksonville where they could comfortably count on drawing enough business.
Bolstering the areas around the Town Center
The Town Center also accelerated retail development along Southside Boulevard, Clifford said. Tenants who couldn’t find the space they wanted or didn’t want to pay Town Center rates moved to the periphery and benefited from Town Center traffic.
Nearby, apartment development also grew.
The Southside had been the go-to place for new apartment projects since the 1980s and the emergence of job centers like Deerwood Park in the 1990s accelerated that.
The Town Center, though, would usher in a different kind of product, said Steve Lear, principal with Walchle Lear Multifamily Advisors.
Instead of standard two- and three-story garden apartments, complexes that were four and five stories high came with structured parking, interior hallways and elevators. Several, like The Uptown at St. Johns and Five Thousand Town, were also highly amenitized, with fitness centers, game rooms, piano bars and pet washing stations.
It was an evolution already happening within the industry, Lear said. But the St. Johns Town Center helped create a location in Jacksonville where developers felt comfortable building those higher-rent products.
“What the Town Center did was create a synergy that gave the Southside a truer identity,” he said. “It became a real live-work-play area — an entertainment shopping district that didn’t exist before.”
Surpassing Carter’s own expectations
That synergy is due to more than just exclusive retailers and mixed uses.
From the start Carter wanted a design that would be different. Its predecessor, the Mall of Georgia, also had exclusive stores and restaurants. For his next project, Carter wanted to take the roof off.
“If you think about it, America is very unique in that our shopping venues are in enclosed malls,” Carter said. “The greatest shopping places around the world are streets and urban areas.”
The idea drew resistance from retailers.
“They asked, ‘What happens when it rains? What happens when it’s really hot or really cold?’” Carter said.
The open-air mall with an urban-style land plan is now a concept that’s been duplicated across the country.
In June, Carter sold his stake in the Town Center to Deutsche Asset & Wealth Management’s real estate investment group.
Carter declined to give the price, but at the time described the center as a “trophy asset” for his company. Published reports said it went for more than $375 million.
Today, the Town Center –– with its more than 170 stores and restaurants, 119-room hotel, condominiums and two mid-rise apartment complexes –– has emerged as the region’s major shopping draw.
“To be honest it probably exceeded my expectations in terms of its success,” Carter said. “But then again, that’s what you hope for.”
(904) 356-2466