Valerie Beaubrun ran track in middle school, high school and as a scholarship athlete at the University of Central Florida, setting records along the way.
The energy and dedication to the sport prepared her for a career with Simon Property Group that led her to the biggest job on her resume to date — general manager of the St. Johns Town Center.
“This is the best of all the malls,” Beaubrun said of her sixth management job since interning and then working as an associate with Simon in Atlanta at the premier Lenox Square and Phipps Plaza.
Beaubrun, 35, took over management at Jacksonville’s biggest-brand regional shopping center in April, becoming its third manager since it opened in 2005.
“This was woods before. To see this now is a testament to Jacksonville. From a Target to a Tiffany,” she said.
The St. Johns Town Center is a lifestyle mall, designed as an outdoor shopping center rather than an enclosed mall where all the stores are under one roof.
Simon Property Group and developer Ben Carter built the center on 240 acres at Butler Boulevard and Gate Parkway. The first phase, which included a Target, opened March 18, 2005.
The second phase, featuring a luxury Tiffany & Co. and an Apple Computer store, opened Oct. 26, 2007, and the third phase, anchored by the area’s first Nordstrom department store, opened Oct. 8-10 this year.
St. Johns Town Center has expanded to more than 150 stores, many exclusive to the market, such as Louis Vuitton, Omega, Michael Kors and Pottery Barn.
Carter sold his interest in the mall in late May to a Deutsche Bank group.
Beaubrun spends part of her days walking the 1.2 million-square-foot shopping and dining center. She checks the property for issues, visits with tenants and talks to customers, asking what they need and want.
What is that? “They ask what we are bringing in for the new phase,” she said, referring to an expected fourth wing that could accommodate another department store.
Beaubrun tells them to watch the performance of the latest Nordstrom wing before expecting one of the other luxury stores, such as Neiman Marcus or Saks.
“If we get the need, we will ask,” she said.
Simon operates more than 300 malls. “We have relationships with these stores,” she said. Yet landing a new store doesn’t happen overnight.
Then there’s the Macy’s department-store chain, which operates throughout Florida but not Jacksonville.
“This is something we are trying to address,” Beaubrun said, who noted that Simon Property Group also has ownership interests in The Avenues mall and the Orange Park Mall.
She said Nordstrom has been very well received at the Town Center, and future stores or additional expansion will be pursued if they can generate success. “Whatever we do next has to make sense.”
Beaubrun also sees synergies Downtown, where she and her husband, human resource executive Gabriel DeBerry, live on the Southbank. They married in September.
Tenants that cannot find space with a Simon center are recommended to consider locations nearby.
“If we don’t have room here, we encourage other areas that are available,” Beaubrun said.
Beaubrun joined Simon after she graduated from the University of Central Florida in 2002 with a degree in business administration and a minor in marketing. She was accepted into the Real Estate Associate Program, a diversity initiative sponsored by several organizations, including Simon. The program provides a year of intensive training.
She accepted an internship in property management with Simon Property in Atlanta. She worked in all the departments — housekeeping, marketing, guest services, operations and security.
She remained on staff as an associate with Lenox Square and Phipps Plaza another 11/2 years before she moved around to manage Simon Property malls in Iowa; Pensacola; Ocala; Kenner, La., near New Orleans; and Coral Springs, her last post before Jacksonville.
Beaubrun, the daughter of immigrants from Haiti, is one of four children. Her parents met in New York, where her two older brothers were born. She and a younger brother were born after the family moved to New Jersey. The family then relocated to South Florida, and Beaubrun completed high school in Cape Coral.
Growing up with three brothers, the oldest just five years her senior and the youngest just a year behind her, forced her to become more athletic, she said. Beaubrun discovered track and field in middle school.
While her brothers might have hung out at the mall, she didn’t. Beaubrun preferred to practice her sport or read.
She doesn’t have time to run a lot these days, instead walking the Town Center. She doesn’t have time to read a lot, either. “Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead” by Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg was the most recent book she read, recommended by her husband.
Beaubrun said she learned the most early in her career in Atlanta, but brings her collective experience to Jacksonville, knowing that customers take ownership of their malls because that’s where they take photos with Santa, buy engagement and wedding rings and attend special events.
Thanksgiving weekend is the start of a shopping center’s busiest holiday shopping season and extended hours.
While individual stores might vary, St. Johns Town Center will open 6 p.m. Thursday through 1 a.m. Friday and reopen at 6 a.m. Friday through 10 p.m.
Some stores posted in their windows they will open at 4 p.m. Thursday. Visitors can check mall hours online at simon.com/mall/st-johns-town-center.
Beaubrun will be there Thursday night, walking the center. And she’ll return early Friday.
“This is the best time to talk to customers.”
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