by Mike Sharkey
Staff Writer
When Regency Centers moved to Jacksonville in 1981 and bought the building at 121 W. Forsyth St., the company was a growing owner/operator/developer of supermarket-based strip malls. Setting up its corporate headquarters in Jacksonville was one step in establishing itself among the country’s top commercial real estate management and development entities.
Today, the company is the country’s biggest and many of its employees are packing boxes. Regency Centers isn’t moving out of town. Rather, they are moving a few blocks away to Independent Square sometime in the first quarter of next year. With 200 employees, the company has outgrown its space in the Forsyth Street building and the move will allow the company to become more efficient and poised for growth in the future.
“Over the years, we have continued to grow,” said Jim Thompson, the managing director for Regency Centers who also came to Jacksonville in 1981 and oversaw the renovations to the old Atlantic Bank building. “When we moved here, we were just on the second floor and we had 13,000 square feet of space. Today, we take up 75,000 square feet in the whole building.”
However, over the years the growth wasn’t smart from a spatial standpoint.
“We kept taking space in its current configuration and it was not efficient,” said Thompson. “We were running out of room.”
Thompson said the building was purchased in the late 1980s by an offshore company and Regency Centers has been leasing its space since.
Regency Centers will occupy space on four floors in Independent Square — some of the second and all of the 26th and 27th with executive offices occupying part of the 33rd floor. Ironically, the company will relocate to a smaller space — about 70,000 square feet — but it will be better designed and used.
“At the end of the day, there’s less space, but it’s more efficient and built for expansion,” said Thompson. “It was time for a change and the new space is designed for 250 people.”
Although Regency Centers owns and manages hundreds of properties in 22 cities across the United States, it’s probably best known for developing Regency Mall and the 12-story office building behind the mall. In the Southeast, Regency Centers deals primarily with Publix in Florida and Kroger and Publix in Atlanta. Locally, Regency Centers is the property manager/developer of a Publix and Target-based mall in Fleming Island, Anastasia Plaza in St. Augustine and Julington Creek Village.
“Typically, we are the owner/developer for the top two or three grocery stores in the market,” said Thompson.
Overseeing that many properties is certainly a challenge. Thompson said moving just a few blocks won’t be easy, either.
“It’s an extensive program,” he said. “The last four or five months we have been planning the move. IT (info technology) is the biggest challenge. Our computer system here supports the entire country and our other 22 offices. It’s the trickiest part. We scheduled it (the move) so it should be fairly streamlined. It will be a four-day process over a weekend.
“It’s a good opportunity to clean out some file cabinets.”
As of Sept. 30, Regency Centers owned 399 retail properties that encompass 53 million square feet of space. Since 2000, the company has developed 163 shopping centers that represent an investment of $2.4 billion.