Kentucky-based Shady Rays appears to be one of newest tenants coming to St. Johns Town Center.
The city is reviewing a permit application for Shady Rays to build-out about 907 square feet at 10281 Midtown Parkway, Unit 197, which is next to Great American Cookies and Marble Slab Creamery in the traffic circle that winds around Maggiano’s Little Italy.
Ryzec Building Group LLC of Franklin, Tennessee, is listed as the contractor for the estimated $279,000 project.
Shady Rays sells polarized sunglasses for men, women and children. It says the products are “built for adventure” and are backed by its “lost and broken program.”
“We’ll send you a new pair. Just like that. And since we launched in 2012, we’ve stood behind that promise over 1.5 million times,” the ShadyRays.com website says.
Founder and CEO Chris Ratterman, a Louisville native, founded the company in 2012 to provide durable, polarized sunglasses built for high visibility.
The site shows eight stores in six states, with no other sites in Florida.
The website shows two locations each in Kentucky and Tennessee, and one each in Arizona, Colorado, Indiana and Minnesota.
The products also are sold at the Shady Rays website, on Amazon.com and at some retailers.
In February 2024, Shady Rays opened its new corporate headquarters and fulfillment and distribution warehouse in Simpsonville, Kentucky, near Louisville.
The project consists of a 69,000-square-foot fulfillment and distribution center and a 6,000-square-foot corporate headquarters. It almost tripled the size of the previous footprint to allow Shady Rays to “fill significantly more orders and meet growing customer demand across the United States and around the world,” said a news release at the time.
Shady Rays also offers prescription sunglasses.
The company says its sunglasses are designed in the U.S. and custom-manufactured in China. Prescription lenses are produced in its Kentucky facilities.
The St. Johns Town Center space in review matches the address for Lids, which sells official hats, gear and merchandise for college and pro teams.
An associate there was unaware May 16 of any plans for Shady Rays.
The space on the building plans also refer to it as unit D07.
Landlord Simon Property Group often rearranges tenant spaces.