Bass Pro Shops opening in St. Johns County

[fsujax]

Looks like Bass Pro Shop is finally going to open in Jacksonville. In St Johns County at the planned interchange of 9B and I-95. According to a facebook post from the Daily Record. No link to a story yet on their website.

link to story: http://www.jaxdailyrecord.com/showstory.php?Story_id=538337

[Tacachale]

Your tax dollars at work.

[fsujax]

St Johns County tax dollars! haha. I am curious to find out how much they paid them to open there.

[tufsu1]

depending on where exactly it would be in relation to the interchange, it might in fact be in Duval County

[fsujax]

Karen Brune Mathis post said St Johns County on land owned by Gate.

[Ocklawaha]

Damn shame that NOBODY in the City Hall was on the ball enough to sell both IKEA and BASS PRO on the Shipyards site. Both companies have waterfront models and it would have sent a tremor of new development through downtown.

No matter how much one likes or dislikes the outdoors or sporting life style, their stores are pretty incredible. Bass Pro will hire several hundred people and the store itself should be upwards of 150,000 square feet. Let's just hope that here in the Redneck Riviera, they don't short sell us and open one of their 'Wide World Sportsman,' 'Sportsman Center,' or 'Sportsman Warehouse,' locations which are much smaller and average around 50,000-80,000 square feet each.

With some big shakeups at Cole Haan and Nike this could be good news for those in the retail industry. Cole Haan was sold and greeted their Orlando employees this morning with 'This is your last day, we're closed.'

[fsquid]

Bass Pro is opening one up in the old Pyramid Arena in Memphis.

I think the planned interchange of I-95 and 9b is in Duval.  Race Track Road basically runs on the county line and the interchange is north of there.

[tufsu1]

Damn shame that NOBODY in the City Hall was on the ball enough to sell both IKEA and BASS PRO on the Shipyards site.

that was so never going to happen...nor should it have....I can't think of a worse land use for the river downtown than big biox stores

[spuwho]

Damn shame that NOBODY in the City Hall was on the ball enough to sell both IKEA and BASS PRO on the Shipyards site.

that was so never going to happen...nor should it have....I can't think of a worse land use for the river downtown than big biox stores

IKEA and BassPro are what are called "destination shopping" locales. Meaning people go there because of who they are, not necessarily out of convenience.

Not sure what Ock was thinking, but if one wanted to place this downtown, it would be (IMHO) to get more people circulating in the central business district.

A Big Box store format wouldn't be appropriate perhaps, but there have been urban adaptations of big box stores that have been very successful elsewhere.

If a developer came to me with a IKEA proposal with a urban style large format retail for downtown, I would jump on it.

[Tacachale]

Damn shame that NOBODY in the City Hall was on the ball enough to sell both IKEA and BASS PRO on the Shipyards site.

that was so never going to happen...nor should it have....I can't think of a worse land use for the river downtown than big biox stores

IKEA and BassPro are what are called "destination shopping" locales. Meaning people go there because of who they are, not necessarily out of convenience.

Not sure what Ock was thinking, but if one wanted to place this downtown, it would be (IMHO) to get more people circulating in the central business district.

A Big Box store format wouldn't be appropriate perhaps, but there have been urban adaptations of big box stores that have been very successful elsewhere.

If a developer came to me with a IKEA proposal with a urban style large format retail for downtown, I would jump on it.

Bass Pro Shops claims they're "what are called 'destination shopping' locales", and then demands a ton of incentives for the privilege of opening in your city. I don't think anyone's ever demonstrated their stores are worth the cost in and of themselves. I tend to agree with tufsu that a big box store would be a terrible use for waterfront property downtown, especially if we have to pay out to get it. I'd be surprised if they hadn't had incentives talks with Jax already; they clearly want to open here.

IKEA, on the other hand, open up where they want to, but they have stringent site selection criteria they tend not to vary from, and evidently Jax doesn't meet them. Another dead end on that one.

[Tacachale]

Looks like it's definitely in St. Johns County.

"We were all encouraged by the long-awaited 9B/I-95 interchange being awarded this past August by the FDOT," says St. Johns County Commissioner Cyndi Stevenson.

"Information about county or state assistance for the development was not immediately available," says the Daily Record.

Go figure.

http://www.jaxdailyrecord.com/showstory.php?Story_id=538337&searchtext=\

[spuwho]

Looks like it's definitely in St. Johns County.

"We were all encouraged by the long-awaited 9B/I-95 interchange being awarded this past August by the FDOT," says St. Johns County Commissioner Cyndi Stevenson.

"Information about county or state assistance for the development was not immediately available," says the Daily Record.

Go figure.

http://www.jaxdailyrecord.com/showstory.php?Story_id=538337&searchtext=\

The I-795/I-95 planned interchange is still on the Duval side of the line. If this is St John's County, then it would have to be where 9B was supposed to do a loop back on the St Johns side of Race Track Road.

[Charles Hunter]

I am confused, the 9B/I-95 interchange won't have any access to local streets - so building a store "at" the interchange makes no sense to me.  Perhaps, as part of their incentives, St. Johns County is going to extend 9B down to Racetrack Road?

[fsquid]

just saw it hit the action news site.  still don't see how it can be in st Johan if they are talking about this intersection

[duvaldude08]

Well If they want to build this in the middle of now where then thats their lost.