Bass Pro Shops opening in St. Johns County

[jcjohnpaint]

Who said this will be successful?  Everyone said Nocatee would bring down town center and it hasn't done anything of the kind

[thelakelander]

^Give it time. If Durbin Park is successful, it's large enough to easily rival Deerwood Park. As the SJTC and the Southside ages and Northern St. Johns develops out, we'll find out what the ultimate impact will be.

[spuwho]

Evidently, the plan is to develop twice as much new retail square footage as what's in and around SJTC. If they're successful, this area probably becomes the suburban retail district that eventually replaces SJTC as the dominant retail cluster in the region.

The road that has its exit at 795 (Peyton Parkway) will eventually push east through Phase 3 and 4 and link up with Nocatee Parkway. It was originally going to be called Durbin Parkway.

I havent seen any exits planned for Peyton Parkway and I-95 in any plans that have been published, but the Nocatee people would love it I bet.

[Know Growth]

Bass Pro Shops is going to Gainesville without incentives from what I understand.

What is the rationale for extending SR 9B? Gate wanted it through their property?

There was clear hint to this years ago with the Water management District's Twelve Mile Swamp Conservation Lands purchase.....and transfer of development rights to lands northerly of the Conservation project.

[Elwood]

It's going to take a whole lot more than Walmart, Sams Club and Bass Pro to have any real impact on SJTC. A WHOLE LOT more...

[thelakelander]

Phase II is anticipated to be a bigger lifestyle center than SJTC. Any type of significant retail development in Northern St. Johns should draw a good portion of the market demographic SJTC and the Avenues benefit from.

[finehoe]

Ugh, what's the point to this sprawl and abandon cycle we're in here. Jacksonville isn't big enough to support Regency AND sjtc, and now this?

Fare thee well property values....

I think Regency was doomed long before SJTC.  Long before that The Avenues pulled much of the spending away from RS.

Which mall killed the other mall isn't the point.  How many times are we going to build something, use it for a few years, then abandon it for a newer, shinier model up the street? 

[mbwright]

All in the name of PROGRESS!!  More development, more traffic, repeat.  Less water, less conservation...

[fsquid]

Ugh, what's the point to this sprawl and abandon cycle we're in here. Jacksonville isn't big enough to support Regency AND sjtc, and now this?

Fare thee well property values....

I think Regency was doomed long before SJTC.  Long before that The Avenues pulled much of the spending away from RS.

Which mall killed the other mall isn't the point.  How many times are we going to build something, use it for a few years, then abandon it for a newer, shinier model up the street?

As long as someone makes money?

[finehoe]

As long as someone makes money?

You're right.  Unfortunately, externalities rarely figure into the equation.

[Tacachale]

If "Phase 2" gets off the ground, it would probably pull a lot of the St. Johns customer base of the Town Center and Avenues. But it won't compete well for Southside residents, let alone others in Duval, without something seriously changing for those malls and their neighborhoods. It's just too far away and the traffic will only get worse between now and whenever it opens.

The location at this interchange will presumably help it (thanks, Florida sprawl) but it sounds like it will have other disadvantages as well. For one thing, the Town Center was centrally located to very many people in the metro area, and in a greenfields area that was only just starting to grow (and which has continued to boom). The part of St. Johns County this is going in has been growing since almost exactly the same time. It won't have the feel of a "new" area to nearly the extent that the Town Center had, or the Avenues in its day.

St. Johns has the additional disadvantage that proportionately few people work within the county, beyond service sector jobs serving the bedroom suburbs. Tens of thousands of people probably work within 5 miles or so of St. Johns Town Center, which is also true of the Avenues and some now-declining malls. I go to the SJTC more than I wish because it's convenient to my work. I won't go to St. Johns County to shop just as I don't go to other areas that aren't near anything else of use or interest to me. And this part of St. Johns County is particularly poorly positioned for that to change.

All that said, SJTC will probably age poorly, even compared to other local malls like Regency and the Avenues. Its design and layout are simply terrible and will be hard to keep updated. At some point it will be indistinguishable from any other aging group of beige strip malls elsewhere in the metro. While Regency is the current epitome of a dead mall in people's minds, the reality is that it thrived for 30 years, and has hung on for another 20. The Avenues is at 26 years and so far hasn't shown signs of slowing down. I don't really see the SJTC pulling that off. Though I also don't see this proposal being much different or better.

[JBTripper]

Ugh, what's the point to this sprawl and abandon cycle we're in here. Jacksonville isn't big enough to support Regency AND sjtc, and now this?

Fare thee well property values....

It's not sprawl and abandon, it's growth. How much time have you spent in and around this part of St. Johns County? It's exploding with new residential development, which will support Gate's project. The Town Center will continue to draw customers from as far as Arlington, Fort Caroline, the beaches, San Marco and Mandarin, as well as the immediate surrounding area.

There's no reason they can't coexist.

[thelakelander]

If "Phase 2" gets off the ground, it would probably pull a lot of the St. Johns customer base of the Town Center and Avenues. But it won't compete well for Southside residents, let alone others in Duval, without something seriously changing for those malls and their neighborhoods. It's just too far away and the traffic will only get worse between now and whenever it opens.

The location at this interchange will presumably help it (thanks, Florida sprawl) but it sounds like it will have other disadvantages as well. For one thing, the Town Center was centrally located to very many people in the metro area, and in a greenfields area that was only just starting to grow (and which has continued to boom). The part of St. Johns County this is going in has been growing since almost exactly the same time. It won't have the feel of a "new" area to nearly the extent that the Town Center had, or the Avenues in its day.

St. Johns has the additional disadvantage that proportionately few people work within the county, beyond service sector jobs serving the bedroom suburbs. Tens of thousands of people probably work within 5 miles or so of St. Johns Town Center, which is also true of the Avenues and some now-declining malls. I go to the SJTC more than I wish because it's convenient to my work. I won't go to St. Johns County to shop just as I don't go to other areas that aren't near anything else of use or interest to me. And this part of St. Johns County is particularly poorly positioned for that to change.

I'm not sure some of these disadvantages are actually disadvantages. Durbin Plan will cover 1,600 acres at build-out. It will have that new feel because the entire thing is currently undeveloped land on both sides of I-95. The shopping center is just a small portion of it. There's also space for 2.8 million square feet of office use. If fully built out, there's no reason it can't become the next Southpoint or Deerwood Park with a newer (better laid out?) and larger rival to SJTC. In addition the site is positioned to attract consumers from Clay, St. Johns and Flagler (the region's fastest growing areas), as well as still being easily accessible to Jax's newer Southside areas (Jax's fastest growing area).

Here's what I had to say about this project this morning, along with a few renderings of Durbin Park:

http://www.moderncities.com/article/2016-jun-durbin-park-jaxs-next-st-johns-town-center

[Tacachale]

If "Phase 2" gets off the ground, it would probably pull a lot of the St. Johns customer base of the Town Center and Avenues. But it won't compete well for Southside residents, let alone others in Duval, without something seriously changing for those malls and their neighborhoods. It's just too far away and the traffic will only get worse between now and whenever it opens.

The location at this interchange will presumably help it (thanks, Florida sprawl) but it sounds like it will have other disadvantages as well. For one thing, the Town Center was centrally located to very many people in the metro area, and in a greenfields area that was only just starting to grow (and which has continued to boom). The part of St. Johns County this is going in has been growing since almost exactly the same time. It won't have the feel of a "new" area to nearly the extent that the Town Center had, or the Avenues in its day.

St. Johns has the additional disadvantage that proportionately few people work within the county, beyond service sector jobs serving the bedroom suburbs. Tens of thousands of people probably work within 5 miles or so of St. Johns Town Center, which is also true of the Avenues and some now-declining malls. I go to the SJTC more than I wish because it's convenient to my work. I won't go to St. Johns County to shop just as I don't go to other areas that aren't near anything else of use or interest to me. And this part of St. Johns County is particularly poorly positioned for that to change.

I'm not sure some of these disadvantages are actually disadvantages. Durbin Plan will cover 1,600 acres at build-out. It will have that new feel because the entire thing is currently undeveloped land on both sides of I-95. The shopping center is just a small portion of it. There's also space for 2.8 million square feet of office use. If fully built out, there's no reason it can't become the next Southpoint or Deerwood Park with a newer (better laid out?) and larger rival to SJTC. In addition the site is positioned to attract consumers from Clay, St. Johns and Flagler (the region's fastest growing areas), as well as still being easily accessible to Jax's newer Southside areas (Jax's fastest growing area).

Here's what I had to say about this project this morning, along with a few renderings of Durbin Park:

http://www.moderncities.com/article/2016-jun-durbin-park-jaxs-next-st-johns-town-center

The development itself will be new. That part of St. Johns County is growing apace with the part of Southside where the Town Center is. Especially by the time it's completed, it won't be the new commodity in the way the Town Center/Gate Parkway area was when the mall was built there. SJTC anticipated the trend, this one's just kind of going along with what's been happening for 20 years. I'm sure it will easier to attract people from St. Johns, maybe Clay and Flagler, and will hurt Southside retailers. It would be interesting to compare the population and employer density of the two areas.

As for the office space, I guess we'll see. Nocatee hasn't been successful in that regard beyond snagging a few relocations that were already in the metro area. Color me skeptical. Perhaps it will eventually be easier as so much of the region's middle and upper-middle class settles in (and for) St. Johns County. But currently, I don't think St. Johns even knows what to do to successfully incentive that kind of development. Even this development seems to have been partly driven by JAXUSA, which is a wing of the Jax Chamber of Commerce and obviously Duval based. As a former resident, my feeling is that St. Johns will remain a bedroom suburb for the foreseeable future.

I wouldn't count on any development in St. Johns County, Florida being having a good layout. But the bad layout hasn't hurt SJTC, yet.

[Gators312]

^Not sure what SJC is throwing in but indirectly, they're getting an interstate extended through the property with their own interchange...all paid with public money.....

Yet some here insist that projects like 9B and the FCE (Outer Beltway) aren't driven by large landowners and their connections within our State and Local Govts.