Want a Downtown Macy's in Jax? Forget about it!

[JeffreyS]

I do not believe there will be a Macy's in our downtown however if they put one here and did not put anymore in the area it may perform well.  My guess is the other downtown Macy's have suburban Macy's to compete with.

[thelakelander]

^The only thing is, if they only added one at SJTC or Avenues, and added no more to the market, one at those locations would outperform an isolated downtown location.  Since they are in the business to make money, they would easily decide to follow the dollars.

yes...Cincy has Macy's and Saks downtown...howvere, while walking through the Macy's this past summer on a Sunday, I noticed no customers in the store

Yes, I noticed the same thing while walking through the one in downtown St. Louis.  I suspect more downtown closings across the country will be happening as time goes on.

[peestandingup]

I would't worry about Macy's, a downtown mall (that are just like suburban malls) or anything else like that. Downtowns & urban cores should really be concentrating on connecting people, civic improvements, sustainability, quality of life enhancements & smaller local businesses. Let the outlining areas & suburbs suffer when a lot of these big box businesses ultimately fail in light of the new age of internet commerce, 3D printing, etc.

[urbanlibertarian]

I think DT development will be a) destinations that suburbanites will come to regularly and b) housing and some amenities for urbanites.  Most of the retail will be for the urbanites because there's already plenty of that in the burbs.  I expect DT retail development to continue to be what is already happening (convenience stores, dollar stores, restaurants, bars).  Destinations for suburbanites will continue to be entertainment related.  IMO COJ should be facilitating what the private sector wants to do not deciding what is done and how it's done.