Regency Mall coming back?

[coredumped]

Good news for regency square mall, 60 new stores coming soon:
http://www.firstcoastnews.com/mb/news/regency-square-mall-new-life-more-stores-in-pipeline/100119596

[TheCat]

International Decor Outlet, the home improvement and decor mall taking over 200,000 square feet of Regency Square Mall, is opening up this summer.

IDO, which will consist of 80 storefronts to connect consumers and contractors directly to manufacturers, will have a soft opening in June and a grand opening in August, said Chief Operating Officer Rhett Farber.

International Decor Outlet's flag flies outside of Regency Square Mall, the location for its new home decor mall, to open in August.

The mall, which will be its second after the Darien mall in Georgia, will feature not just stores, but also some restaurants, including Captain's Catch Seafood Restaurant and Sports Bar, which has already begun its build out and will occupy 5,100 square feet.

Farber said opening in Regency Square Mall was especially attractive to the Jacksonville-based company, which is ramping up employment to between 100 and 200 employees by September.

"What a great location," he said. "This was historically the first location for shopping, when it was the only mall at the time. We really wanted to support growth of Jacksonville."

He added that IDO wants to help revitalize the regency area with its presence.

By creating IDO malls, Farber said, consumers can be connected to higher-quality products at a better rate by purchasing directly from manufacturers that come from across the globe.

Darien and Jacksonville won't be the only locations either, he said.

"We hope to open 200 different mall outlets over the next 10 years," said Farber. "Our headquarters is in Jacksonville, but our Georgia and Florida locations are our first two malls. They're going to serve as prototypes as we're quickly expanding."

Check back tomorrow to read more about IDO's store opening in Jacksonville — and how it's looking to expand even further through an international logistics business.

http://www.bizjournals.com/jacksonville/blog/morning-edition/2016/03/regency-square-malls-future.html

[I-10east]

Hopefully everything works out for the best! I'm very interested to see what kind of stores will be coming.

[RattlerGator]

The Chinese are coming, the Chinese are coming!

Very interesting evolution for Regency Square -- hopefully it works out. Darien is rather close to Jax; I presume that unit is designed to pull the traffic off of I-95 and Regency will be geared more toward the local market.

[river4340]

It's a new concept so it's impossible to know if it will work. But it's a great idea for Regency. It was not going to be filled with traditional retail again.

[thelakelander]

Sort of an outlet mall on side, a mega church, and a traditional mall on the otherside. Then sprinkle in a few traditional anchors and an auto museum into the mix. Definitely hodge podge. It will be interesting to see how everything plays out.

[JimInJax]

We already know how it will work out. Unless you get rid of the hood rats and thugs that hang out there, nothing will change.

[carpnter]

We already know how it will work out. Unless you get rid of the hood rats and thugs that hang out there, nothing will change.

I haven't seen any 'hood rats' or 'thugs' hanging out there.

What are you talking about?  Black kids?

It seems that River City Marketplace and Orange Park Mall have had more problems at their theaters than the Regency has had.  Regency has an undeserved reputation for being unsafe, which I believe started some time after they found that woman in the car there who later turned out to have been killed elsewhere and left at the mall IIRC.

Regency has not had much of a reason for anyone to go there for any extended period of time lately, just go to the store the you plan to visit and leave.

[MusicMan]

My movie loving friend always prefers Regency if given a choice. Have been with him several times and thought it was a great theater.

[thekillingwax]

I haven't seen any 'hood rats' or 'thugs' hanging out there.

What are you talking about?  Black kids?

The same ones my dad complains about, despite not having been to Regency in 20+ years.

[I-10east]

Lets get realistic here (anyone in particular). There was an element of people that brought Regency Square Mall to it's knees. I really don't have to say what race that they were, playing that PC game; you figure it out. Go to Bert Rd and tell me is that area a nice place to raise a family. Is Arlington the same way that it used to be in the 80s and 90s?? The 90s being the last 'decency era' is very common across the US with malls, suburban areas etc. even for Eureka Gardens.

The influx of the hood (yes I said it damn it!!) did more damage than any erecting of RCMP and the SJTC ever could do to Regency. There are plenty of hard working 'persons of color' as liberals like to say, that weren't stealing and robbing, you know, actually being civilized, so of course it's stupid to blame every black person.

If everything was so damn hunky dory there, they wouldn't have to add a police substation. Concerning that theater, I'm not a big movie guy, and if the theater is nice and everything, that's great, I wish the mall was the same. Regency will have to reinvent itself. As someone said earlier, it's days as a traditional mall is long gone. Many big challenges will come forth for Regency. Sorry, I like to fill in the gaps being a realistic, and not catering to people that wanna feel good for the sake of being PC. 

[RattlerGator]

I may have cited it on here before but, what the hell. Chris Rock has a pure genius routine from 20 years ago that I'm sure he has backed away from since he first did it but . . . it was gold then, and it's gold now:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3PJF0YE-x4

It wasn't black kids that truly hurt Regency Square, Stephen, but a certain element of black kids led the charge and encouraged the patron stampede away from that location. Part of it was inevitable, part of it was regrettable. All of it was real.

I applaud these people who are creatively attempting to re-imagine the utilization of that space. They may just have a winning formula.

[thelakelander]

Kids or "an element" were not Regency's downfall. Age, new competition and changing regional demographics were. No kids or anyone from the hood led to the bankruptcy of the Montgomery Wards chain or Dillard's turning their store into a Marshall's or Ross Dress for Less. Nobody in Jax led to the downfall of Sears and JCPenney as chains in today's retail market. In fact, Jax should be proud of Regency's run as a top line center since 1967. Most malls its age, died over a decade or two ago.

[Adam White]

I may have cited it on here before but, what the hell. Chris Rock has a pure genius routine from 20 years ago that I'm sure he has backed away from since he first did it but . . . it was gold then, and it's gold now:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3PJF0YE-x4

It wasn't black kids that truly hurt Regency Square, Stephen, but a certain element of black kids led the charge and encouraged the patron stampede away from that location. Part of it was inevitable, part of it was regrettable. All of it was real.

I applaud these people who are creatively attempting to re-imagine the utilization of that space. They may just have a winning formula.

No they didn't, and thats not what happened.  Wish though you might, It actually happened exactly  as Lake described it.  Regency diluted the real estate market by over building, so that the anchors which might have taken the space in the mall when the economy changed were already in big box stores of their own on the periphery.

It was a simple problem of overextension of the market, combined with under investment once the market changed.

The racist reaction on the part of Mall Management to black kids coming to Regency from the Northside after the Dames Point Bridge only hastened the destruction of the Mall.

If you lived in Duval County and not in Clay County, you might have had a better idea of how it happened.

One of the issues I found with Regency that seemed to hurt it was racism and/or classism. I worked their from 1993 - 1996, right as it was changing. It was also my neighborhood mall growing up.

Once the Dames Point bridge opened, the clientele changed a bit. More black people started shopping there. As did more working class white folks from the North Side. Conveniently, the Avenues Mall had opened a few years earlier and the patrons who were offended by the change in demographics were able to go there instead.

I don't think there was an issue with "thugs" or anything - it was more an issue of perception. I never felt uncomfortable or threatened in the mall. I accept that maybe crime increased there at some point - but that was likely due to the fact that it was basically a ghost town by that point.

My wife worked at the mall to make extra money in the year before we moved away (2006) and it was still fine. Never any real issues.

Edit: Basically, I'm saying that people didn't stop going there because of the crime. People stopped going there first - any crime issues happened later.

[spuwho]

I gave up on Regency Mall in 2005 when I went with my then 13 year old son. We were accosted by the Paul Blarts because he wore his hoodie over his head.

We were told " hoodies are not allowed" and that his head had to be seen at all times.  I was like "Huh?".

I gave up on AMC Regency last year when movie security started wearing open side arms, and they followed me to my car in the parking lot. They sat and watched me back my car out and leave. Doesnt matter the reason why, only that they felt compelled to do so.