Businesses flee Regency Square Mall without AC

[marcuscnelson]

I don't think sprawling by itself has anything to do with it. The land area of the city has little to do with its ability to plan, especially when so much of that land area is still rural open space, there is just a lack of desire by those in charge to do any planning. I stressed in this thread more than a year ago the need for and value in better planning redeveloping here. Even Downtown, with its wedding cake of stakeholders, people like lakelander have been beating this drum for years to relatively little effect. We can't even get Laura Street where it could easily be, much less Regency Square.

We can't rely on hoping that every developer will be Gateway Jax or else the project might as well be in St. Johns County.

[CityLife]

I don't think sprawling by itself has anything to do with it. The land area of the city has little to do with its ability to plan, especially when so much of that land area is still rural open space, there is just a lack of desire by those in charge to do any planning. I stressed in this thread more than a year ago the need for and value in better planning redeveloping here. Even Downtown, with its wedding cake of stakeholders, people like lakelander have been beating this drum for years to relatively little effect. We can't even get Laura Street where it could easily be, much less Regency Square.

We can't rely on hoping that every developer will be Gateway Jax or else the project might as well be in St. Johns County.

Jacksonville's government is effectively a county government, not a city government. For people that work in planning and development in Florida, it is well known that at the county level of planning, there is very little effort at creating special places. Hence why places like unincorporated Orange, Hillsborough, Broward, Palm Beach Counties and so on are just hodgepodges of sprawl. There is zero sense of place and limited desire/capability to change that. While Jax hasn't succeeded with it's Downtown development planning (which is a whole different story), it doesn't even try to do any real planning outside of Downtown.

Jacksonville has 19 City Council people all covering different districts over a massive land mass. The edge of Council District 12 (SW Side) is closer to the University of Florida than it is to the edge of District 2 (NE Side). The edge of District 11 (Nocatee) is closer to Castillo San Marcos than it is to Regency. The edge of District 14 (Oakleaf) is closer to Camp Blanding/Kingsley Lake than it is to Regency. You get the point.  Similarly, at the staff level, you have a Planning Department that is focused on managing growth in a massive sprawling area. They do not have the time or capability to focus on retrofitting existing areas, when they are stretched so thin.  With 19 Council people to answer to and so many different neighborhoods to cover, it's difficult to prioritize certain areas over others, so we're just left with a hodgepodge of crap, just like other unincorporated Counties around Florida.

I'm sure there are a lot of ways to resolve this issue, but one low hanging fruit that I've said in other threads before is to create Deputy Planning Directors in each of the 6 CPAC Districts and possibly even divide the junior staffers up to work under each of them. At the staff level, this would at least create a much stronger understanding of certain sides of town and have someone to hold accountable when the ball gets dropped.

[Papa33]

Sporting Jax's wish to build its soccer "stadium" in the Regency Sears parking lot?  Dead?

[copperfiend]

The soccer stadium idea was on the Sears side of the property, separate owner from this side of the mall.

[thelakelander]

I'm sure there are a lot of ways to resolve this issue, but one low hanging fruit that I've said in other threads before is to create Deputy Planning Directors in each of the 6 CPAC Districts and possibly even divide the junior staffers up to work under each of them. At the staff level, this would at least create a much stronger understanding of certain sides of town and have someone to hold accountable when the ball gets dropped.

I'm working with a few urban core neighborhoods. These places have gotten to the point, to where they are attempting to do their own visioning, planning and looking into zoning overlays to address their specific issues, challenges and opportunities. While it would be great if COJ overhauled its overall operation, our reality if places sit around and wait for that date, some of them won't be be around.

[Tacachale]

The administration is working through a couple of significant planning items right now, but the nearer-term bills focus on residential (especially affordability, missing middle housing, resiliency, etc) as that's the biggest issue right now. But regardless of how that goes it would be a while before we get to anything that would impact a project like this, so this kind of thing will continue to be up to the owners.

[jaxlongtimer]

On NPR's Fresh Air today, a Wharton professor discussed that the answer to more affordable housing is higher density buildings replacing lower density ones, mainly in urban-suburban areas.  He gave an example of a one story McDonalds replaced by a multi-story building with the McDonalds returning on the first floor.  He noted that Tokyo is a model for building "affordable" housing in a major city with its countless high rises.

Here is a link to the broadcast: 

Fresh Air: The U.S. is facing a severe housing shortage. Will Trump's proposals help?

https://www.npr.org/programs/fresh-air/

Here is a link to the transcript: 

https://www.npr.org/transcripts/nx-s1-5223561

Below is an interesting comment from the transcript.  Of course, Jax is focused on the go-nowhere U2C rather than using public transit to support greater density over the wider urban core and its suburbs.  And we wonder why developers are not pushing harder to build more density in or around downtown or anywhere else vs. the far-out suburbs.  Just defies common sense.

...Again, this isn't about building skyscrapers on every corner. It's about sensible densification, especially around transit, where we can reduce dependence on cars. And so this is relaxing single-family zoning and lot sizes, so allowing for things like duplexes or four-unit, very small multifamily developments. This is related to parking requirements and some of the other things that might be required in an apartment building that take up a lot of additional space where units would otherwise be useful.

So there's a number of things along those lines that I think, when combined with transit-oriented development - so developing near where public transit is available - can greatly relax some of these affordability constraints...

[thelakelander]

A gas station and fast food drive thru are the two new uses for a reimagined Regency mall site...

Raising Cane's shown on site plan for Regency Square Mall outparcel
The chicken fingers chain is the second new retailer indicated for a potentially redeveloped Arlington shopping center property.

https://www.jaxdailyrecord.com/news/2025/jan/29/raising-canes-shown-on-site-plan-for-regency-square-mall-outparcel/

[Jones518]

A gas station and fast food drive thru are the two new uses for a reimagined Regency mall site...

Raising Cane's shown on site plan for Regency Square Mall outparcel
The chicken fingers chain is the second new retailer indicated for a potentially redeveloped Arlington shopping center property.

https://www.jaxdailyrecord.com/news/2025/jan/29/raising-canes-shown-on-site-plan-for-regency-square-mall-outparcel/

Cool! Raising Cane is nice, but I wish we could get a Cookout here in Jax!

[jaxlongtimer]

It appears from the attached site plan that demolition of at least a portion of the mall would need to be imminent for access to this site to be properly functional.  Will be interesting to see the timeline here.

[Charles Hunter]

At least the Raising Cane will be convenient to the JTA bus transfer site.

[Jax_Developer]

They are going to sell or ground lease all of the planned outparcels. Then, demolish the remaining portion of the mall they own for an apartment site(s) & big box retailer. It's by far the easiest & highest ROI plan. The site is easily worth $10M+ with that strategy in play. The way they get around the megachurch is by adding in a road diet that makes it functional in it's location, with a big box retailer adjacent to it. You'll notice the outparcels stop entirely once you reach the Mega Church parking lot. Likely some easement in play which makes a big box retailer an attractive option for that space.

[Charles Hunter]

They are going to sell or ground lease all of the planned outparcels. Then, demolish the remaining portion of the mall they own for an apartment site(s) & big box retailer. It's by far the easiest & highest ROI plan. The site is easily worth $10M+ with that strategy in play. The way they get around the megachurch is by adding in a road diet that makes it functional in it's location, with a big box retailer adjacent to it. You'll notice the outparcels stop entirely once you reach the Mega Church parking lot. Likely some easement in play which makes a big box retailer an attractive option for that space. [/b[

(Part of) the reason the outparcels do not continue west of the current main entrance (at Atlantic Blvd) is the JTA's bus transfer facility takes up the first 500 feet or so of the ring road. This takes it a little farther west than the limit of Impact Church building.

[Jax_Developer]

They are going to sell or ground lease all of the planned outparcels. Then, demolish the remaining portion of the mall they own for an apartment site(s) & big box retailer. It's by far the easiest & highest ROI plan. The site is easily worth $10M+ with that strategy in play. The way they get around the megachurch is by adding in a road diet that makes it functional in it's location, with a big box retailer adjacent to it. You'll notice the outparcels stop entirely once you reach the Mega Church parking lot. Likely some easement in play which makes a big box retailer an attractive option for that space. [/b[

(Part of) the reason the outparcels do not continue west of the current main entrance (at Atlantic Blvd) is the JTA's bus transfer facility takes up the first 500 feet or so of the ring road. This takes it a little farther west than the limit of Impact Church building.

Yes but they could continue outparcels on the other side of the JTA station & they chose not to (for now). I believe that's not a coincidence & there's some easement that prevents that. Likely something to do with the existing Mega Church & Sears. Not a fact as I haven't seen any surveys.

[Joey Mackey]

Raising Cains is amazing, I'm excited I won't have to drive all the way down to Argyle Forest to enjoy a Caniac combo