Regency area loses stores amid recession, retail shifts

[thelakelander]

Bankruptcies and flight to St. Johns Town Center have hit the area hard.

By Kevin Turner Story updated at 1:50 AM on Sunday, May. 3, 2009

The usual trickle of storefront turnover among the clusters of shopping centers surrounding Arlington's Regency Square mall has swelled into a wave over the past several months.

Coggin Pontiac, Barnes & Noble, Sound Advice, Toys "R" Us, Babies "R" Us, Circuit City and Linens 'N Things are gone, and for a variety of reasons.

Three - Circuit City, Linens 'N Things and Sound Advice - were part of national retail chains that folded. Four stores moved elsewhere - Barnes & Noble and the "R" Us stores moved to the St. Johns Town Center about 7 miles to the south, Coggin consolidated into an Orange Park dealership. Two chain-owned restaurants, Smokey Bones and Bennigan's, also pulled out of the area.

Some say St. Johns Town Center, the city's current hot retail hub, is drawing business away from the Regency Square area like the mall itself did to the downtown shopping district after it opened in 1967. Some suggest a sweeping redevelopment that would modernize it and possibly rebuild the mall at its core.

Others disagree, saying the chain store losses don't say a thing about the Regency area. They say the present is good there and the future is bright.

Peter Litsky owns Army Navy Outdoors on Monument Road, directly across from Regency Square mall, and has seen the area through 17 years. He said Arlington's main retail area is strong because it straddles busy arterial roads.

"I don't want to feel I'm in a deserted area, and I don't," he said. "I don't think these stores will be vacant for long. The stores that went out of business weren't doing things right in a good economy."

Cappy MacPherson works for VAL-Uvision just south of Regency Square mall and in a shop in the mall. She's worked in the Regency area in various retail jobs for the past 19 years and says she thinks it's the downturn, not competition from St. Johns Town Center, that's causing area stores to close or move. MacPherson said when people see Arlington's newly empty stores, they may conclude the retail area is dying, but that isn't the case.

"The big boys don't have the control. They're controlled by the economy," she said. "If the independents can hang on, we'll be fine.

"All people know is what they see, and perception is reality. But this is going on everywhere."

Business is good at the VAL-Uvision too, said co-worker Janet Crowder, a front desk manager there.

Jacksonville City Councilman Bill Bishop, who represents a segment of the Regency area, said the soured economy has accelerated what was already happening in and around Regency Square.

"Regency has been declining for years. I don't think there's any question Town Center's development has taken a lot of business. Especially in this climate. There's a lot of consolidation - I don't think that's indicative of Arlington per se, but the climate of retail and how retailers think," he said.

The first key to the Regency area's turnaround would be an improvement in the economy, Bishop said. But the next would be to re-invigorate the mall at the shopping district's nucleus.

"All things being equal, long-term, the mall is a redevelopment candidate," he said. "It is, in a sense, a 1960s version of a regional enclosed mall. It probably needs to be opened up. There is a tremendous waste of land in the parking around it."

He said recent retail planning has gone away from box stores in a "sea of asphalt," and noted that in some cities, enclosed malls were transformed into open-air shopping centers. From there, he said, there are many improvements that can be done - from landscaping to layout to design.

Lad Hawkins, president of the Greater Arlington Civic Council, agrees. Regency should be more friendly to outdoor walking and should have more mixed-use offerings, he said. He suggested a layout in which various uses surround a "town square" setting.

"I think what needs to happen is that whole area needs an overlay put on it. It needs to be re-planned," he said. "Shopping centers kind of have a life expectancy and they become dinosaurs. They need to be reinvented. From a planning standpoint, mixed-use is the way of the future."

Ellen Davis, spokeswoman for the National Retail Federation, said what's happening at Regency is happening nationwide. With a trend away from enclosed malls, other shopping centers have been soaking up attention - and foot traffic - in recent years, she said. But it also could represent a shift in population, she said.

"This is about retailers wanting to go where the customers are," she said. "Where customers are has been changing."

One of those shifts has been a trend back to shopping areas where each store has outside doors - like the St. Johns Town Center and River City Marketplace on the Northside - instead of being at the mercy of an enclosed mall. Davis said these projects are called "lifestyle centers," and recent studies show that more retailers are moving toward building free-standing stores and in these centers and are moving away from malls and outlet centers.

"A retailer who goes from a mall to a freestanding location may be doing it for business issues, or they think they have a strong enough brand they can do it on their own," she said.

That, coupled with a very weak economy, adds up to challenges for malls and the areas around them - retail centers thought for decades to be impervious, she said.

"It's a tough situation," she said. "I can empathize with the difficulty of the mall environments," she said.

The owner of Regency Square mall, Chicago-based General Growth Properties, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last month, which could lead to changes there.

But, for Litsky, business is good at Army Navy Outdoors. He said that's because he, like some other Regency-area independents, has specialized his offerings. He said Regency's future holds a renaissance for such mom-and-pop shops as the trend toward large "big box" stores that have dominated retail for years reverses itself.

"The independent stores are surviving. They're doing fine," he said. "The department store model doesn't work anymore. Back to specialization. I think we're going to see a shift in retail in this country."

http://www.jacksonville.com/business/2009-05-03/story/regency_area_loses_stores_amid_recession_retail_shifts

[TheProfessor]

It seems like they are reporting on old news...Arlington will reemerge in time.  Give it 15 years when the Southside collapses.  There is too much riverfront property there and valuable land, look at Queens Harbor.

[thelakelander]

I think Arlington will be fine, but what to do with Regency is a completely different issue.

Regency has been in decline for at least a decade.  This story has been played out time and time again.  Colonial Mall (Orlando), Winter Park Mall, Winter Haven Mall, Southwyck Mall (Toledo), The Mall at 163rd Street (North Miami Beach), Tampa Bay Center, Eastlake Square Mall (Tampa), Floriland Mall (Tampa), Northwood Mall (Tallahassee), Clearwater Mall, Tallahassee Mall, etc.  With the regional retail game if you don't evolve and stay on top of the trends you die.  Regency is obsolete and if that issue isn't resolved, it will not matter what direction the area around it takes.  It will still die.  Quite frankly, considering its age, I'm suprised its lasted this long.

[Charles Hunter]

JaxPride hosted a charrette on Regency last fall.  The report is not on the JaxPride website (like almost all of their reports are), but Google found it:
[PDF]
AIA 150 AIA Jacksonville- Neighborhood Charrette Doc Final 12-21 ...
File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - View as HTML
The charrette study area, as shown on the study area map also encompasses those areas im- mediately adjacent to the existing Regency Square Mall including ...
www.jaxpride.org/charettes/AIA%20150%20AIA%20Jacksonville-%20Neighborhood%20Charrette%20Doc%20Final%2012-21-07.pdf

I think that link will go to the 27 page pdf.  They came up with some interesting ideas, with the consensus plan busting up the existing enclosed mall into smaller retail areas centered on a new "main street" that extends Gilmore Heights Road (the one behind Home Depot) south to the existing main mall entrance at Atlantic Blvd. and the Expressway.

[tufsu1]

here's a good website for the decline of malls throughout the U.S.

http://www.deadmalls.com/

[stjr]

It seems like they are reporting on old news...Arlington will reemerge in time.  Give it 15 years when the Southside collapses.  There is too much riverfront property there and valuable land, look at Queens Harbor.

If Arlington is defined as everything north of Atlantic Blvd/Arlington Expressway, that is way too big of an area to be fully supported by the waterfront.  Just visit Riverside.  In a one or two mile ride, you go from multimillion dollar homes and condos on the river to areas rife with crime, drugs, and very low property values.  That's Jax.   When it comes to housing stock, we're very "democratic".  Rich and poor live, if not side by side, often very close to each other.  Expect a similar rapid decline to be found in Arlington.

Based on the history of Riverside and Springfield, and even parts of San Marco, I expect it could take decades - or longer - for the declining parts of Arlington to ever be revived.  I believe the near term future is Downtown oriented such as San Marco-Riverside-Ortega-Springfield, "near waterfront" oriented areas such as Hendricks-San Jose-SR 13, the Beaches, Intercoastal, Doctors Inlet, Ortega River, or near major non-industrial job centers, such as Downtown, JTB, or I-95.

With the exception of a few gated communities, most of the housing far east of San Jose to west of San Pablo, Arlington, Westside Orange Park west of US 17, and the North and Northwest parts of town will be middling to declining.  Just too much cheap or nondescript housing and neighborhoods with no unique features or compelling reasons to attract buyers over any other competing options making them a commodity to be sold to the cheapest bidder.  I think Argyle, Oakleaf, Kennsington, and even the lower ends of Julington Creek and Nocatee and other "mega developments" may turn out to stagnate for years to come, especially in our "new" economy.

[civil42806]

It seems like they are reporting on old news...Arlington will reemerge in time.  Give it 15 years when the Southside collapses.  There is too much riverfront property there and valuable land, look at Queens Harbor.

If Arlington is defined as everything north of Atlantic Blvd/Arlington Expressway, that is way too big of an area to be fully supported by the waterfront.  Just visit Riverside.  In a one or two mile ride, you go from multimillion dollar homes and condos on the river to areas rife with crime, drugs, and very low property values.  That's Jax.   When it comes to housing stock, we're very "democratic".  Rich and poor live, if not side by side, often very close to each other.  Expect a similar rapid decline to be found in Arlington.

Based on the history of Riverside and Springfield, and even parts of San Marco, I expect it could take decades - or longer - for the declining parts of Arlington to ever be revived.  I believe the near term future is Downtown oriented such as San Marco-Riverside-Ortega-Springfield, "near waterfront" oriented areas such as Hendricks-San Jose-SR 13, the Beaches, Intercoastal, Doctors Inlet, Ortega River, or near major non-industrial job centers, such as Downtown, JTB, or I-95.

With the exception of a few gated communities, most of the housing far east of San Jose to west of San Pablo, Arlington, Westside Orange Park west of US 17, and the North and Northwest parts of town will be middling to declining.  Just too much cheap or nondescript housing and neighborhoods with no unique features or compelling reasons to attract buyers over any other competing options making them a commodity to be sold to the cheapest bidder.  I think Argyle, Oakleaf, Kennsington, and even the lower ends of Julington Creek and Nocatee and other "mega developments" may turn out to stagnate for years to come, especially in our "new" economy.

Can't argue with that very much.  Over the past 25 yrs have seen arlington go from the place to live to a place to avoid.  Unless Regency reinvents  itself the future doesn't look good.  On the other hand have seen the Roosevelt mall go from almost abandoned to thriving Roosevelt squares.  My home is on the westside so I appreciate the problems that this incurs, but some big box stores can help out.  The rebuilt Home Depot on lane eliminated the trailor park from hell.  And while the lane avenue corridor between I-10 and san juan still has its own share of problems, "londontowne apartments and cross creek apartments" anyone, it has improved over the past 10 years.

[Ocklawaha]

I think Arlington will be fine, but what to do with Regency is a completely different issue.

Regency has been in decline for at least a decade.  This story has been played out time and time again.  Colonial Mall (Orlando), Winter Park Mall, Winter Haven Mall, Southwyck Mall (Toledo), The Mall at 163rd Street (North Miami Beach), Tampa Bay Center, Eastlake Square Mall (Tampa), Floriland Mall (Tampa), Northwood Mall (Tallahassee), Clearwater Mall, Tallahassee Mall, etc.  With the regional retail game if you don't evolve and stay on top of the trends you die.  Regency is obsolete and if that issue isn't resolved, it will not matter what direction the area around it takes.  It will still die.  Quite frankly, considering its age, I'm suprised its lasted this long.

I have a theory on Malls or "town center," places. Part of the reason for their decline over the last 20+ years is during that same time, most if not all, have abandoned men! How many stores sell only fashions, jewelry, hair salons, nails, Hello Kitty, panties and bras? Not that long ago, Sears had full garden centers, in the 1950's they even sold Kenmore AUTOS, sporting goods etc. Rosevelt had a bike and hobby shop. Montgomery Wards at Normandy had more variety then WalMart and Ace Hardware combined, and JC Pennys sold tools, appliances, even outboard motors. Several of the stores also sold kit houses through mail order. The farm house on the Wizard of Oz, is a Sears Kit, the original located in Liberal, Kansas.

I used to LOVE to shop with my wife, we'd split up and meet every hour or so. I was kept very busy dreaming of the next model Locomotive or yard toy, or go-cart. All of that is impossible today. I even wonder how a HOBBY and SPORTS MALL would do. Small stores clustered with a few larger anchors like Hobby Lobby, Books-a-Million, Radio Shack, Sports Authority, and so forth. Hell I even go back to the FENCING store in OKC about once a year so I can get on the strip and get my ass skewered... d'Artagnan I'm not... my daughters are another story. We do have a decent fencing club with several strips, a couple are electrics but don't try and buy your equipment here.  We just don't have a guy place with real variety.

http://www.searsarchives.com/homes/1927-1932.htm

OCKLAWAHA

[copperfiend]

Whats interesting about this phenomenon, Lake (aside from the fact that we discussed this outcome over a year ago) is that the Mall is being faced with exactly the same dilemna that was created for Downtown by the opening of Regency Square in 67.

I wonder if they will now start charging people to park there and open a homeless shelter at Dillards?

Have you seen the bus stop at Regency? It is a homeless shelter.

[Doctor_K]

^ It's also a joke.  Two or three little covered sheds, way far away from the mall itself. 

It's an afterthought, and one more reason people don't want to ride the bus.

[TheProfessor]

I think the regency area will always be a viable commercial district.  It will never be a St. Johns Town Center, but the middle class will always be present. 

[Jason]

^ Not to mention the fact that it is the crossroads between Arlington, Southside, and the Beaches.

[Ocklawaha]

^ Not to mention the fact that it is the crossroads between Arlington, Southside, and the Beaches.

Your right Jason, the roumors of the death of Regency as a shopping mecca are exagerated. Location - Location - Location! Malls and plaza's may come and go, but the population and location will always drive a remake, indeed it might end up BETTER then St. Johns Town Center. Consider this, to get to Town Center, one either lives in the South Beach / Ponte Vedra area and passes through JTB daily, or makes the effort to drive to Town Center. To get to Regency, all one has to do is move North, South, Northeast, Southwest, East or West, in an area with population enough to rank as one of Florida's larger cities all by itself. It's really tough to miss that location.

OCKLAWAHA

[Ocklawaha]

Great observation Stephen.

Yes, and when Jaxson's rode Streetcars it thrived. With the demise of decent transit, the rise of the automobile, and the genius who installed the parking meters, there was no reason to stop there when Philips, Normandy, Roosevelt, Gateway and Regency all offered thousands of free parking spaces, AC and the illusion of a secure environment.

Until downtown returns to a transit friendly and livable place, it is going to continue to suffer.

OCKLAWAHA

[vicupstate]

^ Arlington can turn ghetto just a easily as Springfield did.

How many years did the Northside go without decent retail options before the shopping area at Duval road opened up a few years ago.  Just because there is a significant population count in place means nothing.  The income demographic has to be there too.  The chains know the population will drive to where they are, if there is no other option.

Another example: How long did Riverside/Avondale go without a grocery store, before Publix opened (after the property values/incomes started to accelerate)  ?

From my experience, traffic count and population numbers alone will not guarantee a retail presence.