(http://www.jacksonville.com/images/mdControlled/cms/2008/07/06/300428125.jpg)
http://jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/070608/bus_300428075.shtml
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The downtown shopping center, still looking for formula to fill stores, hopes more parking will be answer
By KEVIN TURNER, The Times-Union
On a Tuesday afternoon in mid-June, sugary, bouncy '80s music trickled from hidden speakers throughout The Jacksonville Landing's indoor mall.
In one way, the sounds harkened back to a time of plastic jewelry, mall rats, big hair and the Landing's 1987 opening with big-name stores such as The Gap, Banana Republic, Sharper Image and The Limited.
But in another way, the music on this afternoon in 2008 seemed oddly out of place. The lunch rush had brought hundreds of downtown workers to the mall, but the vast majority had come to eat in the food court upstairs and now were back at their offices.
The Jacksonville Landing was virtually empty.
Crowded lunch spot. Restaurants good enough for dining before a Broadway road show. Concert and party venue. Ghost town. The Landing has many personalities. Some are still evolving.
It was different 21 years ago when the Maryland-based Rouse Co. - which boasted a successful track record with its urban "festival marketplace" concept in Baltimore, Boston, Miami and New York City - opened the $37.5 million Jacksonville Landing with 75 shops, vendors and restaurants.
"But downtown wasn't quite ready," Landing General Manager Janice Lowe said. "The Landing came a little early."
Now, only four of the original retailers remain.
A Hooters restaurant has thrived since June 25, 1987, when the Landing opened on the north bank of the St. Johns River. The Toy Factory, which opened as Fun and Games, clothing store Body Shop and Coastal Cookies also have been around since the first day.
Some tenants that opened on the Landing's first day stayed longer than others - the Musicland store closed when the chain was purchased in 2006 and B. Dalton Bookseller left in 2004.
Today, restaurants are the mall's big draw, Lowe said.
"The restaurants are our anchors. They drive our traffic," she said. "Retail has been difficult for us. It is difficult downtown."
Landing owner Toney Sleiman said that's because Jacksonville shoppers are accustomed to the decentralized suburban shopping center, where one parks for free in a sea of parking spaces and walks to the stores. Suburbanites are typically frustrated by downtown's one-way streets and pay parking, he said.
Sleiman, and Rouse before him, said the Landing's success potential is hampered by a lack of parking. Its lot to the east, which Sleiman now owns, holds 240 vehicles.
The city of Jacksonville, which promised Rouse 800 spaces in 1985, allowed the mall to use the parking garage in the former Daniel government building. But the city gave the building and garage to the Adam's Mark hotel (now Hyatt Regency Jacksonville Riverfront) in 2001.
In 2003, Sleiman unveiled a grandiose plan that would add parking, residential and office space to the Landing, but it hit a wall in 2006 when Mayor John Peyton refused to sell Sleiman the city-owned land under the Landing.
Meanwhile, city-brokered plans for Landing parking across the street came and went. Most recently, Craig Howse, an attorney speaking on behalf of Frank Vennes Jr., who owns a 1.6-acre parcel across the street, said 375 parking spaces will be available for the Landing when a parking garage is built there.
The 2001 agreement under which the city committed to provide the spaces noted that the parking would be free to customers who get parking vouchers from Landing stores.
Sleiman said the 375 additional parking spaces will be a great help to the Landing. But 615 spaces still isn't enough for the marketplace to be successful, he said.
And it's that lack of parking that Sleiman said continues to stymie negotiations with new tenants.
"When I bring a restaurant chain in to look at it, the first question they ask is, 'where's the parking at?' I have two or three national companies who want to be here when the parking starts," he said.
One has already made a commitment though, said Jacksonville Landing Director of Marketing Michael Chambliss.
Fuddrucker's, a specialty hamburger chain, plans to begin construction in August, according to a representative at the chain's Austin, Texas, headquarters.
Sleiman, who bought the Landing for $5.1 million in 2003 - $32 million less than what Rouse paid to build it - thinks his ability to attract more business will be helped by his plan to build a new parking garage and high-rise tower on his own lot, he said Wednesday.
That will add 500 or 600 more spaces, bringing the Landing's total parking to 875 dedicated spaces or more.
But construction won't begin until the economic doldrums subside and he knows whether the tower will contain a hotel, condominiums, apartments or office suites, Sleiman said. He does know, however, that he won't duplicate the voucher system at that garage.
"It'll be a metered parking lot," he said. "I had to buy it from the city and pay a lot of money for it. It has to produce income."
Successes do exist
The Landing isn't all long-gone stores and parking crunch woes. Retail successes do exist. Doug Gamson's Sundrez, for example, is thriving in B. Dalton's former space by catering to the weekday crowds who work downtown and come to the Landing for a pleasant river view while they lunch.
Sundrez sells many of the things one would expect to find in an airport terminal gift shop: gum, drinks, gifts and greeting cards.
"I understand this market," Gamson said. "I understand what my customers want. I listen to my customers and provide great customer service. That formula has been very successful for me."
Busy downtown workers who need to buy last-minute gifts for family, friends or co-workers can find them in Gamson's store. They can also buy cigars and use his store's U.S. Post Office.
Over 12 years, Gamson has upgraded his store's space three times, starting with 224 square feet and moving to 3,378 square feet last month.
Like Gamson's model, the Landing's retail focus today is on the downtown office worker, the traditional retail shopper and tourists, Lowe said.
The Jacksonville Convention and Visitor's Bureau has an office for tourists in a Landing mall space and Destination Jacksonville is a Landing storefront that sells only Jacksonville souvenirs, store owner Harold Fine said. It shares a third of the 10,000-square-foot Discount Pro-Wear store that Fine also owns.
"We figure 85 percent of the people who visit Jacksonville come to the Landing sooner or later," Fine said. "It's amazing how many people want to bring home a souvenir from Jacksonville."
And there's another important niche that the Landing has found: Sleiman said he's found a lot of value in promoting entertainment in the Landing's outdoor venue. He bought sound equipment for performers and purchased a gigantic public TV monitor added in October.
"When we went to him last year and said we needed to do national concerts, he said, 'go for it,' " Lowe said.
Orleans played the Landing on June 21; Kansas takes the stage on July 18 and former Styx vocalist Dennis DeYoung performs on Aug. 23. Sleiman has bankrolled advertising for the shows.
"When we do concerts, everybody's sales go up," he said.
Sleiman said he also will continue work on a plan to remodel the mall's northwest wall behind a cluster of empty suites, opening that end of the mall to downtown streets.
Parking and other improvements should fill the Landing's empty spaces, Sleiman said.
And he'll doggedly pursue the high-end restaurants and retail stores that will help fulfill his vision.
He said that, as a Jacksonville native, he believes in its importance as a city centerpiece and is dedicated to making it world-class.
"We could have filled up this place plenty of times," he said. "The problem is, it's not the right kind of tenant. I've got an office supply company that wants 10,000 feet. That's not what we need here. I want to fill it up smart."
QuoteThe Landing isn't all long-gone stores and parking crunch woes. Retail successes do exist. Doug Gamson's Sundrez, for example, is thriving in B. Dalton's former space by catering to the weekday crowds who work downtown and come to the Landing for a pleasant river view while they lunch.
Sundrez sells many of the things one would expect to find in an airport terminal gift shop: gum, drinks, gifts and greeting cards.
"I understand this market," Gamson said. "I understand what my customers want. I listen to my customers and provide great customer service. That formula has been very successful for me."
Busy downtown workers who need to buy last-minute gifts for family, friends or co-workers can find them in Gamson's store. They can also buy cigars and use his store's U.S. Post Office.
Over 12 years, Gamson has upgraded his store's space three times, starting with 224 square feet and moving to 3,378 square feet last month.
Like Gamson's model, the Landing's retail focus today is on the downtown office worker, the traditional retail shopper and tourists, Lowe said.
QuoteAnd there's another important niche that the Landing has found: Sleiman said he's found a lot of value in promoting entertainment in the Landing's outdoor venue. He bought sound equipment for performers and purchased a gigantic public TV monitor added in October.
These things work... trying to make the Landing into a shopping destination for suburbanites will never work.
Quote from: BridgeTroll on July 06, 2008, 06:28:53 PM
These things work... trying to make the Landing into a shopping destination for suburbanites will never work.
nor would I want it to.
QuoteSleiman said he also will continue work on a plan to remodel the mall's northwest wall behind a cluster of empty suites, opening that end of the mall to downtown streets.
He needs to find a way to move this forward immediately. That entire side of the the building is just wasted leasable space at this point.