Understanding the St. Johns Town Center

[thelakelander]

^Charleston is a major tourist attraction with significant foot traffic.  As long as you have viable market demographics and a highly visible location (auto or foot traffic will do), businesses (local and chain) will be attracted to it.

The entire peninsula is a tourist attraction, and many of its streets have lots of traffic and thriving businesses. But it's chiefly the one section of King Street that has the proliferation of mall-style chain stores (as well as local businesses and other things of course). It seems unlikely this would have happened without planning.

Of course.  There's some planning involved as well as King being the historic "main street" in DT Charleston with a cluster of right sized available retail spaces still standing (in DT Jax, we demolished our significant historic retail strips like Main and Forsyth Streets).  To a lesser degree, this is starting to happen in Savannah along Broughton Street as well.

[tg]

I would love to see the something similar to the San Antonio example at the Shipyards site downtown...

[Tacachale]

FWIW, there's already a practically-dedicated bus route (SS-6) that serves UNF and the SJTC.  Well ok, not really dedicated per se, but it gets decent usage with the students traveling to Publix and the rest of the TC from campus.

I'm just saying it would be great to see some more apartments/condos/townhomes in and around Town Center to make the area more connected to students living closer to campus. I go to UNF, and most students that don't live on campus live drive to school. There was discussion on another thread about how the campus is isolated from everything. I agree that there is JTA bus routing, but apartments in and around SJTC would allow for a more "college town" or a more united feel for the city and school. There has been talk for the last few years from recenet Student Government administrations about expanding UNF's shuttle to the Town Center. I wouldn't be surprised if it happened in the next 5 years.

Town Center has been a big benefit to UNF, and I think Town Center should realize the potential that UNF could bring them if they really want to be an actual "Town Center." I just wish everything was more pedestrian/biking friendly...and the two being so close to each other offers a great opportunity to have a gem in the urban sprawl of Southside.

I don't think it would be a good idea for UNF students to foot the bill for a shuttle that only goes one place and only benefits a privately owned mall and its tenants.

More housing in the area is definitely going to happen at some point, depending on the recovery of market. Hopefully the developers will have the foresight to see that a big chunk of renters in that area will be UNF students, and design accordingly. I hope that they'd make the effort to connect to the campus by walking or biking, but, as usual, I'm not holding my breath.

[TheProfessor]

What spaces are the L'Occitane and Fossil stores replacing??

[Traveller]

For a cool example of a suburban lifestyle center (if I have the concept right), check out Birkdale Village north of Charlotte.

http://www.birkdalevillage.net/



http://www.helenadamsrealty.com/communities/birkdalevillage

[Doctor_K]

What spaces are the L'Occitane and Fossil stores replacing??

I *think* Fossil is going into the old Swoozy's location.

Not sure about the other.

[danem]

Get rid of the drive-up parking (thats usually not available anyway) & the roads going right down the center of the main strip (forcing cars & people to play chicken with each other), and you might have a true pedestrian open-air mall.

I would also suggest creating some garages and cutting down some on that ridiculous surface parking acreage. The map seems to indicate there is more land area taken up by the parking lot than the actual shops. But yes you're right the layout as it stands now encourages people to do the silly parking hunt game for several minutes and nearly run people over.

[danem]

I am a fan of Town Center, but I will comment that I hope they decide to grow it vertically at some point, and no longer horizontally.

[iMarvin]

Garages would be great but I don't think they (the developer) want them because supposedly they wouldn't let Macy's build one when they wanted to open a store there.

[danem]

Garages would be great but I don't think they (the developer) want them because supposedly they wouldn't let Macy's build one when they wanted to open a store there.

How strange. Maybe they can help people who park really away from their destination in the hot sun. Maybe they can run more of those kiddie trains.  

[thelakelander]

I wouldn't expect more than what we see there today any time soon (like before 2020).  It's a suburban shopping center in the heart of suburbia and it will most likely be that way until market pressures or opportunities demand more expensive vertical or urban development.  I kind of accept it for what it is (a 21st century version of Regency or the Avenues) and try not to get fooled in expecting it to be more because of the name "town center."

[danem]

That's a good perspective. With all its issues, it's still a place that has (almost) everything, and it's easy to say "Let's go to ____ in Town Center", and everyone in your group knows how to get there. I'm also not surprised how many people come in from out of town to shop there.

[Doctor_K]

Garages would be great but I don't think they (the developer) want them because supposedly they wouldn't let Macy's build one when they wanted to open a store there.

I thought I read somewhere that they were indeed looking into raising at least one parking deck?

[iMarvin]

Garages would be great but I don't think they (the developer) want them because supposedly they wouldn't let Macy's build one when they wanted to open a store there.

I thought I read somewhere that they were indeed looking into raising at least one parking deck?

I haven't heard anything about it. They could possibly be looking into it since the Macy's situation was around 2008/2009.

[John P]

Get rid of the drive-up parking (thats usually not available anyway) & the roads going right down the center of the main strip (forcing cars & people to play chicken with each other), and you might have a true pedestrian open-air mall. Example:

The Shops At La Cantera in San Antonio

Waterside shopping center in Naples FL is similar to this.