Nordstrom confirmed for St. Johns Town Center

[tufsu1]

Neiman Marcus = needless markup

That applies to any and all corporations flourishing today....

maybe so, but the alliteration/initials don't work as well for others

[JUGrad]

It's sort of funny and predictable how every thread about the SJTC disolves into the same thing. They're never building a trolly, they're probably not building a parking garage any time soon. The main reason for both is they don't have to.

NO KIDDING!  We get it people... yes, you think the Town Center sucks because it isn't downtown; yes, you think the town center sucks because the traffic can be insane at times; yes, you think the town center sucks because people won't tolerate walking from a distant parking spot into a structure where they'll be walking anyways... 

The sad thing is, if the town center were surrounded by parking structures in the middle of downtown, with a trolley service to move lazy people from one end to the other, and there was a light rail station, tram station, and a skyway station to bring people in, people would still complain about something...

There's just no pleasing some.

[fsquid]

centrally-located St. Johns Town Center

How do they figure that?

with maps of median incomes and a compass?

[Ocklawaha]

Congrats to Jacksonville.  I still won't be able to do any decent shopping when I come home as I am a loyal Bloomie's cardholder, but it's nice to know that the city can now officially support one decent department store.  Just for the record on the chain of command of the largest department stores to put things in perspective (all opinion of course):

1) Saks Fifth Ave/Neiman Marcus/Barney's New York
2) Bloomingdale's/Nordstrom/Barney's Co-op
3) Lord & Taylor/Macy's flagships
4) Dillards/Macy's/Von Maur
5) Belk/Macy's
6) JC Penney/Sears
7) Kohls

ebar is not a bad coffee shop at all and will be a good addition for the mall.

Neiman Marcus has a store in Austin, TX
Sac's 5Th Avenue has one in Tulsa and another in OKC, OK
Nordstroms has one in Nashville, TN

So really? Jacksonville can only support one store? Give me a break, our population is now large enough to support the whole shelf of stores... HOWEVER, the mall that contains most of them needs to be adjacent to I-95, probably south of I-295. With the amount of out-of-state cars and trucks roaring south from points unknown, we should be a stellar location.

'MAKE NO LITTLE PLANS.'

[I-10east]

On a side note, San Antonio has a Neiman Marcus (mall) right next to Six Flags Fiesta Texas. You can see it from the lift hill of the rollercoaster Superman Krypton Coaster (awesome coaster) which is pretty cool.

[simms3]

Just because Jacksonville has a certain population does not mean it can support a certain department store or that a department store will come here.  In addition to population, population density, access, income, disposable income, regionalism, competition, and cotenancy, I'm sure a department store spends a lot of time studying shopping habits of locals before racing to conclusions based on numbers on paper.

In general outside of Miami/S FL shopping habits of southerners indicate much more frugality as compared to those in TX, the West Coast and the NE.  The biggest and best city outside of Miami for shopping in the SE is Atlanta, obviously, and it only has 1 Saks (reported to be 2nd highest volume Saks though), 1 Neiman, 1 Bloomingdales (the other closed), and 2 Nordstroms.  Of course SoFla has many of each, but is a different market, but if a traditional southern city 4+ times the size of Jax with 5+ times the wealth can really only support 1 of each, it would not make sense that Jacksonville can really support more than a single Nordstrom at this point.

And when one visits or looks at other smaller markets like Richmond, Birmingham, Charlotte, Nashville, Tulsa, OKC, SLC, Indianapolis, KC, etc etc it is abundantly clear what "side of the tracks" people live on.  Half of the metro will be desolate and poor, and across the fault line the other half will be like old PVB, but with 10x the land mass.  The only general area that remotely resembles the "right" side of town in Jacksonville is Ponte Vedra Beach, which is 25,000 people and limited access and no centrality.

The city is so checkerboard and divided by large bodies of water and swampland it is hard to assemble wealth and create a truly "nice side of town" where high end retailers and department stores would feel right at home.  SJTC is a miracle of assembly and the whole premise is that it serves all of NE FL, not the "wealthy SS" et al like Southpark serves the wealthy SS of Charlotte or Phipps serves the wealthy Buckhead/northside of Atlanta or Mall at Green Hills serves the wealthy SS of Nashville.

Also count the # of Walmarts in metro Jax.  I believe there may be as many if not more than in metro Atlanta, no joke.  While Atlanta is a horrible retail market as compared to Boston, SF, Miami or Dallas, it is still not considered a Walmart town, whereas Jax has that reputation in retail world and it shows in the number of discount stores across town (especially per capita).

[tufsu1]

Also count the # of Walmarts in metro Jax.  I believe there may be as many if not more than in metro Atlanta, no joke. 

based on the wal-mart website, there are 20 within the close-in ATL metro area...Jax. also has 20, but that counts stores in St. Augustine, Yulee, Baldwin, and Starke

maybe as a proportion of pop.

[simms3]

Also count the # of Walmarts in metro Jax.  I believe there may be as many if not more than in metro Atlanta, no joke. 

based on the wal-mart website, there are 20 within the close-in ATL metro area...Jax. also has 20, but that counts stores in St. Augustine, Yulee, Baldwin, and Starke

maybe as a proportion of pop.

Since you started this and I was making a separate point about the disbursement of positive demographics in the city, here is the official breakdown:

15 in Duval
3 in Clay
2 in Nassau
1 in SJC
1 in Baker
22 total in metro Jax

5 in Fulton and 1 express
10 in Clayton/south metro counties
11 in Cobb/west metro counties
4 in far north metro
14 in Gwinnett/NE metro
6 in Dekalb/SE metro
50 total in metro Atlanta and 1 express

Jacksonville MSA: 1,360,251   Atlanta MSA: 5,359,205 (3.94x the size of Jax, only 2.27x as many Walmarts)

Both are Walmart cities compared to many of the coastal cities and Chicago/Dallas, but Jacksonville is recognized universally as a Walmart city and it's taking a Herculean effort by the team at SJTC to reverse that image and attract the retailers it does.  One has to give them (Ben Carter, Simon, their LL rep, Nordstrom tenant rep) major props for getting the job done and putting faith in the market and building a department store in an area that does not check that many boxes.

[Tacachale]

Thank you for injecting some irrelevant statistical mystification into this thread. I was beginning to worry there wouldn't be enough of it.

[I-10east]

I don't think that Jax is some how 'over-laden' with Wal-Marts. Just because a city have a 'supposed' high number of Wal-Marts, that doesn't take away any future high end department stores. Jax has a monstrous city limits square footage compared to most cities, so that has to be taken into consideration. Look at the Northside, an enormous area that only has two Wal-Marts. I don't think it's a big deal as long as there is demand for them, and we can support them. Of course that won't sit well with the people who have the silly religious-like bias against Wal-Mart.

[avonjax]

I don't think that Jax is some how 'over-laden' with Wal-Marts. Just because a city have a 'supposed' high number of Wal-Marts, that doesn't take away any future high end department stores. Jax has a monstrous city limits square footage compared to most cities, so that has to be taken into consideration. Look at the Northside, an enormous area that only has two Wal-Marts. I don't think it's a big deal as long as there is demand for them, and we can support them. Of course that won't sit well with the people who have the silly religious-like bias against Wal-Mart.

There are reasons for the religious-like bias.
But it's early and I don't feel like a rant.
Those of us who don't worship at the altar of WalMart find solace in an environment that offer five of an item instead of 1000 because if you want to buy finer products you sure won't find them at ChinaMart.
I don't mind wearing the same shirt as you, but it's the other 998 that bother me. And that's just one of the 20 metro area stores we're talking about.

[simms3]

Perception matters.  The perception of Jacksonville as a Walmart city is real and those numbers prove it.  My point is that the teams that are working on SJTC are breaking the mold and convincing major retailers and now one of the top department stores to think outside of their list of boxes they usually must check to come to the city.  Tired of people misintepreting everything.

If only civic leaders and the average business leader in Jacksonville had the abilities of the Ben Carter team the city would be booming.  What the SJTC team has accomplished is sort of akin to what the team that brought the Super Bowl accomplished, but we need that effort and ability all across the board.

[finehoe]

Tired of people misintepreting everything.

Welcome to the internet. 

[CityLife]

Simms, population density is relevant in the Atlanta vs. Jacksonville Wal Mart comparison, not just sheer population. If Atlanta's metro is more dense than Jax, there wouldn't be as many Wal Mart's per capita, even if the demographics were identical.

Also, do you know what Nordstrom's checklist looks like? I'm not so sure that we don't have the demo's to support one.

[avonjax]

Perception matters.  The perception of Jacksonville as a Walmart city is real and those numbers prove it.  My point is that the teams that are working on SJTC are breaking the mold and convincing major retailers and now one of the top department stores to think outside of their list of boxes they usually must check to come to the city.  Tired of people misintepreting everything.

If only civic leaders and the average business leader in Jacksonville had the abilities of the Ben Carter team the city would be booming.  What the SJTC team has accomplished is sort of akin to what the team that brought the Super Bowl accomplished, but we need that effort and ability all across the board.

You are completely correct.
Nordstrom, Saks, Neiman's and Bloomingdales are stores that people will travel to visit. I know a lot of people who drive to Orlando just for a shopping day at these stores. Our market also draws from Amelia, St Simons, Sea Island and to a lesser degree Savannah. Oh and Gainesville.
Granted they are not "WalMart," but their prices are not out of reach for everyone.
And don't forget that Jacobson's did really well here and some their merchandise was in a similar price range.
I had a friend who was an executive with Jacobson's and he said if all the stores did as well as the Jacksonville store they would have survived.