Few cities in America were impacted by the rise of suburban shopping malls as significantly as Jacksonville.
The city had already built up a reputation as a shopping mecca through its decades of thriving downtown department stores. It therefore came as no surprise that, when shopping malls boomed in popularity in the 1960s, mall developers set their sights on the Bold City.
Five enclosed shopping malls debuted in Jacksonville during the ‘60s, and another three were built in the decades since. Only two are still in operation as malls, with the rest having been either redeveloped for a new purpose or demolished.
We’ve put together a brief history of each of Jacksonville’s eight indoor shopping malls, as a reminder of how the city was once among the country’s finest shopping destinations.
Jacksonville’s first enclosed suburban shopping mall was located at the corner of Emerson Street and Philips Highway.
The appropriately-named Philips Highway Plaza opened in 1960, anchored by Montgomery Ward and Food Fair. Junior anchors included S.H. Kress and Woolworth’s; the rest of the mall was rounded out by a mix of local and national tenants, as well as a movie theater.
Renovations in the early ‘70s brought about a rebrand as Philips Mall. J.M. Fields replaced Kress, and Food Fair rebranded as Pantry Pride.
By the ‘80s, however, the mall had already entered a decline as Philips Highway’s “Miracle Mile” era had more-or-less come to an end. It was once again rebranded, this time as an outlet center named Market Square Mall; a new Sam’s Club building was constructed behind the mall, facing I-95.
The outlet rebranding, unfortunately, never quite caught on. A sizable chunk of the mall was decommissioned in the early ‘90s, and by the mid-‘90s it was vacant. The majority of the mall was purchased around the turn of the century and converted into an office park, now known as San Marco East Plaza. The Sam’s Club building was purchased separately and converted into a Skate World location; it is now home to Jacksonville Ice & Sportsplex.
Constructed in 1961, Roosevelt Mall lined the busy Roosevelt Boulevard just a short distance from both the affluent Ortega neighborhood and the area surrounding NAS Jax, which was growing rapidly at the time.
The 256,000-square-foot, $3 million mall debuted with May-Cohens, Furchgott’s, G.C. Murphy’s, Food Fair, and Rosenblums as anchor tenants.
The mall was an initial success, but the construction of nearby Normandy Mall, as well as regional superpower Regency Square Mall, put pressure on it to retain its tenants. Cracks began to show during the ‘80s; Food Fair, Furchgott’s, and May-Cohens all went out of business during the decade, and Rosenblums would soon set its eyes on a move to Lakewood. Maison Blanche took over May-Cohens’ anchor space, but it didn’t last long before being replaced by Ivey’s and later Gayfer’s.
When the mall was purchased by Dewberry Capital in 1997, it wasn’t vacant but had entered significant decline. Gayfer’s, Stein Mart, Publix, and Beall’s Outlet were its remaining anchor tenants; Beall’s left by the end of the year.
Dewberry initiated efforts to convert the mall into an open-air shopping center. Publix was given a new building, while its old location was taken over by Stein Mart. The Gayfer’s anchor unit became a standalone building and was rebranded as a Belk.
Belk closed in 2017 and was demolished; Stein Mart went out of business earlier this year.
In recent years, the center has been undergoing another major redevelopment by Dewberry; this time, it’s adding a residential component and reconfiguring existing buildings, rebranding the center as Ortega Park.
Regency Square Mall opened in 1967 within the Arlington neighborhood, which at the time was the city’s fastest-growing area. Developed by Regency Centers, the $12 million mall debuted with three anchor tenants: J.C. Penney, Furchgott’s, and May-Cohens.
By the late ‘70s, Regency Square was one of the country’s most active shopping malls, and plans emerged a $30 million expansion that would double its size.
A new wing was constructed in 1981 on the opposite end of May-Cohens’ building, adding dozens of stores and two new anchor tenants: Ivey’s and Sears.
When Furchgott’s went out of business in the ‘80s, it was replaced with an AMC theater. May-Cohens also left in the late ‘80s, replaced by Maison Blanche.
By the ‘90s, Regency’s anchor tenants included AMC, Gayfer’s, Dillard’s, Sears, and Montgomery Ward. Unfortunately, the area surrounding the mall declined rapidly during this decade, requiring the addition of a JSO substation and a formal dress code that chased away many young shoppers. Yearly crime reports at the mall reached quadruple digits, leading it to develop a negative reputation locally. It also didn’t help that The Avenues opened just a few miles away in 1990.
The mall’s corridors became increasingly empty, and anchor tenants began exiting the property. By 2014, when the mall was sold to an investor, it was less than half-occupied. Its west wing was shut down and has been ever since – aside from an extremely brief attempt at a décor outlet in the space.
Today, only a handful of national retailers remain at the property. The former May-Cohens building was sold to a church for redevelopment, and Rimrock Devlin is seeking to redevelop the remainder of the property for mixed-use purposes.
Though it had technically existed as a traditional shopping center since 1959, Gateway Mall didn’t gain its enclosed portion until the late ‘60s.
Even after the enclosed addition, the center operated as something of a hybrid between a traditional shopping center and a mall. The new mall portion – which was a relatively small 176,000 square feet on its own – was anchored by Montgomery Ward and J.C. Penney, which joined the center’s existing anchors that included G.C. Murphy, Food Fair, Winn-Dixie, and W.T. Grant.
By the time the mall was sold to a Canadian firm in 1984, Grant’s had gone out of business, May-Cohens had arrived, Montgomery Ward became Jefferson Ward, and Food Fair had rebranded as Pantry Pride.
Unfortunately, the change in ownership coincided with a rapid downturn in the mall’s quality. By the mid-‘90s, most of the mall’s occupants had left – including all of its previous anchor tenants.
The derelict shopping center was purchased by Gateway Center Economic Development Partnership in 1997 and, with the help of millions in public funding, it was redeveloped as an open-air center once again. Parts of the center were torn down with the aim of opening up the center to I-95, and former anchor units were subdivided to accommodate smaller-scale tenants.
New ownership managed a brief but notable tenure of success, even luring Publix to the center around the turn of the century. The remaining interior portion of the mall was given a small facelift in attempts to attract new tenants to its limited corridors.
Ultimately, though, too much of the property remained vacant to make the project financially viable in the long-term. GCEDP filed for bankruptcy in 2012, and the property entered foreclosure.
Today, much of the center remains vacant; among its notable tenants are Hibbett Sports, which occupies part of the old J.C. Penney building, specialty apparel shop Brothers 2000, and Family Dollar. The mall portion of the center has been closed for several years. Publix closed late last year but was quickly replaced by Winn-Dixie, marking the long-time local grocer’s return to the center it once anchored.
Normandy Mall was constructed in the late 1960s around a standalone Montgomery Ward store, on property that fronted Normandy Boulevard and was previously home to Loew’s Normandy Outdoor Theatre. The development was led by shopping mall tycoon Ed DeBartolo’s company.
Ward’s became one of three original anchor tenants for the new 371,000-square-foot mall, joined by bargain retailers Woolco and Roses. Within five years of opening, Roses left and was quickly replaced by five-and-dime chain Murphy’s Mart. Its other tenants were a collection of national chains that differed just enough from the offerings at nearby Roosevelt Mall.
Normandy Mall maintained a reasonable amount of success until the beginning of the ‘90s. By that point, Montgomery Ward and Woolco had left the mall; Woolco’s space was filled with a new Sam’s Club, while the old Ward’s building remained empty. The mall’s interior tenants began dropping off quickly, and when Sam’s Club closed just a few years later, it brought about the end of the property’s days as a shopping mall.
The old Ward’s building was later purchased by Sleiman Enterprises and turned into a shopping strip. The rest of the old mall became part of an adaptive reuse project led by Potter’s House Christian Fellowship; it now houses the church as well as a small community center for its attendees.
Construction began in the early 1980s on Grande Boulevard Mall, an upscale shopping mall development at Old Baymeadows Road and Southside Boulevard aimed at captivating the wealthy residents of nearby Deerwood. The two-story, $16 million mall opened in 1983 with upscale department chain Jacobson’s as its sole anchor tenant.
The mall was initially filled out by other high-end national brands, many of which sold items with price tags in the hundreds, if not thousands. Later, as the high-end offerings proved unsuccessful, more traditional mall brands such as The Athlete’s Foot and The Limited became commonplace. An Annie Tiques restaurant rounded out the mall’s offerings.
To add to the feeling of “exclusivity” that the mall’s development team wished to create, Grande Boulevard was marketed as an upscale destination for only the wealthiest of shoppers. Management decisions such as closing the mall at 6:00 PM on weekdays and all day on Sunday further ensured that its high-end shoppers wouldn’t have to rub elbows with the working class.
It was that same elitist flair, however, that doomed the mall from the beginning. Having severely overestimated the market for such a development in Jax, it struggled to attract shoppers and, one by one, pricy chains like Lilly Pulitzer abandoned the property.
Grande Boulevard Mall was dealt its final blow by the opening of The Avenues just down the street in 1990. A few years later, the mall’s owners sold the building – minus Jacobson’s, which stayed in business until 2002 – to FSCJ; it’s now known as FSCJ Deerwood Center, housing classrooms, a food court, and offices.
The Jacksonville Landing, the city’s only attempt at a downtown mall, debuted in 1987 along the Northbank. Developed by The Rouse Company, the two-story, $37.5 million mall featured dozens of shops and an upper-level food court. Intended as both a mall and entertainment center, the Landing was anchored by restaurants Annie Tiques, Fat Tuesday’s, Harry’s Seafood Bar & Grille, and Hooters. Within its corridors, it featured a selection of national chains including B. Dalton, Foot Locker, Banana Republic, Sharper Image, The Gap, and more, along with a handful of local businesses.
Though it opened to much fanfare, the Landing struggled almost immediately due to lack of available parking nearby, along with the lack of other things to do downtown. Most of its national tenants had left after less than a decade. The mall remained popular as an event venue, drawing massive crowds during Florida-Georgia weekend, but its corridors became increasingly empty over the years.
The building was sold to Sleiman Enterprises in 2003. Its new owner proposed several redevelopment projects for the property but was never able to reach an agreement with the city to provide adequate parking. By the time a parking lot was secured for the Landing in 2010, it was far too late to revitalize the existing mall.
Following a mass shooting event in 2018, the city began negotiating with Sleiman Enterprises to buy back the building. It did so, at a cost of $18 million, and demolished the Landing late last year.
The Avenues is the city’s newest indoor shopping mall and one of only two that are still functioning as a mall.
Built in 1990, the mall opened along Southside Boulevard with J.C. Penney, Maison Blanche, and Sears as its anchors. A year after opening, Dillard’s was added to the mall next to Sears, and shortly thereafter the Maison Blanche was acquired by, and rebranded as, Gayfer’s. It would rebrand once more in the late ‘90s, becoming Belk.
The mid-‘90s saw the addition of another mini-wing, this time to accommodate Parisian as a fifth anchor store.
In efforts to keep pace with the newly-built St. Johns Town Center, the mall underwent $10.5 million in renovations in 2005, adding a play area for kids as well as new paint and flooring.
When Parisian went out of business in 2006, its space was briefly used as a second location for Belk, housing its men’s clothing and home departments. The space was ultimately taken over by Forever 21.
In recent years, The Avenues has shown signs of following the same path to decline as many of its predecessors. National brands have begun moving out, replaced either by local businesses or empty storefronts. Original anchor tenant Sears closed and has yet to be replaced.
Nonetheless, it remains open and has yet to develop the negative reputation of its fellow enclosed center, Regency Square Mall.
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The Avenues is not going anywhere. That mall is in a better side of town and is more convenient to all areas of Jacksonville & even nearby St. John’s County to the south. Although stores began leaving in recent years, the mall is generally very healthy. The departure of Sears in late 2019 didn’t really affect the mall. Another plus is that the store occupied 120,000 square feet and was leased by Sears rather than being a 200,000 square foot store owned by Seritage Growth Properties. I will say that many of those stores, along with the ones at Regency & Orange Park, are going to stay vacant longer than the Avenues location. Simon is very good at filling vacant boxes so they won’t have a problem finding a new vibrant tenant for the space. The difference between the Avenues vs. Orange Park & Regency is that the area of Arlington isn’t very well ran considering how badly rundown Regency is, & I’m not saying that Orange Park will go under, but that mall is more for the middle class, & whereas with the Avenues, the surrounding areas are more affluent. Don’t be negative at all, I do think the Avenues will better compete with St. John’s Town Center by getting another makeover and having a Von Maur to replace the former Sears in 2022. In general, Jax’s Southside is very innovative. One thing that the Avenues & St. John’s Town Center have in common is that they’re both owned by Simon, which also owns other high quality malls. Either way, right now is a very tough time for all retailers & shopping centers, so there’s a chance that things will get better as the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic slows down.