JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Drive by the St. Johns Town Center on Jacksonville’s Southside, and people can’t help but notice the explosive growth. Crews are moving dirt, crews are laying pipe, and buildings in the development on Gate Parkway off J. Turner Butler Boulevard and Interstate 295 are going up at a startling pace.
Jerry Mallot, president of the JAXUSA Partnership, said the Town Center is becoming “a huge magnet for the whole region. It's just beginning to mushroom and grow one of the most successful mall developments in the past 20 years and success draw success so we're seeing more things going for it."
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About a mile away, the city's first Ikea store is under construction. Another retail, restaurant and multi-family residential housing and hotel development is also going up on 75 new acres in the Town Center area.
“You know, Ikea is part of that general area, and Ikea itself is going to be a huge tourist attraction and it keeps feeding on it. It's got huge momentum,” said Mallot.
When all is said and done, the vision for the area is one that doesn’t even remotely resemble a mall.
Forbes magazine ranked Jacksonville the ninth-best city to shop. And with the area’s growth and a metropolitan population of nearly 1½ million people, developers believe the time is right to “grow the area.”
Mallot said Town Center says a lot about Jacksonville.
“It says we're hot right now. We're really in a great place. We seldom had the level of economic success and growth we have going on in our community right now," he said.
The fact that it's so close to south Georgia and accessible to virtually all of northeast Florida makes it more of a regional mall than a local outlet.
“There's no doubt about it, it's bringing so many buyers for so many things, and the bigger it becomes the more of a magnet it becomes,” Mallot said.
Mallot added that the time is right for this expansive and rapid growth.
“The time is right, the economy is healthy. We've been adding jobs everywhere. people have money to spend, and you wouldn't be seeing the growth if the timing weren't right.”
It will mean thousands of jobs, both because of the construction and all the businesses going on hiring sprees. It will also generate tax revenue.
There's no overall completion date because there are so many different developers, with more projects still on the drawing board.