Publix is finally coming to East San Marco
The East San Marco Shopping Center will break ground in January 2021, and Publix is slated to be the anchor store, a representative from Regency Centers told a group of San Marco Merchants at their meeting Nov. 11.
During a hybrid Zoom and in-person meeting of the San Marco Merchants Association (SMMA) at Southside Baptist Church, the East San Marco project was one of several updates given on several San Marco construction projects, including Park Place at San Marco, and the San Marco One building in San Marco Square.
Speaking before the group were Patrick McKinley, vice president and market officer for Regency Centers, Park Place developer Bill Ware of Harbert Realty, and Paul Thomas, vice president of asset management of Sleiman Enterprises, which owns the historic San Marco One building.
Dustin Kaloostian of Beachside Buggies also spoke before the group. He talked of his company’s progress in providing free transportation to San Marco and Southbank riders after it was forced to shut down completely due to the Coronavirus pandemic.
But most of the crowd was especially interested in learning about the status of East San Marco, and when the long-promised grocer, Publix, might be coming to the neighborhood.
“We finally do have some light at the end of the tunnel,” said McKinley. “I know everyone has been hearing that for a long time.” Many construction projects have been hampered by COVID-19 and East San Marco was one. Delays caused by the virus have delayed the permitting process pushing back the groundbreaking ceremony until January 2021, he said.
Regency has already submitted their site work permits to the city and they are ready to be picked up, McKinley said. He added that architectural plans also have been submitted, and he estimated they would be approved by the end of the year. Contractors are currently submitting bids and a general contractor will most likely be selected in December, he said.
In mid-November, Publix signed a lease with Regency and the new supermarket will anchor the small, long-anticipated shopping center that will be located at the corner of Atlantic Boulevard and Hendricks Avenue.
What is planned for the site is a courtyard-shaped shopping center with a 39,000-square-foot Publix on the second floor of a 50-foot-tall building located at the corner of Atlantic Boulevard and Mango Place. Underneath the store will be parking and a small Publix liquor store, McKinley said.
The Publix will not be a “baby-sized” grocery store like the 28,000 square-foot grocery in Riverside, but rather a custom-sized store that will be larger than Riverside’s grocery but smaller than the typical 54,000-square-foot Publix at University Boulevard. “This is a unique urban site, and Publix is open to creating a custom store,” he said. “It’s not going to feel small like the Riverside store. This one is going to have everything you are going to want. You won’t feel under-merchandised,” he told the crowd. “It will serve the community well.”
The 2.35-acre site will include a courtyard design with 62,000-square feet of retail outlets including two restaurants, bordering Atlantic Boulevard and Hendricks Avenue. After three or four months of site work, vertical construction can begin, McKinley said, noting that Regency hopes to deliver Publix so the grocer can start fitting out the interior in the Summer of 2022. He also estimated that the center’s retailers would open a few months later in late 2022 or early 2023. The challenges of COVID-19 and its impact on the restaurant industry have presented a challenge for Regency when it comes to signing on tenants for the center’s restaurants, he said. “Trying to get a marquee restaurant for that one space (on the corner of Atlantic Boulevard and Hendricks Avenue) has gotten a bit more challenging,” he admitted.
Other than some minor details, the center’s design plans have not really changed from what was presented to the community at its October 2019 town meeting, he said.
McKinley also noted that Regency is coordinating as much as it can with the developers of Park Place at San Marco, which is scheduled to be built on land that was formerly the campus of South Jacksonville Presbyterian Church. Although the two projects will be built simultaneously, he said there should be no real concern about traffic tie-ups while East San Marco is under construction.
“We will have the staging of most of our work done on site,” he said, noting that some site work regarding drainage was done in May, when one lane of Atlantic Boulevard was closed for four or five days. “We choose to do it then because traffic was way down. The city wanted us to do it at that time instead of in the middle of 2021 when traffic might be back to normal.”
Park Place at San Marco
Also speaking in the meeting was Ware, who joins Andy Allen and George Leone of Corner Lot Development Group in overseeing the development of Park Place at San Marco.
The new development, which will be built on land adjacent to Matthews Restaurant and behind South Jacksonville Presbyterian Church, will consist of a 133-unit, four-story, 49.5-foot tall residential complex and a two-story parking garage.
The development was slightly delayed due to a contentious lawsuit led by a San Marco neighborhood group, Right Size San Marco, which objected to the way the property was rezoned to allow a nearly 50-foot tall building to be built in the San Marco Overlay, which mandates buildings not be taller than 35 feet. The city and developers were able to move ahead when Right Size San Marco lost an appeal before the Florida Division of Administrative Hearings (DOAH), and dropped a second appeal before it could be heard before the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit.
Ware said his development team includes EnVision+Engineering, led by Doug Skiles of San Marco, and Group 4 Design. Live Oak Contracting, a Jacksonville-based firm, will be the contractor.
“It’s been a long time coming. I’m excited about it,” said Ware, noting that the project has been a “team effort” from Day 1.
Ware said his team plans to break ground in the second quarter of 2021. “We have our civil plans approved by the city and available for permit,” he said, adding that the project’s architectural plans are being “wrapped up” and should be completed by the end of November to be submitted to the city in early December.
Ware said he was working closely with McKinley so the two projects can “dovetail” nicely. “We want our effort to complement one another on Alford Place so that the main corridor we are creating can be pedestrian friendly. I really believe it is going to add a huge positive dynamic to San Marco. We are attempting to make San Marco more pedestrian friendly, and I do believe once these two projects are up and operational, with all the infrastructure, sidewalks, road improvements, lights and so forth, that we will have the highest walkability factor in Jacksonville,” he said.
San Marco One
Thomas also brought the SMMA group up to date on the renovations being made to San Marco One, a historic commercial building in the heart of San Marco Square. The exterior has been painted and preserved in such a way to keep it watertight, he said. William Jaycox, a San Marco architect, has helped Sleiman Enterprises preserve its historic nature. Jaycox has also suggested interior marketing layouts that will make the 8,000-square-foot interior space attractive to as many as three tenants. Thomas also said that he expects different tenants to lease space on the upper and lower floors.
“We’ve completed the exterior painting and added some wings to bring back the original architecture,” Thomas said. “It gives it more of a Mediterranean feel, and we’ve replaced two of the three roofs.”
Thomas said he is not ready to make an announcement about what tenants might eventually fill the newly renovated space, however, he said his team will be marketing to restaurants, although they might not fill the entire space as they did before. He expects tenants to move into the building at the beginning of 2022.
One leasing challenge facing Sleiman Enterprises is the necessity of opening up the first floor so tenants will feel they are visible from the street, Thomas said. To accomplish that goal, the company is proposing to remove some crepe myrtles along the front and incorporate a “landscape island” just west of the main entrance to the building. Thomas claimed the proposal, which will be considered by both SMMA and the San Marco Preservation Society, will enhance walkability in front of the building and assist in making signage more visible for the first-floor tenant.
“We would take up the maintenance of landscaping and pay for all the improvements,” he said. “We feel this will open up the building and allow people to walk by a little bit better. We are hoping everyone is open to the idea, and we welcome further discussion about it.”
Beachside Buggies
The Beachside Buggies transport service that offers free rides throughout San Marco and the Southbank has resumed after a few months’ hiatus due to COVID-19. The service is now running for limited hours on weekends only, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday but plans to add service on Thursdays at the end of the November, said Kaloostian.
Understanding that people might be leery of riding in the small vans due to the pandemic, the company has made several safety modifications to its vehicles including offering hand sanitizer, and masks and separating riders so that fewer people are transported at the same time.
“Our goal is still the same. We want to change the way people get around San Marco,” Kaloostian said. “We want to change the way people think about traveling the half mile from their condo to our hotel. We want residents who may have done it one way for so many years to entertain a new possibility.”
By Marcia Hodgson
Resident Community News
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