In Jacksonville business parlance, great spaces are not so much discovered as they are unearthed. Think
Riverside,
San Marco, and all of their well-positioned vacant lots that now sit in prime high-dollar territory. Surrounding homes are often re-habbed and retro-fitted, and they fetch high prices. Those high priced homeowners are going to need someplace to buy the radicchio and goat cheese. Enter
Regency Centers Corporation, and the “urban infill.”
The Jacksonville-based developer will build The Shoppes of Riverside, anchored by the popular Fresh Market food store, and about 20,000 feet of attached small store space along the heart of the neighborhood, Riverside Avenue. In San Marco, Regency Centers Corporation is doing a similar thing, with its much awaited Publix-anchored East San Marco development at the corner of Hendricks Avenue and Atlantic Boulevard, at the easternmost edge of San Marco Square. Regency Corp. will build apartments along with the Publix and some smaller retail outlets. “Infill development” is said to be more expensive, but that value comes back to the developer many-fold, because the high barriers to entry are easily met by the higher-end demographic in these well-established, well-groomed, and classical Jacksonville neighborhoods.
