A Sixties map exhibiting the placement of Deerwood. | Jacksonville Public Library Particular Collections Division
Situated at 9902 Baymeadows Highway, the Deerwood Village Mall serves as an early suburban Jacksonville shopping center that continues to outlive the check of time and altering retail procuring developments. The procuring middle’s story dates again to the 1960 growth of the Deerwood Nation Membership, ten miles southeast of downtown Jacksonville. The Deerwood Nation Membership was Florida’s first gated group and for a few years, essentially the most unique residential space on Jacksonville’s Southside. The unique 900-acre growth was the brainchild of Bryant Skinner and named Deerwood, as a result of property’s abundance of wildlife.
Notable golf course architect George Cobb was employed to design the challenge’s golf course.The Deerwood Nation Membership growth was financed by Stockton, Whatley, Davin & Firm (SWD). On the time, SWD was Northeast Florida’s largest actual property, insurance coverage and mortgage banking agency. Based in 1884, because the Telfair Stockton Firm, the agency developed the neighborhood of San Marco within the Twenties and Ponte Vedra Seaside within the Thirties.
To make the remoted property accessible, land was donated for the development of Southside Boulevard. Prior so far, the one approach to attain Deerwood was from Philips Freeway alongside a 3 mile rural highway known as San Clerc. San Clerc finally turned Baymeadows Highway and acquired an interchange with Interstate 95 when the freeway was constructed.
Deerwood Village Mall is born
The Deerwood Village Mall in 1979. | State Archives of Florida
By the Seventies, Deerwood had turn out to be a fascinating group on the sting of Jacksonville’s southward development from the older central metropolis. Responding to the necessity for business facilities, SWD moved ahead with the event of Deerwood Village Mall on the intersection of Southside Boulevard and Baymeadows Highway. SWD employed native structure agency Kemp, Bunch and Jackson, often known as KBJ, to design the procuring middle. Anchored by Publix Tremendous Markets and Eckerds, KBJ designed the event to have an identical architectural fashion to the close by Deerwood growth’s lodge, which was characterised with cedar shake roofs and a major quantity of landscaping.
The Deerwood Village Mall opened its doorways in 1972, fourteen years after the primary enclosed fashionable shopping center was accomplished in the US in Edina, MN. Designed by architect and urbanist Victor David Gruen, the enclosed mall idea was meant to function a centralized mixed-use epicenter of pedestrian scale exercise for autocentric suburbia. In contrast to Gruen’s enclosed mall idea, KBJ’s Deerwood Village Mall was developed as an open air procuring middle meant to raised match into the then surrounding surroundings of Deerwood. Two years later, the mall’s two most important anchors, Publix Tremendous Markets and Eckerd Medication opened their doorways.
The mall’s Publix was an early a part of the Lakeland-based grocery chain’s second try and increase into the Jacksonville market. Established in 1930, in Winter Haven, Florida, Publix opened its first Jacksonville retailer within the Norwood’s Gateway Procuring Middle in 1959. Nevertheless, that retailer was closed in 1962. After recording practically $500 million in gross sales in 1970, the chain returned to city opening shops in Arlington Mall and College Mall and a Westside retailer at 4399 Roosevelt Boulevard in 1971. With the muse established for a brand new division, the chain then opened a bakery plant and a produce distribution middle in 1973.
By 1976, the bustling shopping center’s listing of 32 specialty retailers included Venny’s Italian Restaurant, Sarah Anthony, Waldz Deli & Bakery, Persepolis Persian Rugs, The Village Vitamin Shoppe, The Lingerie Shoppe, Little Champ Market, Kids Tree Home and Sam The Tremendous Teller. With Deerwood exploding in inhabitants, an extra 15,000-square-foot of retail storefronts had been added by 1978, growing the mall’s whole sq. footage to almost 100,000-square-feet.
Anticipating extra enlargement, the Metropolis Council rezoned 20 acres within the speedy neighborhood to permit for SWD to extend the shopping center’s dimension in 1978. The rezoning included a 14.5-acre tract on the northwest nook of Southside Boulevard and Outdated Baymeadows Highway and a 5.5-acre tract on the southwest nook of Southside Boulevard and Baymeadows Highway. SWD’s plans included the addition of an upscale division retailer, similar to a Neiman Marcus or Saks Fifth Avenue, as soon as Deerwood’s inhabitants was giant sufficient to assist it.
Deerwood Village Mall’s success births Grand Boulevard Mall
The previous Grand Boulevard Mall middle court docket at what’s now FSCJ Deerwood Campus.
Retail enlargement lastly happened with the November 1982 groundbreaking of Nationwide Capital Investments’ Grand Boulevard Mall. The Deerwood Village Mall was additionally acquired by Nationwide Capital Investments. With Grand Boulevard Mall proposed, Nationwide Capital Investments shifted the main focus of the older procuring middle to a “comfort middle” and tenants had been focused and positioned to not have the procuring facilities compete in opposition to one another.
Situated throughout the road from Deerwood Village Mall, the $16 million, 289,000-square-foot, two-story upscale mall was anchored by an 80,000-square-foot Jacobson’s division retailer. Based in 1838 by Abram Jacobson in Reed Metropolis, MI, Jacobson’s was a 25-store chain specializing in high-quality clothes, presents and different merchandise. In contrast to conventional mall-based shops, Jacobson’s most well-liked smaller procuring facilities, the place they may function the dominant anchor. Jacobson’s and the developer felt the placement would entice buyers from St. Johns County, Orange Park, Mandarin and the Seashores that had been used to flying to upscale facilities in Dallas, New York and Atlanta for his or her shopper wants.
The imaginative and prescient for Grande Boulevard rapidly morphed into the fact that it was too ritzy for Jacksonville. Considered as too costly, customers stayed away, choosing different procuring malls in Jacksonville. By 1988, greater than half of the mall’s leasable retail house had gone darkish and the ultimate nail in its coffin got here with the 1990 opening of The Avenues. In 1994, the failed Grand Boulevard Mall was offered to Florida Neighborhood School at Jacksonville (FCCJ) for $4 million, paving the way in which for its conversion into Florida State School at Jacksonville’s Deerwood Campus.
Deerwood Village Mall lives on
The middle court docket of Deerwood Village Mall. At this time, the procuring middle is residence to companies that serve the culturally numerous Baymeadows group.
Whereas Grand Boulevard Mall failed, Deerwood Village Mall continued to morph and prosper in a location accessible and surrounded by three busy streets. In 2000, Deerwood Village Mall LLC of Boca Raton acquired Deerwood Village Mall for $6.8 million. On the time of this transaction, the procuring middle’s listing of tenants included American Categorical, Carla’s Sneakers, Common Vitamin Middle, Dunkin Donuts, Tijuana Flats restaurant, Venny’s restaurant and Persepolis Rugs. Extra change got here in 2004, when Largo, FL-based Eckerd Medication was offered to CVS Company and Jean Contu Group for $4.5 billion. Based in 1898, Eckerd was the second-largest pharmacy chain within the nation at its peak, with roughly 2,802 shops in 23 states. A Winn-Dixie (now Rowe’s IGA Grocery store) anchored procuring middle was added within the mall’s west parking zone in 1986. Extra restaurant outparcel buildings, now occupied by Panda Categorical, Jimmy John’s Sandwiches, Vino’s Pizza & Grill and Las Tapatias Mexican Restaurant, had been added in 2006 and 2009.
A sufferer of its personal success, the procuring middle’s unique Publix, constructed 50 years in the past, will shut on October 5, 2024. Publix plans to demolish and change the shop and adjoining CVS pharmacy house with a brand new 48,640-Publix Meals & Pharmacy and a separate liquor retailer. Listed below are a couple of current day images of Deerwood Village Mall.