3. Big Box retail: Addition by subtraction

Back in 2014 in Daytona Beach, while anchor tenant Kmart’s fortunes declined, Daytona Plaza’s owners didn’t panic. Instead, North Miami Beach-based Gator Investments successfully replaced Kmart by renovating the 14-acre, 50-year-old strip center and carving out the retailer’s footprint into smaller retail spaces. Today, Kmart has closed, but the center is doing better than ever with GFS Marketplace, West Marine, Old Time Pottery, Starbucks, McDonald’s and Pie Five as new tenants. In Jacksonville, one option worth considering for the Landing is going the opposite route. Here, we have an enclosed mall with high vacancies and no anchor tenant. Consideration should be given to combining small spaces into a larger box to attract a different type of tenant that the downtown market can support.

While this won’t accomplish former Mayor Alvin Brown’s desire for a downtown Macy’s, it could help land something that would be beneficial to downtown’s population like a CVS Pharmacy or Walgreens. While this idea might not be provocative enough for revitalization advocates, the reality is that downtown could use a market rate slumpbuster.

An urban Office Depot on the ground floor of a mixed-use retail development in Mexico City.

A CVS Pharmacy in the Baltimore, MD. A pharmacy is an example of a larger retail business that the existing downtown market could support.