JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Major parts of Regency Square Mall could be demolished and redeveloped with multifamily housing, retail, entertainment and other uses when the largely vacant mall is sold, according to News4JAX news partner the Jacksonville Daily Record.
Community members said they are excited to hear about those plans because they think it will bring back life to this side of town.
“It’s just kind of crazy to see what happened to it. Before you know growing up here, I was going there as a kid two game stops and you know always lively they had the arcade,” Jacksonville resident Myles Williams said.
Prospective buyer Blackwater Development LLC President Rurmell McGee said on Wednesday the purchase could be completed by the first quarter of 2025 and the redevelopment could take five to 10 years.
“How can people in the community benefit from that property? So instead of just looking at it from a development standpoint … it has to perform, it has to make money,” McGee said during a recent panel discussion on “The Future of Arlington” at Jacksonville University.
“That’s the only way any of us can do the things that we do. It has to be profitable, but the reality is we want to create a vibrant property project that benefits the neighborhood and benefits the constituents in that area.”
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Resident Michela Mote said she thinks the plan will help revitalize the area.
“It would revitalize it, it would bring people from all sides of town to visit and if it’s something that the people enjoy, it’s something they can copycat on another side of town,” Mote said.
Lake City-based Blackwater Development LLC announced on Oct. 16, 2023, that it has a contract to buy that part of the mall. McGee said then he expected the sale could close in the third quarter of 2024.
The redevelopment would not include Impact Church, the operating Dillard’s Clearance Center and the closed Sears stores, which have separate owners from the rest of the mall.
News4JAX reached out to Ken Amaro, who’s the city council member over the district the mall is in, and asked him about the potential buyer’s plans.
He responded with the following statement:
“If all goes well with the purchase, regency square will become an open canvas for transformative work that will change the intersection of Monument Road and Atlantic Boulevard,” Amaro wrote.
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