Retail Developers See Niche in Jacksonville

JACKSONVILLE, FL-With a growing population of 1.5 million, this North Florida metro area is attracting name retail developers and national merchants to a turf where Super Bowl XXXIX is scheduled for 2005.

It’s also an area where overall occupancy in a 16.5-million-sf market is 92.8% and retail rents are approaching $30 per sf. “That’s high for this market and generally perceived to be the ceiling,” T. Andrew Hawkins, a vice president in the Orlando office of Trammell Crow Co., told a record 3,600 delegates attending the 2003 Florida Conference of the International Council of Shopping Centers in Orlando last week.

Rental rates for retail space in highest demand range from $16 per sf to $20 per sf. The average asking rent is $13 per sf. National developers such as Simon Property Group of Indianapolis, Ben Carter Properties of Atlanta and CBL & Associates Properties Inc. of Chattanooga, TN already are planning market share slices for themselves, Hawkins says.