Gateway Town Center in the Brentwood area continues to add retail tenants, the latest being Dollar Tree.
It’s one more national storefront addition to more than 60-year-old center that had struggled for years for new retailers but recently opened an anchor tenant and several more national brands while upgrading the property.
The city is reviewing a permit application for Williams & Rowe Co. Inc. to build-out shell improvements for Dollar Tree at 5258 Norwood Ave., next to Five Below and two doors from anchor Burlington in Building A.
Anchor tenant Burlington, a national discount department store, opened Nov. 10.
Miami Lakes-based owner Gateway Retail Center LLC has been adding new retailers including Roses Discount Store, Planet Fitness and a larger Hibbett Sports.
Family Dollar, which is owned by Dollar Tree, also has a store there. The shopping center site plan shows the stores in separate buildings. While Dollar Tree has been closing some of its Family Dollar stores nationwide, including in Jacksonville, the Gateway site remains open.
There are at least 44 Dollar Tree stores and 47 Family Dollar stores in Baker, Clay, Duval, Nassau and St. Johns counties. Those include at least two Family Dollar and Dollar Tree combination stores.
The estimated $350,000 project for the proposed Dollar Tree comprises shell and facade improvements, a new storefront and a demising wall to create a future tenant space for spaces 12A and 12B.
The total building area for the Dollar Tree project is 16,099 square feet of space.
A site brochure for Gateway Town Center shows Dollar Tree as coming soon.
Much of Gateway Town Center opened more than 60 years ago, in 1959, at the Golfair Boulevard and Norwood Avenue exits east along Interstate 95 and north of Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway.
Gateway added an indoor mall on the site in 1967 as Regency Square Mall opened in Arlington. A California investor recently bought that part on about 10.7 acres and intends to develop retail stores, self-storage and affordable housing.
The rest of the Gateway stores opened between 1980 and 2005.
Winn-Dixie has leased a grocery store there since 2020 after the city agreed to $850,000 in city financial incentives to offset costs associated with redeveloping the property, where Publix Super Markets Inc. closed in 2019. The store was built in 2000.
As the neighborhood struggled, Gateway closed the indoor mall and other retail space.
That is the property attractive to Global Building. Zummo said it bought the estimated 263,000 square feet of vacant space that served as the indoor mall and other uses.
Duval County property records show that Gateway Retail Center LLC, led by Gator Investments President and CEO James Goldsmith, had owned 53.4 acres.
Gateway Retail Center LLC sold the 10.7 acres July 25 to Global Building Jacksonville I LLC for $6 million.
Global Jacksonville I LLC is part of Global Building LLC of Carlsbad, California, and specializes in mixed-use and self-storage center development and ownership.
Gator Investments took control of the Gateway Town Center property in 2012 through a certificate of title.
After the Global Building sale, property records indicate Gator Investments continues to own almost 43 acres there.
The total mall property comprised 640,320 square feet of space.
It appears that Gateway Retail will continue with more than 370,000 square feet of strip-center space and stand-alone buildings, such as an almost 9,400-square-foot former auto service center.