More retail development is envisioned along Pritchard Road, west of Interstate 295, where another potential shopping center is being explored.
On March 5, city utility JEA issued a letter of service availability to Pattillo Industrial Real Estate for 22.18 undeveloped acres being considered for the 50,000-square-foot Shops of Pritchard along the north side Pritchard Road near Magill Road. The retail center might include a supermarket.
On March 20, JEA issued an availability letter to consultant Hipps Group Inc. for a 30,000-square-foot infill strip shopping center south along Pritchard Road at 4065 Magill Road. The 3.99-acre site is at southeast Pritchard and Magill roads.
Duval County property records show the land is owned by William and Laura Silcox of Jacksonville. The site now has a 1,828-square-foot single-family home built in 1988.
That area of Northwest Jacksonville, north of I-10 and Beaver Street, has been developed with thousands of acres of distribution centers, logistics hubs and manufacturing, primarily among the Westside and Westlake Industrial Parks.
It’s also an area of generational homesteads as well as a fresh landscape for new housing.
A JEA letter does not mean a development will take place, just that one is being explored.
Pattillo Vice President of Development Peter Anderson said March 6 that the Shops of Pritchard would be a land sale “to a prominent retail development firm” that he did not identify.
He said the number of buildings that would account for the 50,000 square feet of space has yet to be determined.
“The project is in the preliminary phases but the explosion of residential growth in the area (some 8,000 home sites are under construction) has created a need for grocery and retail services,” he said by email.
Typical grocery stores can range up to 40,000 to 50,000 square feet, so a potential supermarket would take up most of the shop space for now.
Smaller stores, such as the hair and nail salons, restaurants and other tenants that typically join grocery-anchored centers, usually range from about 1,000 to 5,000 square feet,
There’s no indication – at least yet – of outparcels, which is where gas stations, fast-food drive-thrus and coffee kiosks usually settle in.
The Silcox project, as it is named in the JEA request, does not detail what sort of infill development is being considered.
The service-availability requests come as some area land owners and developers welcome more retail to the Westside.
“If there are any retail developers here, you ought to go out and buy property,” said Landings Real Estate Group President Christopher Bicho at the March 6 BisNow “Jacksonville State of the Market” presentations at the Hyatt Regency Jacksonville Riverfront Downtown.