Gateway Town Center in the Brentwood area is in line for redevelopment as the California investor that bought about 10.7 acres there intends to add retail stores, self-storage and affordable housing.
“It will be a full mixed-use project and I think it will be a nice fit for what is already there,” Global Building LLC President Joseph Zummo said July 30. There are no renderings, he said, and did not estimate a total investment. “We are still trying to look at all of the different possibilities and come up with the best mix of uses,” he said.
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. The property flanks north and south of West 44th Street. Gateway developed an indoor mall on the site in 1967 as Regency Square Mall opened in Arlington. The rest of the Gateway stores opened between 1980 and 2005. 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.
“It was a direct deal between myself and Jim Goldsmith,” Zummo said. “He and I worked for five months putting this transaction together.”
Global Jacksonville I LLC is part of Global Building LLC of Carlsbad, California. Global Building specializes in mixed-use and self-storage center development and ownership. Gateway Town Center, north of Downtown and Springfield, comprises an increasingly active shopping area where several retailers opened recently. Gateway Retail Center has been adding new retailers that include Burlington, Five Below, Roses Discount Store, Planet Fitness and a larger Hibbett Sports.
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.
“We are finalizing what Jim Goldsmith started in taking over the most difficult part of the property to redevelop, to finish that back part of the mall,” Zummo said.
“And watching the Jacksonville area and the tremendous growth going on, we thought it was a good city (in which) to acquire our first Florida property.” Zummo said he had been talking with Goldsmith for five months. “He has put a lot of new tenants in there,” he said.
The site is across the mall property from Winn-Dixie, he said. “This will wrap up the back end of the mall that has been vacant for so long.” Zummo said the project will complement the existing retailers that Goldsmith has attracted.
Self-storage
Zummo said Global Building will convert the former JCPenney building into a two-story, 100,000-square-foot indoor climate-controlled self-storage building that likely will be branded either Public Storage or Extra Space, which will operate under a third-party agreement. Global Building owns it and the operator would manage it.
Zummo said Global Building wants to start interior demolition within 30 days inside the JCPenney store, with construction of the self-storage completed in about 12 months. The two-story department store comprises 132,456 square feet, property records show.
Retail
About 30,000 square feet of adjacent vacant retail space will be marketed to retailers, such as a furniture store and other discounters like Ross Dress For Less. “We want to add at least one more major retailer,” Zummo said.
He said Gateway Town Center caters to discount retailers. “We think a furniture store would be good, and another clothing store like a Ross-type, maybe a general merchandiser like TJ Maxx (or) HomeGoods,” he said.
Early learning
A former Duval County Tax Collector’s Office, comprising 8,044 square feet on 1.5 acres, will be turned into an early childhood learning center, Zummo said. He said the child care center operator is under contract and the project will happen earlier than the self-storage project. He declined to identify it.
Affordable apartments
The rest of the former mall buildings on the Global Building property will be demolished for development of affordable housing, Zummo said.
Zummo said Global Building will partner with a developer for about 90 to 95 units among one or two three-story buildings on 3.5 acres. He declined to identify that developer.
The apartments will take time for approvals, he said. Construction would not start until mid-2026. He said the company is working with a Jacksonville development partner with experience in tax credits.
“We will be dealing with the city,” he said. “We plan to meet with (City) Council members and facilitate that.” He said Global Building will sell the property to the developer. There also would be amenities for the apartments. Strategy and reuse
Zummo said the property is referred to internally as the Global Jacksonville I redevelopment project that likely will be rebranded. “It will morph into something,” he said. “We may come up with something more marketable.”
Zummo said Global Building specializes in redevelopment. “We have been doing projects like this all across the nation,” Zummo said.
“We look for large commercial buildings that have been vacant and in a good location,” he said, explaining that the Jacksonville project is visible along I-95 north of Downtown. The company also seeks property that can be reused, he said. Raze-and-rebuild necessitates depositing nonrecyclable debris into landfills and requires new materials for construction, “which depletes our natural resources.”
“It is good for the environment to use old existing buildings when possible, and it also is good for the community. These large buildings that sit vacant tend to get vandalized. It can become a blight on the community and neighborhood,” Zummo said.
He said Global Building has done similar projects where closed retail stores were redeveloped with self-storage and retail projects. The global-building.com site shows investments in California, Indiana, Iowa, New Jersey and Tennessee. “We like to find opportunities to reuse old buildings and give them new life and give them a mix of uses, usually self-storage, too,” he said.
Global Building reuses large parking lots and has added restaurants and retailers such as Olive Garden Italian Kitchen, Raising Cane’s, Dollar Tree, Freddy’s Frozen Custard & Steakburgers, Starbucks and AutoZone.
In New Jersey, the company sold land to the county for a medical center, Zummo said.
Global Building CEO C.W. Tucker Lewis and Zummo filed the Jacksonville LLC with the state June 25. Global-building.com says it is buying office properties and converting them to “lifestyle office buildings” to capitalize on emerging trends.
“Additionally, we acquire vacant retail properties and convert the properties into third generation, climate-controlled self-storage facilities,” it says.
The fund’s investment goals “are to create value for our partners, our tenants and in the communities where we own properties.” It says it is heading into its 16th year of business.
“We have extensive experience in acquiring and managing office building & self-storage facilities and are leading the way in adapting properties to the needs of tomorrow’s dynamic users,” it says.
The website shows several properties that a Global fund bought and renovated into self-storage centers, in some cases developing other retail stores or pads. Those include a former community education center and former Menards home-improvement, Sears and Acme grocery store. It also bought a commerce park.
Gateway Retail Center
Gator Investments of Miami Lakes 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. Goldsmith could not be reached for comment.
“We feel good about it because we are doing something most people don’t want to do,” he said in 2023 when Burlington and Five Below plans were confirmed for the center, which is in ZIP code 32208.
At the time, Census data showed per capita income of $21,923 and median household income of $36,316.
It says 29.1% of the population was below the poverty line. Income is lower and poverty was higher there than in Duval County as a whole. The Duval County per capita income was $54,354; median household income was $59,541; and 14.9% of the population was below the poverty line.
“We are able to help rebuild some of America that has been neglected,” Goldsmith said. “We have a good feeling about it.”
