…were my “home” in college and for the first few years afterward, as I weathered the recession. I held multiple jobs, frequented several stores for cute outfits and made many friends whom I would go around and talk to each day.
In 2005, when I arrived, the outside of the mall was very bland and had little appeal. In 2008, the renovation began and a few dozen outward-facing stores were created as well as a decorative archway in the entrance, a fountain, and a free-standing Sak’s outlet. Around Halloween that year, the new installment opened up with some 60 new stores inside and outside, most designer names. That new development created a few hundred jobs that holiday season, including mine. I worked at Hugo Boss as a commissioned sales associate and loved it for the first few months. The recession began to really hurt the retail in the area in 2009 and it resulted in the cutting of many part-time jobs, including mine. I would eventually find full-time work in banking in 2011, but the mall continued to be a place I would go to hang out.
Sometime around 2015 or 2016 it became painfully obvious that things were winding down. More and more stores were departing and entire sections were dark. Almost every one of the shiny new designer stores that graced the mall in 2008 had shuttered. The advent of Covid-19 put the nail in the coffin for the mall in 2020.
It was decided sometime in 2021 that the mall would be redeveloped into other types of businesses, with the original plan being to use part of the structure.
On January 31, 2022, the mall closed forever. The remaining 6 or 8 stores had transferred across the road to the premium outlet mall and the SAKS had gone out of business. The mall sat empty for the rest of the year until summer, when demolition began. The plans changed at some point, and the entire structure including the 2008 exterior installment was torn down. Only the SAKS building remains.
https://www.jaxdailyrecord.com/news/2022/jun/03/demolition-starting-on-st-augustine-outlets//
An empty lot is all that remains of more than a decade of memories.
