Regency Centers plans to break ground on a Whole Foods-anchored shopping center in Durbin Park near Nocatee.

Seth Lane, vice president of investments at Regency Centers, laid out the company's approach to Northeast Florida retail development at Bisnow's Jacksonville Construction & Development Summit on Thursday, Oct. 1. Lane said the company tracks housing construction, road infrastructure, utility connections and the pace of people moving into a trade area before committing to new projects.

Lane said Regency wants to see homes being built and occupied, not just entitled lots on paper, as first reported by the Jacksonville Daily Record. The company spends significant time tracking road infrastructure, housing entitlements and housing growth, he said.

Whole Foods anchors new Durbin Park center

The new Durbin Park project, called The Berkeley at Durbin Park, is planned for East Peyton Parkway near UF Health Durbin Park. Whole Foods Market will anchor the center, with T.J. Maxx, Firebirds Wood Fired Grill and Shake Shack among the confirmed tenants. Regency said in a LinkedIn post, as reported by News4Jax, that groundbreaking is planned for the fourth quarter of 2026.

Lane described the Durbin Park center as serving a regional trade area. Nocatee and the Bartram center in northern St. Johns County, he said, support a different tenant mix heavy on restaurants and services that draw customers from a broader geography. Regency owns and manages Nocatee Town Center in Ponte Vedra Beach.

The company begins underwriting and designing a project two to three years before opening, Lane said. Ground-up projects take two to six years. That timeline forces Regency to estimate what a trade area will look like at opening rather than measuring current demand alone.

Regency tracks growth before building

Lane contrasted retail maturity across the region. Parts of Clay County still lack grocery stores.

Nassau County sits between St. Johns County's more established retail market and Clay's emerging areas. St. Johns County, with Nocatee's continued residential growth, is further along.

Regency expands across Northeast Florida

Regency is also building The Village at Seven Pines, a 250,000-square-foot Publix-anchored center at Butler Boulevard and Interstate 295 in South Jacksonville. That project was 74% leased as of Sept. 28, with the first stores expected to open in 2027, according to the Jacksonville Daily Record. Regency plans to relocate its corporate headquarters there from downtown Jacksonville.

Regency Centers is a publicly traded real estate investment trust with about 485 properties totaling roughly 62 million square feet, Lane said. More than 95% of its portfolio is open-air retail, much of it grocery-anchored. The company has about 100 centers in Florida.

CEO Lisa Palmer said at a Sept. 15 conference, according to the Jacksonville Daily Record, that Regency has nearly $700 million in development and redevelopment projects underway. Retail properties were 96.8% leased as of June 30, Palmer said.

Lane said the company's philosophy is to match demand without overbuilding.

"I'd rather underbuild by two or three retail spaces than overbuild by two or three retail spaces," he said.

Regency has not announced a specific groundbreaking date for The Berkeley at Durbin Park beyond the fourth quarter of 2026.