Wedding venue in Blue Ridge, GA for couples in Town n Country, FL

After 17 years, Winn-Dixie intends to return to Arlington next year to College Park, the former Town & Country Shopping Center at northeast University Boulevard and Arlington Expressway where the supermarket operated for years.

Winn-Dixie is a banner of Jacksonville-based Southeastern Grocers.

President and CEO Anthony Hucker said March 3 that the College Park Winn-Dixie is an opportunity for the company.

The opening allows Southeastern Grocers “to expand in our hometown and return to the area to provide a unique grocery shopping experience for the Arlington community.”

“We plan to make a significant investment in the store to support the revitalization of the community and will welcome more than 100 associates to provide needed jobs and ensure our new customers receive remarkable service,” he said in a statement.

The store will open in 2023 at 999 University Blvd..

Winn-Dixie will lease 48,738 square feet of space where Southeastern Grocers said it opened in 1997 and closed in 2006.

Jacksonville-based JWB Real Estate Capital is redeveloping the 69-year-old retail plaza.

Part of the 18.27-acre site is being cleared for an apartment project while the center’s parking lot and facade are being replaced and upgraded.

“It will be a really amazing catalyst for the neighborhood,” JWB President Alex Sifakis said of College Park.

He said his group is bringing infrastructure and amenities to the Arlington area.

“It’s already a great neighborhood, but the community has been asking for these types of amenities,” he said.

Sifakis said Winn-Dixie is a key piece of the College Park revitalization.

Redeveloping and financing

Property records show Town & Country was built between 1953 and 1979. It comprises about 189,000 square feet of space.

The property is part of the Renew Arlington Community Redevelopment Area, which the city hopes to assist with rejuvenation.

Through 903 University Blvd LLC, JWB paid almost $5.1 million for the property in August 2019.

Sifakis told Arlington business owners in July 2021 that the group intended to provide food options at the shopping center in response to neighborhood requests.

That included a grocery store. While Sifakis would not identify the company, it would lease space previously occupied by Winn-Dixie.

For food options, Sifakis also talked about the shipping container food court and entertainment complex that will be built on-site, next to the new apartments. JWB also wants to bring restaurants to the inline center.

Sifakis said in July the center is 45% occupied, not counting the grocery center space leased for storage. When the grocery store moves in, occupancy rises to 72%.

The largest current tenants include Dollar General, Advance Auto Parts, DaVita and Legacy Ministries. McDonald’s and a service station on the site are separately owned.

The first sign of renovation was art.

Jacksonville artists created an eight-panel mural in early 2020 on the side of the building facing the expressway.

In June 2021, the Renew Arlington Community Redevelopment Agency board approved an almost $1.31 million code compliance grant to the new owners, as well as a $2 million infrastructure development grant payable up to $400,000 annually over five years.

The city approved a permit in June 2021 for Reliant Roofing Inc. to re-roof the center at a cost of $1 million.

The city approved a permit Jan. 5, 2022, for commercial contractor ShayCore LLC to renovate the facade at a cost of $4.5 million.

Sifakis said March 4 that his group will close on $18 million in financing this week with Local Initiatives Support Corp. Jacksonville and RBC Bank through the federal New Markets Tax Credit Program, and with VyStar Credit Union.

The New Markets Tax Credit Program is designed to help economically distressed communities attract private capital by providing investors with a federal tax credit.

Investments made through the program are used to finance businesses, “breathing new life into neglected, underserved low-income communities,” says the U.S. Treasury Department.

Under the program, investors receive a tax credit for making equity investments in certified Community Development Entities, which in turn use the proceeds to make loans and investments in businesses, real estate projects and community facilities in low-income communities, says LISC.org.

Sifakis said the cost to develop the first phase of College Park is $18.5 million, paid for by the financing, the city incentives and JWB’s cash.

“It’s been a great experience working with the city, LISC, VyStar and City Council member Joyce Morgan,” Sifakis said.

The first phase includes the parking lot renovations and facade work, which are underway. Sifakis expects the first phase completion in September.

Colliers International Senior Director Matthew Clark and associates Sam Middlekauff and Olivia Steinemann are the leasing agents.

The facade redesign, parking lot and landscape improvements, ADA compliance and upgraded LED lighting systems will be completed in the third quarter.

The first phase will create two building pads for the second phase, which will consist of a shipping container food court and a multifamily project of 82 market-rate apartments among two three-story buildings in the parking lot corner at the expressway and University Boulevard.

Sifakis said the second phase should come online 12 to 18 months after completion of the first phase.

Donated space

Sifakis said previously that the College Park name seemed to fit with Jacksonville University, which is less than 2 miles north.

He said JWB will donate space at the shopping center to JU and a few nonprofits.

JU will lease 1,000 square feet for $1. It is deciding on a few plans for using the space.

Tne nonprofit Suited For Success Jacksonville Inc. will lease 2,000 square feet of space for $1.

It provides job training and a new wardrobe to men in need. The organization received a CNN 2021-22 Champions for Change award.

Its mission is “to empower men seeking employment and reentry back into the community by providing interview suits along with personal and professional development service.”

Fernando Wong, the Florida- and New York–based garden designer who has created celebrated landscapes for museums and hotels, as well as private clients, had long been curious about an overgrown estate on Palm Beach’s South Lake Trail. “I’d peer through the gate and see piles of dead leaves. It looked completely wild,” he tells T&C.

Two years ago he was hired to bring the property back to its former glory. The garden and accompanying Adam-style house, built in 1938, is considered one of the finest designs by the late, legendary South Florida architect John L. Volk. The grounds are laid out on a clear axis in the formal English garden tradition—a style that matches Wong’s own pared-down, classical aesthetic. “Note that even the swimming pool is located on the center line, and the chevron shape was used to make it look like a formal garden’s reflecting pool,” he says.

Wong became obsessed with a large ceiba (or kapok) tree at the rear of the property. “The garden was overgrown, and you could barely see it from the house.” Ceibas are revered by many cultures; the Mayans believed they were sacred. This particular tree was planted in the late 1800s by a son of the estate’s original owner, Charles Clarke, for whom the Palm Beach avenue is named. “The kapok’s exposed roots, called buttresses, have a gorgeous architecture. We kept all our plantings low so it would be visible from everywhere in the garden.”

“Our goal was to bring back the architect’s original intent,” Wong says of Volk’s formal design. That meant reestablishing clean sightlines. A fountain that was transformed into a planting area, pictured above, is framed by hedges of Cuban laurel and punctuated by a towering Canary Island date palm.

“I love green-on-green gardens,” says Wong, whose razor-sharp borders and parterre, above, are set off with low ground cover, jasmine minima.

Before he could plant anything, Wong had to make extensive structural repairs. “We installed a new underground drainage system and completely rebuilt these two fountains and their connecting rill.” An allée of longleaf fig trees flanks the walkway next to the water feature.

Enormous specimen trees, including the banyans at the front of the property, lend the grounds an ancient grandeur. “We cleaned the trees up a lot,” Wong says of the ficus varietal. “They were covered in bird droppings and overgrown with palm seedlings.”

Along the main axis a sunken garden is framed by four small flowering trees (golden dewdrop), which surround the garden’s centerpiece fountain. On the right boundary Wong planted towering royal palms to match a neighbor’s trees. “It’s a visual trick to make it appear that your estate extends way off into the distance.“

When John L. Volk designed the estate, in the 1930s, he boasted the gardens would be “the most extensive in Palm Beach.” This remains true today, Wong says. “There aren’t many properties left in Palm Beach with so much land dedicated to formal gardens. It’s a treat to work in such a historic medium.”

This story appears in the February 2021 issue of Town & Country. SUBSCRIBE NOW

Arlington’s first retail plaza sold Thursday to JWB Real Estate Companies LLC, which paid almost $5.08 million for the Town & Country Shopping Center at northeast University Boulevard and Arlington Expressway.

Jacksonville-based JWB, led by Alex Sifakis, focuses on urban redevelopment and infill housing.

“We are currently evaluating our options for the site,” Sifakis said Monday.

He said current leases will be honored.

Property records show Town & Country was developed in 1953 and expanded since then. It comprises about 200,000 square feet of space on almost 19 acres at 903 University Blvd.

It is at the eastern base of the Mathews Bridge and about 3 miles from Downtown.

Town & Country Shopping Center Inc., led by President Leonard Setzer, sold the property to 903 University Blvd LLC, led by JWB.

DLP Lending Fund LLC of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, issued an almost $6.1 million mortgage to JWB to include financing for construction or rehabilitation of the property.

The property does not include the McDonald’s and the service station at the front of the property along University Boulevard.

Sifakis is president and one of four owners of JWB Real Estate Capital, which he formed with Gregg Cohen, CEO, in 2006 to flip rental properties. CFO Adam Rigel and COO Adam Eiseman also are owners.

The company, based along Philips Highway, has been expanding its property management and infill land development and construction, all handled in-house

“I look at this as the entrance to Arlington and it deserves to have good tenants to bring life back to Arlington,” Prime Realty Senior Vice President Matthew Clark said previously.

Clark said in March the Town & Country Shopping Center was 50 percent occupied.

He said Monday his group worked with the seller in the transaction and will handle leasing.

“Town and Country Shopping Center has incredible potential with its proximity to Downtown and Jacksonville University. I look forward to seeing the planned improvements come to fruition over the next year,” Clark said in an email.

“There has been interest from larger retailers entering the market – the new improvements will only help us solidify those groups. I am hoping with the project’s success it will help to redefine the entrance to Arlington.”

Town & Country was built between 1953 and 1979, with McDonald’s added in 1984, property records show.

It is part of the Renew Arlington Community Redevelopment Area, which the city hopes to assist with rejuvenation.

Clark said previously that Town & Country is anchored by Advance Auto Parts, Dollar General, DaVita Kidney Care and Legacy Ministries Worship Center. An anchor space previously was occupied by Winn-Dixie and longer ago, Pic N’ Save, a chain of general merchandise stores led by Setzer and family members.

Sifakis also is busy with Downtown projects. His group proposes the Ashley Street Container Project – 18 studio units made of shipping containers at 412 E. Ashley St.

JWB and Corner Lot Development LLC jointly competed for development rights for eight city-owned parcels in LaVilla through Johnson Commons LLC, although the Downtown Investment Authority chose a bid by Vestcor Companies.

TAMPA — Jessica Wright thought she emptied the gun.

After one of her teenage children brought a weapon home Thursday night, Wright took control and unloaded it, according to the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office.

But, in the chamber, one round remained.

Wright, 33, accidentally fired the gun, hitting her 52-year-old mother, Carolyn Wright, in the upper body just after midnight Friday, killing her, deputies said.

"All I heard was a popping and then a whole bunch of screaming," said the victim's own mother, Rosie Wright, 70, asleep at the time in a Town 'N Country home shared by nine people across four generations.

Carolyn Wright was a devout churchgoer known for helping the needy.

After the shooting, one teen who lives at the home panicked and threw the gun into a storm drain near the home at 8202 Pinehurst Circle, deputies reported. They recovered the gun and were investigating how and where it was obtained.

A description of the weapon was not released.

The Wrights lived at the home with Jessica's four children — ages 17, 15, 13 and 8 — and two other family members. Sheriff's Office spokeswoman Debbie Carter said detectives were still working to confirm which of the teens brought the gun home. The circumstances of its firing were also under investigation.

"All preliminary indications are that it was accidental," she said.

A steady stream of family and friends, some in tears, visited the home Friday morning as television news trucks idled in the street.

Aliya Wright, 15, said her mother had gone to a friend's house. "She needed to get away," she said.

In a brief interview, Rosie Wright called her daughter a nice, caring person.

"And she loved her grandchildren," Wright said.

Carolyn Wright's church family called her "the coffee lady."

Before Wednesday and Sunday services, Wright would arrive early at Harvest Time Worship Center to make sure congregants were greeted by a fresh pot of coffee, said Pastor Sheila Ramdial.

Carolyn Wright used to work as a cashier at Walmart but started having trouble with her kidneys and went on disability several years ago, Ramdial said. Wright rarely missed church, often coming straight from one of her thrice-weekly dialysis sessions. She was quick to crack jokes and helped organize monthly outreach missions to a local mobile home park to offer food, clothing and prayer to people in need.

At church on Wednesday night, Wright wanted to know when the next visit would be, Ramdial said.

"She truly had a servant's heart," she said.

Ramdial said she has been fielding calls from members of her small flock, some of them weeping, all of them devastated by the loss. The pastor is comforting them the same way she is trying to ease the burden on Wright's family.

Keep up with Tampa Bay’s top headlines

Subscribe to our free DayStarter newsletter

We’ll deliver the latest news and information you need to know every morning.

Loading...

"I tell them she's in heaven right now, rejoicing," Ramdial said. "She's in a better place."

Times senior news researcher John Martin contributed to this report. Contact Tony Marrero at tampabay.com or (813) 226-3374. Follow @tmarrerotimes.

Someone orders the Cajun chicken, owner Philippe Delgrange greets a patron warmly, a table debates animatedly when the Lincoln Center might reopen. The sounds and smells are pure Madison Avenue, but this is Palm Beach, where Upper East Side French bistro Le Bilboquet has opened its new outpost down the street from La Goulue—Sant Ambroeus is a short drive away. Just as the pandemic has sent a flock of New Yorkers down south, restaurants have followed suit.

The new Le Bilboquet in Palm Beach is situated in a spot off Worth Avenue, owned by Jane Holzer. Holzer was one of Andy Warhol's muses and a fixture in the New York scene in the 1960s, but now she is staunchly Floridian. A native of Palm Beach, she moved back to her hometown years ago, investing in its cultural and arts scene. It seems as though she is close to a big payoff with this latest flurry of openings.

"When I arrived last March, I immediately got a crash course in Jane Holzer's Palm Beach," says David Lucido, who designed the new Le Bilboquet. He pulled the design elements from the tour, leaning on the Art Deco aesthetic that runs through the city, and remixed them with French designs, like the quintessential bistro chairs by Maison Gatti and a nickel-topped bar imported from Paris. Art throughout the restaurant is from Beth DeWoody, another Palm Beach art fixture (her personal collection is on view at The Bunker Artspace nearby).

Ironically, it is the restaurant's signature flair (it was once dubbed "the snobbiest restaurant in New York City") that offered Lucido the freedom to make the interior endemic to Palm Beach, rather than a riff of the original. "The restaurant's DNA is in its customer service and culture, not in its 'branding,'" he says. "I knew those elements would be there naturally so I was able to focus on the place itself."

Designing under the shadow of Covid-19 also informed the restaurant's layout, with sinuous curves that hug tables together and accordion-style doors that open all the way up to create a seamless indoor-outdoor flow. The courtyard is filled with lush plants and tucked away grottos for intimate conversations. "I wanted it to be warm and inviting, with nooks and places where people could congregate safely," says Lucido. By noon he reports, the whole courtyard is full and the sound of corks popping fills the air. It is rush of fresh energy to a town once written-off as staid, but has been gaining momentum.

“Palm Beach is having a resurgence, and there are tons of new, young families,” Aerin Lauder told T&C in the March issue. Her latest project, The Colony Hotel, is another hotspot to open in the town. Whether or not Miami and Palm Beach will retain their newfound popularity is a question for post-Covid, but in the meantime, at least we'll know where to meet for dinner.