Sawgrass Village Shopping Center redux

Historic City News has learned that the first phase of redevelopment at Sawgrass Village Shopping Center in Ponte Vedra Beach could begin as early as January, according to a published report that appeared in the Jacksonville Business Journal.

Publix Super Markets Inc., the shopping center’s original anchor store, reports that during the $17 million demolition and reconstruction they will remain closed.

Their co-anchor, CVS Caremark Corp., says they intend for their store to be open during the construction process.

Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co., through its asset management subsidiary, Cornerstone Real Estate Advisers, LLC., hired Atlanta-based Ben Carter Properties as the project manager for the redevelopment.

Mass Mutual took the property last year in foreclosure. It had loaned $24 million in 2007 to the previous owners, Bailard Sawgrass LLC, to purchase the property and in 2009, Bailard had proposed a $164 million redevelopment project, but failed.

Ben Carter has no ownership in Sawgrass Village, however, it is part-owner of the St. Johns Town Center and the full owner of The Avenues mall.

Phase I will also build a new road to improve the access from the existing Sawgrass Village Drive to the existing CVS building and the shops surrounding the pond.

The tenants that are in the path of the Publix expansion and new roadway will remain open and in their current locations until the end of the year, when they will move to available spaces fronting PGA Tour Boulevard along the pond.

The schedule is for CVS to be complete by late October next year and Publix to be complete in late November or early December 2012. The new grocery story will be 49,000 square feet, about 10,000 square feet bigger than the current store.