The shopping center going up across East Peyton Parkway from UF Health Durbin Park already has a site plan. About half the space goes to a grocery store and a discount retailer. Two restaurant pads sit at the edges. Most of the smaller signed storefronts are taken by businesses that run on reservations: a vet clinic, a Pilates studio, a nail spa and private sauna suites.
That mix says a lot about how this corner of northern St. Johns County is filling in. The medical campus came first. The retail now being built beside it has a lot in common with it, since much of it runs on bookings.
The hospital set the address
UF Health held a ribbon-cutting for its Durbin Park campus on Thursday, Sept. 17, and Jacksonville Today reported that the campus would officially open the following Tuesday. According to UF Health's announcement, the first phase opened Sept. 22.
The hospital is big for a suburban interchange. It is a five-story, 220,000-square-foot building off State Road 9B, a few minutes from I-95. It has 99 inpatient beds, a 24-hour emergency department, six operating rooms, two endoscopy suites and advanced imaging. The campus covers 42.5 acres. Next door, UF Health lists a three-story, 72,000-square-foot medical office building for specialty care, including orthopaedics, ENT, neurology, heart and vascular, urology and rehabilitation.
Visitors will also find a few everyday comforts inside. The hospital atriums have Opus Coffee and Starbucks, plus a cafeteria and a gift shop.
"As communities grow, the need for healthcare must grow with them," UF Health St. Johns President Wayne Marshall said in a statement quoted by Jacksonville Today.
Durbin Park was not the only medical campus opening that week. In the same story, Jacksonville Today reported that Baptist Health was opening a new emergency department about 10 miles south in SilverLeaf, part of a medical campus that partly opened in June. Both systems are building where St. Johns County's growth is happening. The county estimates its population has grown more than 25% since 2020, according to Jacksonville Today.
Five weeks later, the shopping center broke ground
On Oct. 27, Jacksonville-based Regency Centers broke ground on The Berkeley at Durbin Park. The site is on East Peyton Parkway just off SR 9B, directly across from UF Health. WhatNow Jacksonville reported that the center is aiming to open in 2028 and was 77% leased before construction started, citing the Jacksonville Business Journal.
The headline tenants have been public since summer. News4Jax reported in July that Whole Foods Market would anchor the center, with TJ Maxx, Firebirds Wood Fired Grill and Shake Shack also signed. Regency's site plan for The Berkeley names these signed tenants and their spaces:
| Tenant | Space | Square feet | What it is |
|---|---|---|---|
| Whole Foods Market | Grocery | 30,000 | Grocery anchor |
| TJ Maxx | A | 25,000 | Retail anchor |
| Firebirds Wood Fired Grill | Pad B | 6,500 | Full-service restaurant |
| Shake Shack | Pad D | 3,500 | Fast-casual restaurant |
| Petfolk | B104 | 2,800 | Veterinary clinic |
| Luxy Nail Spa | B106 | 2,800 | Nail salon |
| Jetset Pilates | C106 | 2,450 | Pilates studio |
| SweatHouz | C105 | 1,750 | Private sauna and cold plunge suites |
The two anchors take 55,000 of the center's 106,054 square feet. The rest of the signed list is where the pattern shows up. Every signed inline tenant is a business you book: a vet exam, a manicure, a Pilates class or a sauna session. None of the four is a store you browse.
A vet, a sauna and a studio on the calendar
Each of those smaller tenants brings something specific.
Petfolk is a veterinary group that already runs a Jacksonville clinic at 4852 Town Center Parkway at St. Johns Town Center. There it offers routine exams, vaccinations, spay and neuter surgeries, and urgent care with same-day appointments, WhatNow reported. The company also has clinics in Miami and Orlando.
SweatHouz rents private suites, each with an infrared sauna, a cold plunge and a vitamin C shower. Sessions are 60 minutes, and you can bring a guest. According to WhatNow's coverage, the company says its saunas reach up to 175 degrees and its cold plunges stay between 48 and 50 degrees.
Jetset Pilates and Luxy Nail Spa fill out the row. Both appear on Regency's site plan next to SweatHouz and Petfolk.
Put that row across the street from a hospital and a specialty medical office building, and this end of East Peyton Parkway starts to look like one campus that runs on appointments. Plans also call for outdoor dining, gathering spaces, landscaping and room for public art, according to WhatNow.
Some space is still open. Regency's site plan lists 12 available spaces, from 1,400-square-foot storefronts up to a 6,500-square-foot pad. Two of them are pads: Pad A at 4,500 square feet and Pad C at 6,500, the same size as the Firebirds pad. Those leases will decide whether the final mix stays this heavy on appointments or adds more restaurants.
What is closer than 2028
The Berkeley is a long way off. Meanwhile, the newest additions near Bartram Park are the quick, everyday kind.
- Chipotle at The Pavilion, 480 Durbin Pavilion Drive, Suite 104. The Florida Times-Union reported a June 23 opening. Earlier, the Jacksonville Daily Record reported that the restaurant was going into a former Rumble Boxing space near Firehouse Subs and Jana Steakhouse.
- Lucky Goat Coffee at 12553 Bartram Park, Suite 302. The company's Bartram Park location page lists daily hours and order-ahead. The JAX Chamber posted a grand opening announcement for July 23.
- Culver's, possibly, at the northeast corner of Bartram Park Boulevard and Race Track Road. The Jacksonville Daily Record reported in October that a JEA service-availability letter covers a proposed 4,570-square-foot restaurant there. The paper noted that this review does not mean a decision has been made.
These are drive-up stops along the roads, the quick additions that fill in a corridor while bigger projects are still being built. The bigger projects decide where people will spend an afternoon. Here, the two largest are a hospital that is already open and a grocery-anchored center whose smaller spaces are going mostly to businesses that take reservations.
Things are changing quickly between Race Track Road and East Peyton Parkway. If you're wondering what a two-year build across from UF Health could mean for your property's value, The Newcomer Group can walk you through it using what's open now and what's coming. Start Your Home Journey and request a free market valuation.
