The long-dark Sears box at Orange Park Mall finally has a new owner. Neptune Beach developer Corta has scooped up the vacant anchor on the mall’s west side, locking down roughly 190,000 square feet of former department store space and adjoining lots at 1910 Wells Road. The building has been empty since Sears shut down in 2020, and the deal clears a major hurdle for a mixed-use overhaul that local officials say could bring in grocery, medical and restaurant tenants. It is the latest twist in a months-long shuffle of who controls what at Orange Park Mall.
Public records list the buyer as Corta Orange Park FTU LLC, with a recorded mortgage of about $41.3 million, according to the Jax Daily Record. Transform LLC sold the property through TF Orange Park FL LLC. Corta principal Cory Presnick told the paper he could not comment on the sale price or on detailed redevelopment plans. The former Sears had already been shopped for years as a multitenant redevelopment play while the rest of the mall property cycled through new ownership.
Florida corporate filings show several Corta-related entities tied to an office at 1112 1st Street in Neptune Beach, a paper trail that suggests this Sears deal is being run through a single-purpose LLC formed specifically for the Orange Park site, according to bisprofiles. Using one-off LLCs for individual properties is a familiar move for developers working to reposition big-box retail.
What the Plans Call For
Preliminary site plans filed under the name Orange Park Place lay out a multitenant reuse of the old Sears footprint and several outparcels. The documents show space reserved for an unnamed grocer, a dental office and a Mediterranean restaurant identified as Cava, with Kimley-Horn listed as the civil engineer, according to the Jax Daily Record. The project is currently under review by the St. Johns River Water Management District and by Clay County, and the Clay County Development Review Committee is slated to take up Orange Park Place on May 14.
The broader mall is on its own fresh chapter. Market data show Orange Park Mall was sold to Boca Raton based Second Horizon Capital in August 2025 for about $60.5 million, with the new owner signaling plans to invest quickly in common areas and operations, according to Cushman & Wakefield.
Local Context and Next Steps
Sears was one of the original anchors when Orange Park Mall opened in 1975, and its 2020 closure left behind a two-story husk that has tempted would-be redevelopers ever since, according to public summaries of the mall’s history. If the Orange Park Place concept holds, a grocery store and service tenants could pump daily traffic back into that end of the center, a potential lift for the neighboring inline shops that have watched the big box sit idle.
First, though, the project has to get through the government gauntlet. County review, along with any needed state-level permits, will likely be the next big checkpoints before any demolition or heavy construction equipment shows up on Wells Road. If approvals land, the site would move into detailed permitting and design tweaks. Developers typically hammer out final tenant agreements and construction phasing after county signoffs, which means visible work could still be months away. Corta has not released a construction schedule beyond what is in the filings, and local officials say they will keep tracking the proposal as it works its way through the Development Review Committee process.
