A New York-based grocery chain specializing in Eastern European and international foods is planting its first Jacksonville flag in Arlington, taking over the former Party City space at Regency Park Shopping Center along Atlantic Boulevard. NetCost Market plans to open a nearly 10,900-square-foot supermarket in Unit 13 at 9400 Atlantic Blvd., east of Southside Boulevard, with an anticipated opening in summer 2027.
The city of Jacksonville issued a permit for electrical work at the site on August 13, according to the Jacksonville Daily Record, which first reported the project. That $300,000 electrical permit covers only part of the buildout — tenant renovations will require a separate permit before construction on the storefront itself can move forward. Tampa-based RAM General Contracting & Development Inc. is serving as contractor, with Charlotte, North Carolina-based Ragona Architecture & Design PLLC as project architect and Davie, Florida-based Absolute Civil Engineering Solutions LLC handling civil engineering.
Brixmor Property Group, the Roswell, Georgia-based landlord of Regency Park Shopping Center, describes NetCost Market as offering fresh produce, meats, seafood, bakery items, prepared foods and specialty grocery products from around the world. The company will occupy space between Plato's Closet and Dollar Tree in the more than 200,000-square-foot center, which is also anchored by Ollie's Bargain Outlet, Crunch Fitness, Surplus Warehouse and Beall's Outlet. Brixmor positions NetCost as a daily-needs traffic driver for the shopping center alongside those existing tenants.
A Compact Footprint for a Growing Chain
At just under 10,900 square feet, the planned Arlington store is less than half the size of NetCost's 27,000-square-foot flagship location that opened in Hollywood, Florida, in December 2024 — the chain's first store in the state and its 15th overall. It's also notably smaller than NetCost's typical Northeast stores, which the Daily Record's report notes usually run 20,000 to 30,000 square feet. In Arlington, the space is roughly comparable in size to its neighbor Dollar Tree, at 10,640 square feet.
NetCost Market traces its roots to Brooklyn, where father-and-son duo Sam Shnayder and Edward Shnayder grew a wholesale import firm called Royal Seafood Baza, founded in 1997, into a retail grocery brand. The company opened its first two stores on East 16th Street and 65th Street in Brooklyn in 2000, founded to give newly immigrated communities, largely from former Soviet states, a taste of home. That mission has carried the company to 10 stores in New York, two in New Jersey, two in Pennsylvania and now an expanding Florida footprint, according to the company's own account cited in the Nassau Herald.
Redevelopment Surrounds the New Grocery Site
The Arlington store will sit directly across Atlantic Boulevard from the former 77-acre Regency Square Mall, which Lake City-based Blackwater Development bought in 2025 for $19.1 million and is now transforming into The Nexus at Regency — a mixed-use project envisioned with apartments, retail outparcels, offices and community space, according to News4JAX. Site clearing and infrastructure work for that project began earlier this year under a $3.7 million permit, preparing eight commercial outparcels along Atlantic Boulevard and Monument Road for future retail and restaurant tenants.
That redevelopment activity puts NetCost's arrival at the center of a broader push to remake the Atlantic Boulevard corridor, where civil plans approved in March set the stage for extensive demolition of the old mall enclosure. The grocer's Arlington store also lands amid a wider trend of international food destinations growing on Jacksonville's east side, joining the 52,000-square-foot RD International Market and food court on nearby Beach Boulevard, which features a dozen food stalls alongside live seafood and global groceries.
Why Arlington Fits the Chain's Model
The demographic case for a European grocer in Arlington is straightforward: foreign-born residents make up 13.6% of the population in Jacksonville's Arlington area, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates from the 2024 American Community Survey, with European immigrants accounting for roughly 13% of that foreign-born population. That international community has grown steadily, with Arlington's foreign-born population climbing more than 16% over five years.
NetCost Market imports products from customers' specific homelands, sourcing directly from across Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Mediterranean through a 70,000-square-foot central distribution warehouse and commercial kitchen the company operates in Far Rockaway, New York. The company's tagline, World of Food, reflects a mission its leadership describes as providing surrounding families with a local grocery experience alongside access to food imported from around the world.
Even so, the physical store remains roughly a year away, and it's opening into a Florida labor market facing rising costs. A 2020 constitutional amendment requires the state minimum wage to climb to $15.00 per hour, with $11.98 for tipped employees, on September 30 of this year — a scheduled increase Hoodline has previously reported that local restaurant and retail owners have flagged as a notable operational pressure heading into next year.
