Jacksonville City Council voted 16-0 to approve a rezoning that puts a grocery-anchored shopping center back on the table for a stretch of West Jacksonville, undoing a 2022 plan that had allowed apartments on the site. The vote covers the property at 11351 Normandy Blvd., where the new entitlements are expected to pave the way for a Publix-anchored development near Chaffee Road.
According to Jacksonville Daily Record, the council approved Ordinance 2026-0774 on Tuesday, swapping out a 2022 planned unit development that had permitted multifamily residential units alongside commercial parcels and possibly a hotel. The new PUD instead reverts the site's entitlements to commercial use, including an anchored grocery store, which the city's planning department description says reflects the landowner's wish to return to an earlier plan permitting a grocery-anchored shopping center. Three council members — Rahman Johnson, Rory Diamond and Ju'Coby Pittman — were away from the dais during the vote, per the same report.
The new PUD is meant to let the landowner pursue the original grocery-anchored center design.
A Publix Project Years in the Making
The site has been tied to Publix since at least March 2022, when Wagner Property Group bought 19.4 acres in West Jacksonville specifically to develop a Publix-anchored shopping center at northwest Normandy Boulevard and Chaffee Road, according to jaxdailyrecord.com. That earlier purchase set the stage for the shopping center that now sits next to the newly rezoned parcel.
That existing center, The Plaza at Normandy, changed hands this past summer. Wagner Property Group sold the fully leased property for $20,685,000 to a 1031 exchange buyer, according to a sale announcement from commercial real estate firm TSCG, which said the Tampa-based private developer sold the center on behalf of Wagner Property Group. TSCG's investment sales team was led by Anthony Blanco, partner and senior managing director of investment sales, alongside Mallory Silva and Spencer Kinsella.
Square Footage Figures Diverge
Plaza at Normandy totals 58,691 square feet and was 100% leased at the time of sale, per TSCG, which reported that Publix occupies 46,791 square feet of that total. A separate permit account from Franklin Street put the Publix building at 47,240 square feet at a project cost of $3.5 million; the discrepancy between the two figures is unexplained in available records. The Publix store features a drive-through pharmacy, and the center's other tenants include Xtreme Wings, Hair Cuttery, Nail Art Studio & Spa, a UPS Store and AT&T Wireless, with a liquor store leasing an adjacent 2,100-square-foot space. McDonald's and Wawa occupy separately owned outparcels that were excluded from the sale.
Blanco said investor interest remains significant in well-positioned, grocery-anchored centers, citing more than 6,600 housing units under construction nearby and an Amazon fulfillment center employing more than 1,200 people as drivers of demand in the corridor. The Plaza at Normandy is at Normandy Boulevard and Chaffee Road.
More Retail Taking Shape Nearby
The newly rezoned parcel isn't the only project reshaping the Normandy and Chaffee intersection. Sleiman Enterprises has proposed Chaffee Square, a 17.95-acre development planned diagonally across from The Plaza at Normandy that would bring 92,850 square feet of retail along with a self-storage center, according to the earlier jaxdailyrecord.com report. A city permit tied to that project was budgeted at $3.75 million for site work, including clearing, grading, paving and utility infrastructure.
Together, the two projects signal a broader shift toward commercial buildout along the corridor, reversing at least one prior push toward residential density. For now, the rezoning clears a legal pathway for the grocery-anchored design on the 11351 Normandy Blvd. parcel, though construction timelines and further site details have not been reported.
