End of an Era: Closing of Regency's Belk Store

An estimated 25,000 shoppers flooded Regency Square Mall and May-Cohens' first store outside of downtown on opening day in 1967. When Regency expanded, adding Sears in 1981, the store became the bridge to connect the original east mall with the new west mall.

May-Cohens became a main fixture in the mall until the chain was sold to Maison Blanche for $62 million in June 1988. Four years later, the Regency store was rebranded under the Gayfers nameplate when Maison Blanche was acquired by Mercantile Stores, Inc. In 1998, Mercantile was acquired by Dillards, creating overlap in the Florida market. As a result, on July 14, 1998, Dillards traded the Regency store and six others, to Belk in exchange for nine Belk stores in Virginia and Tennessee.





March 1 will be the 48th anniversary of the opening of Regency's May-Cohen's store. However, February 11, 2015 marked an end of an era with Belk's closing of May-Cohens' first branch department store outside of downtown Jacksonville. For those who visit Regency over the next few weeks, empty racks, tables, furniture and display cases are only items you'll be able to purchase in the 147,000-square-foot space. When those items go, so will life as we know it at Regency Square Mall. With no chain willing to take Belk's abandoned space, its doors will be shuttered permanently, forcing shoppers to walk outside in order to get from Sears and Dillards to JCPenney.





On March 12, 2015, a few era for Arlington's Belk will begin with the grand opening of a smaller 95,000-square-foot replacement store at Kernan and Atlantic Boulevards.



Article by Ennis Davis