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“It brings out a good mix of people in the Westside community and models the demographics here,” McLaughlin said of Kingdom Plaza.
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The most popular destination Thursday seemed to be the soul food bistro, where a line began to form out the door just before noon. Kingdom Plaza held its grand opening earlier this month with all but three of its tenants ready for business. “It’s clean and neat and people here are very polite and friendly.” “It’s fantastic,” said the Georgia native. This is a blessing from God.”īilly Hewcarter comes to Kingdom Plaza to use the fitness center with his son. “I’m too young to remember the Normandy Mall but they really did something good with this old place.”īistro waitress Iris Meyer does remember the old facility and said, “This place was empty for 17 years and its been brought back to life. “I love it,” said Pollard, 23, before browsing for cell phone accessories Thursday morning. “I’m quite pleased.”Īnd although the mall sells more than just Christian-themed merchandise, the heavenly atmosphere is hard to miss with stores like Glorious Tees and Totes and the Rite 2 Life nutrition shop.įor Jonette Pollard, the big draw is being able to shop and bowl in one place. Potter’s House bought the dilapidated Normandy Mall property in 2002 for $4 million and spent another $7.5 million refurbishing the 139,000-square-foot church and 177,000-square-foot Kingdom Plaza. PX cigarette machines for which he is Florida distributor, except the Jacksonville area, made a business trip to Tampa. “It’s all about empowering and employing people,” said McLaughlin.
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Potter’s House uses three of the largest spaces in the mall to operate its 30-lane bowling alley, soul food bistro and fitness center featuring a heated pool, massage area and Direct TV on each treadmill.Īccording to the Potter’s House Web site, the church has “responded to our Lord’s command in Luke 19:13 to ‘occupy till I come,’ which literally means to ‘do the work of a banker, to barter or to trade.’” Kingdom Plaza, located at 5119 Normandy Blvd., sits just feet from the doors of the Potter’s House church, which houses church offices, a 4,000-seat congregation hall, television studio and recording studio. Typically, he said, church-owned businesses are not so closely tied to the church itself. “I’ve traveled the nation and not found anything like it.” “This is a church-owned and church-operated mall,” said McLaughlin.
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Kingdom Plaza, a for-profit enterprise owned by Potter’s House, is the first mall of its kind in Northeast Florida, and possibly the nation. “Who would’ve thought I’d be back in here as CEO of the operation,” said the 50-year-old founder of Potter’s House Christian Fellowship, a non-denominational church on the Westside. Today McLaughlin sits in the same mall greeting patrons and chatting with store owners - only now he runs the place under a new name: Kingdom Plaza at Normandy Mall. As a child, Bishop Vaughn McLaughlin often sat by the fountain in the old Normandy Mall and sipped soda while his mother shopped around.