News

Self-serve beer and new options for pizza and frozen drinks would become available to Downtown visitors and commuters under proposals that will be considered by a Downtown Investment Authority committee April 11.

The Retail Enhancement and Property Disposition Committee’s agenda includes incentives for three drinking and dining establishments in the heart of Downtown. 

They are Pizza Dynamo and a connected Pour Taproom on the ground floor of the VyStar parking garage at Forsyth and Laura streets, and the Co-op Frose & Eatery in the newly renovated Florida Baptist Convention Building.

The proposed incentives are: 

• $207,350 for Pizza Dynamo, comprising a $192,350 grant through the DIA’s Food & Beverage Retail Enhancement Program and a $15,000 grant to help create a sidewalk dining area.

• $215,000 for Pour Taproom, comprising a $200,000 in FAB-REP grant and a $15,000 sidewalk improvement grant.

• $156,240 in FAB-REP grant funding for Co-op Frose & Eatery.

The DIA’s targeted FAB-REP grants aim to spur development of food and beverage establishments in two targeted areas – The Elbow district near Ocean and Bay streets and the Hogan/Laura streets district. Development in those areas is part of the DIA’s goals to attract new businesses, residents and visitors to Downtown.

READ FULL ARTICLE HERE

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The City of Jacksonville, Groundwork Jacksonville, and Jacksonville Transportation Authority (JTA) hosted a press conference to give more details about the $147 million federal grant awarded for the Emerald Trail.

Getting the grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation wasn’t easy as 682 cities applied and 132 were selected. Jacksonville received the sixth-highest grant amount.

Local option gas tax dollars will be used to provide a match of $36.65 million approved by the city council.

Kay Ehas is the CEO of Groundwork Jacksonville, the team behind the Emerald Trail project. Five years ago, the city council adopted the master plan for the trail. Ehas said the new funding is a major victory for her and the team.

READ FULL ARTICLE HERE

While Downtown observers have heard it for years, developers say this time, it’s real.

They say you won’t recognize Downtown in three to four – maybe seven – years. That it is at a tipping point in development and attracting residents and capital investment.

That Jacksonville is 20 years behind Tampa’s resurgence, but it’s time is now.

They say it’s real because they all are working together and that the city is, too. They used the words “collaboration” and “harmony.” 

Another common word is “intentionality.”

They cited the need for “passion” for development, especially historic redevelopment with its unexpected discoveries after work starts.

Of course, they said, the key is to make a development deal “pencil” – or make financial sense to lenders and investors – and that is where the city and the Downtown Investment Authority factor into the equation by granting incentives.

A panel of five developers headlined the Bisnow “Urban Resurgence: Exploring Commercial Real Estate Developments in Downtown Jacksonville” discussion Feb. 29 at the Southbank Hotel Jacksonville Riverfront.

Four of them are active Downtown developers and the recipients of DIA incentive agreements.

Gunster shareholder Julia Holden Davis moderated the panel. 

Bisnow, a Washington, D.C.-based digital media company that reports about the commercial real estate industry and sponsors events, hosted the “Jacksonville State of the Market Urban Resurgence, Investment Insights, & Infrastructure Innovations” event.

The Downtown panelists comprised Alex Sifakis, president of JWB Real Estate Capital; Bryan Moll, CEO of Gateway Jax; Billy Zeits, vice president of government affairs with Corner Lot; Matt Marshall, senior vice president of Rise: A Real Estate Company; and Ken Thomas, project executive of Catamount Constructors Inc.

The Downtown discussion was the first of three panels, with the others covering investment trends and community impact.

Read the full story at the Jacksonville Daily Record. 

Jacksonville is on the inside track to being chosen as the site of a University of Florida facility for high-tech research and education, Mayor Donna Deegan said.

Speaking at a JAXUSA Partnership luncheon March 28, Deegan said the city was a leading contender to land the Florida Semiconductor Institute, which she said would bring $80 million in state investment and additional federal funding to Northeast Florida.

“It’s going to be a competitive process …  but I think we’re in a good position to win that and hopefully we’ll know something more about that in the next couple of weeks,” she said.  

JAXUSA is the economic development division of JAX Chamber.

Deegan’s remarks at the Hyatt Regency Jacksonville Riverfront came after the UF Board of Trustees approved a UF graduate school to be located in Downtown Jacksonville. 

Plans approved by the board included establishing a temporary site on the fifth floor of the JEA headquarters at Pearl and Adams streets for up to five years while a permanent facility is built.

In the 2024 legislative session, Florida lawmakers approved $75 million in state funding for the Jacksonville graduate school campus. That came on top of $75 million approved by lawmakers in 2023 and raised the total commitment of state, city and private funding for the school to $250 million. 

Although that was the target amount of funding for the project when it was announced in early 2023, officials now say another $50 million is needed.

VIEW ARTICLE HERE

When folks are asked to name the top Florida city, most don’t answer “Jacksonville.” The burg alternately known as “The First Coast,” “Gateway to Florida,” and “River City” typically gets left in the dust by a lengthy list of other Sunshine State settings.

But today, when folks are asked to name the Florida place most on the move, with the best-conceived plans for growth, “Jacksonville” may be the well-informed answer.

Or rather, “Downtown Jacksonville,” may be the words voiced by those in the know.

According to the October 2023 State of Downtown Report from Downtown Vision, Downtown Jacksonville’s nonprofit Business Improvement District, the number of residents living in downtown Jacksonville is forecast to more than double by 2030. More than 100 acres of St. Johns River frontage are gaining mixed-use development and parks projects. Approximately 5,000 residential units are under construction or in review.

A 30-mile Emerald Trail network and myriad biking and walking paths are in design or in construction to spur alternative transportation in the center of Downtown Jacksonville. The city’s first new law school in two decades opened its doors there in summer 2022, while a $15 million renovation of the city’s Florida Theatre is approaching completion. Also under construction are approximately 400 hotel rooms, among them the Four Seasons Hotel and Residences Jacksonville, the first luxury hotel to sprout in Jacksonville’s central business district.

Read the fully story at Forbes. 

Downtown Vision, Inc. (DVI) released its 2023 State of Downtown Report in October. This annual report encompasses an 18-month timeframe from January 2022 to June 30, 2023, and analyzes Downtown Jacksonville’s “performance in key indicators of urban revitalization, such as development and investment, residential demand, office market and employment base, transportation enhancement and tourism health” to track its growth.

Additionally, it breaks down development incentive programs created by the Downtown Investment Authority (DIA), tracks various trends across different categories – from downtown visits (both from tourism and Jacksonville residents coming into downtown) to office occupancy – and details development highlights.

“I think the big takeaway, honestly, is exponential growth,” said DVI CEO Jake Gordon.

According to the report, which Gordon explained is an “agnostic” reflection of the numbers and projects that are in the pipeline and moving through various stages of the approval or construction processes, there is $8 billion “in the project pipeline” for developments across different categories (mixed use, residential, office, retail, etc.) throughout downtown. Compare that to the $5 billion from last year’s report.

“That’s a huge increase compared to what’s actually been invested in downtown over the last two decades or so,” he said. “We really think there’s a lot of progress thanks to the last mayor, now being continued by this mayor. Between 2000 and 2020, there was about $3 billion in projects. So, if we’re at $8 billion in progress right now, that is just kind of – via the numbers – kind of showing that we’re in for a huge change in downtown as all these projects get finalized.”

The Resident News reached out to the following experts for their thoughts on the data presented in the 2023 State of Downtown report and what it means for the future of Downtown Jacksonville: Michael Balanky, Chase Properties founder, president and CEO; Matt Marshall, Senior Vice President of Development at RISE: A Real Estate Co.; Stephen Crosby, DVI board member and former CEO for InvestJax; and Oliver Barakat, DIA founding member and inaugural chairman and current DVI board member.

Read the full story at Resident News. 

Gateway Jax expects to begin construction of the largest of three multiuse buildings, a 22-story structure with retail space and residential units, in the Downtown North Core in the third quarter of 2024. 

Construction on the other two buildings could begin in early 2025.

The $500 million Pearl Street District is the first phase of the 20-block Gateway Jax development project. 

The first building will be on the block bordered by Beaver, Pearl, Ashley and Clay streets.

The Downtown Development Review Board awarded final design approval for the apartment and retail project Dec. 14. 

The Downtown Investment Authority has approved $98 million in two incentive packages: a $59.628 million Recapture Enhanced Value Grant and $38.946 million in completion grants. 

The deal still needs Jacksonville City Council approval.

Gateway Jax CEO Bryan Moll said he expects Council approval of DIA grants and loans by March or April.

The legislative timeline is in sync with Gateway Jax’s design progress.

“We are about midway through our design process. We’ll get to the point now where we’re starting to get into the meat of design, where we’re turning a lot of these projects into construction documents,” Moll said.

The first building will have 530 residential units, retail space on the first floor and a parking garage. 

Moll said the smaller buildings should be completed about the time the tower is completed in late 2026 or early 2027.

Read the full story at the Jacksonville Daily Record.

Just over a decade ago, Oliver Barakat took over as the first chairman of the Downtown Investment Authority.

Barakat, a real estate expert who had been involved in downtown issues since his days an intern at the city’s former Downtown Development Authority in the early 1990s, had lofty aims.

"I hope this organization is going to be one that is proactive and not simply reactive to proposed development in the private sector, that we help guide and lead private development," Barakat said when he was appointed as chairman.

Eleven years later, Barakat is the last of the original members on the DIA board, having served as chairman multiple times and helping guide the organization through changing economic situations, different mayoral administrations and a recent surge in interest in the urban core. 

"It feels like right now there's so much momentum, this speed is going to really increase in several years," Barakat said recently in a conversation with the Business Journal. 

Read the full story at the Jacksonville Business Journal. 

Downtown Investment Authority CEO Lori Boyer answered questions about Downtown redevelopment and walked through the 2023 State of Downtown report during an appearance on the WJCT News talk show First Coast Connect.

See video of the interview here.

The Gateway Jax project could be a catalyst for downtown, those involved with the project and other urban core leaders said Wednesday during an International Council of Shopping Centers discussion.

Gateway Jax CEO Bryan Moll — who worked on the $3 billion mixed-use Water Street development in Tampa — said the $500 million project along Pearl Street aims to add 1,100 residents and thousands of square feet of retail space, potentially including a grocery store anchor.

"Our first phase will have about the same amount of retail tenants as Water Street's phase one," Moll said.

Read the full story from the Jacksonville Business Journal (for subscribers).

The Florida Theatre emerged out of its $8 million, months-long renovation Friday evening with a ribbon cutting that included Mayor Donna Deegan.

Dozens of dignitaries and invited patrons partook of the three open bars and hors d’oeuvres while walking through all three floors of the theatre, examining the decorative artwork throughout the nearly century-old structure.

“As of today, over the last six years, we have raised and spent $16.9 million, more than three times what people said was possible to improve this beautiful building,” said Florida Theatre President Numa Saisselin. “And, it was a team sport. All of you are here tonight because you had something to do with getting us to tonight.”

Read the full story from the Jacksonville Business Journal (for subscribers).
 

Projects totaling about $8 billion are in the works for Downtown Jacksonville, a $5 billion increase from a year ago, according to the 2023 State of Downtown Report released Oct. 26 by Downtown Vision Inc. 

Downtown Vision is the nonprofit Business Improvement District for Downtown Jacksonville. 

The report, created by the DVI, the Downtown Investment Authority and Build Up Downtown, focuses on development from Jan. 1, 2022, to June 30, 2023.

The Downtown area includes the Brooklyn, LaVilla, North Core, City Center, Cathedral Hill, Southbank, Sports and Entertainment and Working Waterfront areas.

“Our annual State of Downtown Report outlines and analyzes all the Downtown data to view our progress all in one place. From expanded waterfront access and tourism amenities to unprecedented residential growth, this report shows many sides to the growth of DTJax,” Jake Gordon, CEO of Downtown Vision Inc., said in a news release.

The report said $723 million in projects have been completed since 2022, $2.42 billion are under construction, $1.57 billion are in review and $3.39 billion are proposed.

Read the full story from the Jacksonville Daily Record.

With many workers’ commutes reduced to steps from the bedroom to the home office, companies around the nation are scaling back the amount of office space they are leasing.

That’s also the case in Jacksonville, where 43% of workers are hybrid office and remote.

The Downtown Investment Authority and JEA discussed the feasibility of converting empty office buildings into residential units at a symposium Oct. 26. 

The theme was advance planning.

DIA and JEA sponsored the adaptive reuse symposium called “From Workplace to Living Space” at The Lark venue at 229 N. Hogan St. 

Read the full story from the Jacksonville Daily Record.

A 330,00-square-foot warehouse built more than a century ago could get new life as a mixed-use project by next summer, its Atlanta-based developer said.

Union Terminal Warehouse was purchased by Columbia Ventures in 2018 for $4.6 million.

Located at 700 E. Union St., the 228-unit project also will have 50,000 square feet of office, first floor retail slated for food and beverage and a makerspace for tradesmen or creators in its renovated basement. The retail space is about 4,000 square feet.

Construction began in September 2022, and the target completion date is July 2023. The focus now is the building's roof and installing its windows. Development Manager Ryan Akin leasing will start a few months out from opening the building.

Read the full story from the Jacksonville Business Journal (for subscribers).

The newly renovated Florida Theatre says it will reopen to the public at 8 p.m. Oct. 28 for a screening of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.”

Mayor Donna Deegan and other dignitaries will participate in a ribbon cutting at 5:30 p.m. Oct. 27 inside the theater.

The historic venue Downtown at 128 E. Forsyth St. closed in mid-July to renovate the 96-year-old facility.

Read the full story from the Jacksonville Daily Record.

Eighteen months after embarking on the project, the developers behind one of the largest entertainment venues to open in the urban core in recent years have already started attracting a crowd.

Hardwicks Bar opened Sept. 29 in an historic building at 100 East Adams St., bringing an LGBTQIA+-friendly establishment to downtown.

The bar takes over the space that had previously housed Burro Bar and, before that, London Bridge — with about $600,000 worth of work transforming the venue from those previous concepts.

"We always knew the building had potential: It's a beautiful building on a super prominent corner," co-owner Elias Hionides said a few days after opening. "I think we saw the potential, but it turned out better than we could have imagined." 

Read the full story from the Jacksonville Business Journal (for subscribers).
 

King Tut is sticking around Jacksonville for a few more months.

"Beyond King Tut: The Immersive Show," which opened in June at the Noco Center in downtown Jacksonville, will remain open until Jan. 7, according to a news release. The show was originally booked until Sept. 3, then extended to Oct. 20 before this week's announcement.

It's an immersive show put together with cooperation from the National Geographic Society, using projection technology to flash enormous moving images onto the floors and walls of the main hall, similar to the "Beyond Van Gogh" show that ran earlier this year in the same venue. The show, which takes about an hour to see, tells the tale of Tutankhamun's life, his short reign as leader of Egypt and his journey to the afterlife.

Read the full story from the Florida Times-Union (for subscribers).

Cinco de Mayo returns where it started with a new Downtown location expected to open in the former Olio space at 301 E. Bay St. by the end of the year.

In 2007 Rodolfo and Maria Torres-Leon opened their first Cinco de Mayo in the Jacksonville Landing. By December they will have nine Cinco de Mayo locations. 

A new one at 11101 Old St. Augustine Road is expected to open this month.

Rodolfo and Maria Torres-Leon formed Torres Leon Properties LLC on Aug. 24 and purchased the ground-floor Olio restaurant space Sept. 22 for $1,337,500. Olio closed in March 2022 after 12 years.

“We are very, very happy to come back to Downtown again. We already have plenty of customers there. They were sad when we left there,” Maria Torres-Leon said. 

Read the full story in the Jacksonville Daily Record.

Another tenant is coming to the North Core Downtown.

Olivia Steinemann, an associate of  The Urban Division of Colliers North Florida, announced on LinkedIn that The Co-op Frosé & Eatery will be incorporated into 218 W. Church St., which is the Florida Baptist Convention building.

The 2,000-square-foot space will include almost 1,500 square feet of patio use next to the Federal Reserve Building and Sweet Pete’s in the historic Seminole Building.

“This all-day frose bar originated in Sullivans Island, SC, and quickly gained a celebrity following due to its tasty sandwiches, hundreds of flavors of FROSE, and finally, its comedic-party vibe,” Steinemann posted.

Frosé is an alcoholic beverage that is basically a frozen blended rosé wine.

Read the full story from the Jacksonville Daily Record.
 

No tenant is announced, but the historic Federal Reserve Building Downtown has one.

Sam Middlekauff, an associate with The Urban Division of Colliers North Florida, said the 19,420-square-foot, three-story building at 424 N. Hogan St. is fully leased.

Middlekauff said his group is under a nondisclosure agreement and cannot disclose the tenant.

“But this prestigious group will breathe new life into downtown Jacksonville and revitalize a building that has sat vacant for decades,” Middlekauff said.

“This is just the first of many new announcements for Downtown.”

Read the full story from the Jacksonville Daily Record.

Downtown Vision Inc., the Business Improvement District for Downtown Jacksonville, is readying its celebration of the 20th anniversary of the First Wednesday Art Walk.

The Oct. 4 celebration will kick off at 5 p.m. downtown as the city highlights local artists in James Weldon Johnson Park, many walkable restaurants and food vendors and participating businesses and cultural venues.

Originally, DVI launched Art Walk to bring more people downtown and to support local businesses in November 2003 with fewer than 10 participating venues lining Laura Street.

Read the full story from the Jacksonville Business Journal (for subscribers).

Gateway Jax LLC publicly unveiled its $2 billion plan for Jacksonville’s Downtown North Core on Sept. 20.

Under a tent on a vacant lot at 501 N. Julia St. in that Downtown neighborhood, Gateway Jax CEO Bryan Moll and investment partners JWB Real Estate President Alex Sifakis and DLP Capital LLC CEO Don Wenner described their 22-acre, $2 billion mixed-use development spanning more than 20 city blocks.

“We have amassed critical scale that allows Gateway Jax to create dynamic and interconnected walkable neighborhoods that will invigorate Downtown Jacksonville now and for years to come,” Moll told an estimated 150 people attending the announcement on a site next to the Porter House Mansion along Julia Street in the North Core.

Read the full story from the Jacksonville Daily Record.

A $500 million project in one downtown corridor could lead to a $2 billion buildout in the next decade, Gateway Jax developers announced Wednesday. 

The initial phase includes over 1,000 multi-family housing units, at least one grocery store, dining, retail and greenspace in what developers call the “Pearl Street District” between East Church and West Union streets. The goal is to eventually expand to cover over 20 city blocks. 

Bryan Moll, chief executive officer of Gateway Jax, hosted an event to announce the plans and lead a walking tour to show virtual renderings of the new district with his development partners and city leadership. 

“We’ll continue revitalizing the city’s core with mixed-use development that creates 18 hour-a-day vibrancy so residents can find everything they need to work, live and play all within one interconnected community,” Moll said Wednesday.

Read the full story from the Florida Times-Union (for subscribers).

VyStar Credit Union is adding a first-floor space at VyStar Tower Downtown called VyTech, where its employees can seek help with their computers.

The city issued a permit Sept 13 for Dana B. Kenyon Co. and architect Reynolds, Smith and Hills Inc., both based in Jacksonville, to demolish and replace interior finishes for the project at a construction cost of $546,631.

It will take 1,280 square feet of the 15,474-square-foot floor.

Read the full story from the Jacksonville Daily Record.

The Downtown Development Review Board unanimously awarded conceptual approvals Sept. 14 to Gateway Jax LLC’s proposed multiphase site plan for the estimated $464.4 million mixed-use Pearl Street District and the Marina Support Building in Shad Khan’s Four Seasons-anchored Shipyards development. 

The board, which acts at the city’s Planning Commission and design code regulator for the Downtown Northbank and Southbank, voted unanimously for both projects.

Read the full story from the Jacksonville Daily Record. 

Mayo Clinic in Florida on Tuesday officially opened what it’s calling a Community Health Collaborative in Downtown Jacksonville. The office is aimed at helping researchers understand the healthcare needs of the community while sharing health education and biomedical research that supports their needs.

“Expanding Mayo Clinic’s footprint into Downtown Jacksonville with a dedicated space for community engagement and Mayo Clinic research teams allows us to fully explore innovative solutions that address the community’s most pressing health issues,” said Kent Thielen, CEO of Mayo Clinic in Florida, in an emailed statement. “This is truly an exciting time for our teams, and we look forward to reaching more of our community.”

The site, in the Edward Ball Building near City Hall, will have dedicated areas for community health education, clinical trial participation outreach and more. Mayo Clinic will not provide medical care at the location.

Read the full story from Jacksonville Today.

The Wall Street Journal's ranking of the University of Florida as the No. 1 public university in the country gave UF leaders a chance to tout a planned graduate center in Jacksonville as the kind of "elite and practical" education they want to carry into the future.

Construction of that graduate center remains years down the road and even the specific degrees it will offer remain undetermined. But it continues to pick up financial support from the city of Jacksonville with another $15 million in Mayor Donna Deegan's proposed 2023-24 budget that City Council will vote on this month.

The Wall Street Journal released its rankings last week of 400 universities for its "2024 Best Colleges in the U.S." report. The rankings were based in large part on how a school helps students by boosting the salaries they can make after graduation. UF leaders said the graduate center in Jacksonville would likewise be geared toward making a difference for businesses by linking them with the university's technology-based research.

Read the full story from the Florida Times-Union (for subscribers)

The owners of the rapidly expanding Players Grille plan to launch a speakeasy-style bar on the Southbank in the former American Cancer Center building on Prudential Drive.

The building has most recently served as the headquarters of We Insure, the fast-growing insurance company Phil Visali founded more than a decade ago.

We Insure, which was purchased by insurance technology company PEAK6 InsurTech in 2021, will vacate that space in December.

Read the full story from the Jacksonville Business Journal (for subscribers).

Work is beginning on the eighth-floor swimming pool at The Doro in downtown Jacksonville, one of the more highly anticipated residential developments in the urban core.

Village Pools of Central Florida received a $478,500 permit last week to build the gas-heated pool for residents of the complex at 960 Adams St.

Work on The Doro project -- located where the George Doro Fixture Co. built a complex starting in the early 1900s -- dates back to 2016, when father and son duo Farley and Paul Grainger of Iconic Real Estate Investments bought the vacant property.

Read the full story from the Jacksonville Business Journal here. (Subscription required)

The Hanania office building is the only Downtown mid-rise tower with the name of a Jacksonville-based family on it.

Now the family’s business will anchor what is called Hanania Place in a seventh-floor office build-out estimated at $2.5 million.

“It’s something that Jacksonville has not seen. It’s a wow factor and that is why it is expensive,” said Hanania Automotive Group founder and CEO Jack Hanania.

Hanania bought the building in August 2021 and is preparing to move its headquarters onto the seventh floor of the 10-story, 200,627-square-foot structure at 1200 Riverplace Blvd. on the Downtown Southbank.

Read the complete story from the Jacksonville Daily Record.

The 4^th Annual VyStar Emerald 5K/10K presented by JTC Running and 1st Place Sports is headed to the Northbank Riverwalk Downtown on Sept. 30, 2023. The 5K and 10K Run/Walk begin at 7:30 a.m. and the 5K/10K ride follows at 9 a.m. JTC Running covers all race costs so that 100% of proceeds benefit Groundwork Jacksonville, the City’s nonprofit partner in building the Emerald Trail and restoring McCoys Creek and Hogans Creek.

The event begins at the Duval County Courthouse at 501 West Adams St. The 5K course will take participants south on Pearl Street and along the Northbank Riverwalk to Riverside Arts Market. 10K participants will continue over the new Shared Use Path to San Marco.

Participants and supporters will enjoy pre- and post-race activities including libations from Manifest Distilling. Additional event sponsors include Miller Electric, HALFF Associates, Humana Healthy Horizons in Florida, Lewis Longman & Walker PA, UF Health Jacksonville, Tom Bush Family of Dealerships and HDR.

Everyone receives a race bag courtesy of VyStar Credit Union and a race t-shirt, and all finishers earn a custom Emerald Trail 5K/10K medal. Top male and female runners overall and in several age categories will receive awards.

Registration for the event is underway at 1stplacesports.com/races/emeraldtrail/. Registration is $35 through Aug. 31. The cost increases to $40 on Sept. 1 and $50 on race day. Registrants under 13 and over 65 receive a $10 discount. Members of Groundwork Jacksonville, VyStar Credit Union, JTC Running and North Florida Bicycle Club receive $5 off. For more information, email info@GroundworkJacksonville.org.

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The Emerald Trail is a 30-mile urban trail and linear park system that will connect 14 historic neighborhoods to downtown, the St. Johns River, McCoys Creek and Hogans Creek. It will link 16 schools, two colleges, 21 parks and three hospitals among other destinations like cafes, shops, festivals and events. The Emerald Trail will be the place where people of all ages, races, cultures and walks of life come together to run, walk, ride and to connect with nature and one another. Learn more at groundworkjacksonville.org or follow on all social media @GroundworkJax.

The city of Jacksonville has broken ground on its newest addition to the 30-mile-long “Emerald Trail,” which includes a shaded public plaza, featuring an artistic skate park.

Artist Walk, located under the west end of the Fuller Warren Bridge, is a three-block-long public space with landscaping, sculptures, seating and a stylized skate plaza with three different spaces for various skill levels.

The $8.8 million park is located across Riverside Avenue from the site of the weekly Riverside Arts Market and will be connected to the Fuller Warren Shared Use Path and Emerald Trail. It was designed to serve as a visual gateway between Riverside and Brooklyn.

The project, which is expected to take about two years to complete, is being funded by the city and the Florida Department of Transportation.

Read the complete story from News4Jax.

Jacksonville’s Museum of Science & History is nearly halfway to it fundraising goal to build an expanded museum on the Northbank.

A $1 million donation this week from the Harden Family Foundation put the MOSH Genesis capital campaign close to $20 million.

Museum CEO Bruce Fafard says fundraising remains a top priority as the museum works to hit a $40 million capital goal by the end of the year. He envisions no issues as he plans to retire in February.

“We are very close to hitting that $20 million mark, so we have a lot of (momentum). The next item is to ensure that we continue to maintain the success that we have had,” he says.

Read the complete story from Jacksonville Today.

Jacksonville has long suffered from a lack — real and perceived — of hotel space, a deficiency that famously required cruise ships to fill the lodging gap during the 2005 Super Bowl and has put a chill on efforts to have a convention center.

It's also spurred efforts to build more hotel room, with the pace of activity hitting new highs, and brought new investors to the area.

With Jacksonville among the top five markets nationally in how well occupancy and revenue per room bounced back after the pandemic, investors have taken note, real estate brokerage Marcus & Millichap said in a report earlier this year: "Trading velocity reached a new high last year as out-of-state buyers established or grew their Jacksonville footprints," the firm said, with "the elevated level of investor competition pushed average pricing up 13 percent, the largest jump since 2016."

Read the full story from the Jacksonville Business Journal (for subscribers).

The Jacksonville Historic Preservation Commission voted July 26 to designate the 96-year-old Greenleaf & Crosby Building Downtown as a Jacksonville landmark.

The building is at 208 N. Laura St., at Laura and Adams streets.

Agreeing with the Jacksonville Planning and Development Department’s recommendation to approve the designation, the commission voted 5-0 to add the structure to the Downtown National Register.

“Thank you to the staff for putting this together. Obviously, if we’re not landmarking something like this in town, what are we even doing here?” said commission member Julia Epstein, a project architect with Dasher Hurst Architects.

Read the full story from the Jacksonville Daily Record.

Four Seasons Hotel and Resorts announced Tuesday it will open a hotel and residences under its luxury banner in Jacksonville in 2026, marking the first time the global hotelier has confirmed it is joining Jaguars owner Shad Khan in bringing a Four Seasons to the downtown riverfront.

"Four Seasons is incredibly proud to bring our renowned service and hospitality offering to one of the fastest-growing cities in the United States," Bart Carnahan executive vice president for global business development and portfolio management, said in the announcement.

Construction is already underway on the riverfront site that is across the street from the sports complex and the football stadium for a five-star hotel with 170 rooms and a luxury condominium building with 26 private residences. It will be the second Four Seasons hotel owned by Khan, who also owns the Four Seasons hotel in Toronto.

See the full story from the Florida Times-Union here.

After nearly three years of planning, an extension of the University of Florida's School of Architecture will be moving into Jacksonville's Cathedral Hill neighborhood, bringing about 15 graduate students to the urban core.

The program, dubbed CityLab-Jacksonville, will be located on the third floor of the St. Johns Cathedral's administrative building on Church Street. 

CityLab-Jacksonville will offer two degrees — a Master of Architecture for students on the path to becoming licensed architects, and a nonprofessional Master of Science in Architectural Studies — as well as post-professional graduate certificates in sustainable architecture and design.

Get the full story from the Jacksonville Business Journal (subscription required).

Less than two years after the Toon Town entertainment and sports complex in Talleyrand added two indoor pickleball courts, the business is adding four more courts to accommodate players of the fast-growing sport.

Richard Parkes, director of pickleball activities at Toon Town, and J.T. Rhodes, owner of the business that has a pizzeria and games, oversee the complex at 444 Talleyrand Ave., which has been in operation for about seven years.

The building was a storage warehouse before Toon Town and its display of cartoon artwork on the interior and exterior walls set up shop.

Get the full story from the Jacksonville Daily Record.

The Vestcor Family Foundation will hold its annual charity 5K on Saturday, July 22nd, beginning at 7 p.m. on Water Street by the Prime Osborn Convention Center Downtown.

Participants will start and finish on Water Street by the Lofts at LaVilla, pass by Vestcor properties, Lofts at Monroe and Lofts at Jefferson Station and continue over the bridges before crossing the finish line. After the race, runners can enjoy free food, beer, live music, awards and giveaways.

Monies raised will support organizations such as Jacksonville Classical Academy, ExcelinEd, UF Health Jacksonville, Jacksonville University and North Florida School of Special Education.

Visit this site for info about entry fees, registration, parking and more.

Construction crews began work Monday, July 11, to transform Riverfront Plaza into a centerpiece park with such features as a café with a destination playground on the roof.

“I'm excited that construction is beginning for Riverfront Plaza, one of the centerpieces to transforming our riverfront," said Mayor Donna Deegan. "The riverfront park system will bring in people from across the city to the waterfront to live, work, and play. It will be a top priority of my administration to invest in public infrastructure and parks to increase Jacksonville's quality of life and grow our downtown."

Phase I of the two-phase project starts with closing and removing a portion of Independent Drive to clear space for park amenities. In addition, Independent Drive will be rerouted to Hogan Street.
Other first-phase work includes rebuilding the bulkhead and riverwalk along the entire length of the plaza to improve resilience, transforming a portion of Hogan Street into a pedestrian plaza connecting and integrating the Performing Arts Center, and building park attractions such as a multipurpose lawn, a series of curving walkways, native plant gardens, a water play area and the café with roof-mounted playground.

Phase I construction is expected to take two years, with appropriated funding of $25 million expected to cover all of the first-phase costs. The second phase of the park will include such features as a rain garden, water feature, civic stairs, a beer garden and a pedestrian ramp from the Main Street Bridge.

“This project is a major step forward in creating a series of first-class destination riverfront parks in Downtown Jacksonville,” said Lori Boyer, CEO of the Downtown Investment Authority. “These parks will give people from across the city new activities and programming to enjoy in the heart of the community, and will truly make our amazing riverfront accessible to everyone. They’ll also provide a new attraction for visitors.”

The nationally acclaimed architecture firm of Perkins & Will Inc. won a design contest for the park in 2021. View Phase I and Phase II renderings of the project.

A new townhome development is coming to LaVilla and it's the first opportunity in more than 20 years to buy a new home in Downtown Jacksonville. See the full story here.

The Jacksonville Jaguars today introduced conceptual designs for the Stadium of the Future, a design project nearly three years in the making intended to inspire a transformation of Downtown Jacksonville and secure NFL football in Northeast Florida well into the future.

The video visualization and renderings were unveiled on 1stdowntownjacksonville.com and across Jaguars' social media channels.

"We have reached the end of this important and initial phase of this project, the design of the stadium we envision will be the home of the Jacksonville Jaguars and serve our entire community for generations to come," said Jaguars team owner Shad Khan. "From stadium discussions starting in 2016 to the formal process launched in July 2020 and now concluding, our objective has always been the same – lock in a promising future for the Jaguars and help our downtown become an economic engine to lift all of Jacksonville, particularly areas that have been underserved. Being able to share the video and stadium design highlights with the people of Jacksonville is a significant step forward in that effort.

"This is also all happening at a fantastic time for everyone. Jacksonville is red hot. Just check out all of the recent rankings -- best places to live, best housing market, hottest job market, best place to start a business, Jacksonville ranks within the top five in all of those lists. Add the fact the Jaguars are coming off a playoff season, and positioned for even better days ahead, and it all points to better and hopefully our best days just ahead in Jacksonville."

Read the full story here. 

One of Jacksonville's tallest buildings on the Southbank will undergo $39 million renovation to its exterior and surrounding areas.

The contractor on the 37-story, roughly 840,000-square-foot residential tower is Gilbane Residential Construction Florida LLC. Located at 1431 Riverplace Blvd., The Peninsula at St. Johns Center stands at 437 feet.

Read the whole story here.

The Jacksonville Music Experience is excited to present an interactive festival guide for the 2023 Jacksonville Jazz Festival! This guide will help you navigate the event, offering information on artists, performance schedules and food trucks. The Jacksonville Jazz Festival kicks off with the Jacksonville Jazz Piano Competition on Thursday, May 25 from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. at the Florida Theatre. The festivities continue at the Swingin' Stage at Riverfront Plaza and the Groovin' Stage at Ford on Bay from Friday, May 26 to Sunday, May 28, with performances running from 4 p.m. to 11 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, and from 4 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. on Sunday.

A Jacksonville contracting executive and a longtime local real estate professional have joined the Downtown Investment Authority Board of Directors.
                                                                                         
Joshua Garrison, the co-owner and CEO of Miranda Contracting, and Joe Hassan, a Florida real estate developer/investor and owner of Ten-H Investments, were seated on the board this week after being appointed by Mayor Lenny Curry and City Council President Terrance Freeman, respectively.
 
Garrison fills the unexpired term of former Board Member Stephanie Burch, who stepped away when she joined the board of the Jacksonville Transit Authority in the fall of 2022. Hassan fills the position previously held by former Board Chair Ronald K. Moody.
 
Garrison joined Miranda Contracting in 2003 on his way to becoming a co-owner and CEO in 2012 and then president in 2018. He guides a company that has completed more than 65 major projects totaling more than $48 million in capital improvements since 1998.
 
A University of North Florida alumni who holds an MBA from the university’s European Business School, Garrison also has served on numerous civic and professional organizations, including as president of the Northeast Florida Builders Association, board member of Trinity Rescue Mission, and member of the UNF International Business Advisory Council and College of Arts and Sciences Dean’s Council.
 
He also is a former member and chair of the Jacksonville Planning Commission.
 
“Our Downtown is the heartbeat of Northeast Florida,” Garrison said. “I’m honored and excited to help bring further prosperity to our central district.”
 
Hassan, a UNF graduate and Jacksonville native, brings over 30 years of experience as a licensed Realtor in the region. His business interests center on the development of professional office space and climate-controlled storage from the ground up. Moreover, he specializes in acquiring and refurbishing historic buildings, such as the Dyal Upchurch Building and the Florida Title and Trust Building in Downtown Jacksonville.
 
Before transition to real estate investing and development, Hassan was the senior vice president of Scott Alarm, a Jacksonville-based company where he played an instrumental role in expanding the organization to become the largest independently owned security company in the U.S. Additionally, he founded Certified Security Systems, which went on to become one of the top 100 independently owned security companies in the nation.
 
“I’m grateful for the opportunity to serve on the Downtown Investment Authority Board during this dynamic time for our Downtown,” Hassan said. “There’s a tremendous amount of interest and opportunity in Downtown Jacksonville, and I’m looking forward to working with my colleagues on the Board to keep up the momentum.”
 
“Speaking for myself and for my colleagues on the board, we’re excited that Mr. Garrison and Mr. Hassan have joined us,” said DIA Board Chair Carol Worsham. “With their decades of experience as business leaders and their deep connections to Jacksonville, they’re well-suited to keep the transformation of Downtown moving in the right direction.”
 
As DIA Board members, Garrison and Hassan will help guide a Downtown revitalization effort that has seen $500 million in development projects completed since 2021, with another $1.5 billion under construction and $245 million approved or in review. The Board oversees a 12-member DIA staff responsible for carrying out a Downtown master plan that provides a comprehensive set of goals, policies and initiatives to keep redevelopment moving forward.
 

Since 2018, a total of 24 residential projects have either opened or started construction in Jacksonville's downtown area, from Brooklyn to LaVilla to the Southbank, Cathedral District, Central Core and Sports and Entertainment District. They are delivering downtown's best run of housing growth since the city set a goal some two decades ago for 10,000 residents in downtown, considered a major milestone to support new retail, dining and nightlife in the area.

Here's a closer look at the projects and where they are in the development pipeline.

See the full story from The Florida Times-Union.

FDOT will host a ribbon-cutting ceremony to mark the grand opening of the Fuller Warren Shared Use Path (SUP) on Thursday, April 6 at 11 a.m. The ribbon-cutting ceremony will be held at the Riverside Arts Market, 715 Riverside Avenue, Jacksonville, FL 32204. FDOT plans to host media for a tour of the Shared Use Path prior to opening; more details will be announced soon.
 
In keeping with FDOT’s goals of improving safety and enhancing mobility, the Fuller Warren Shared Use Path will serve the residents and visitors of Jacksonville by providing pedestrian and bicycle connections between the Riverside and San Marco communities. Joining the Main Street Bridge and the Acosta Bridge, the Fuller Warren SUP will become the third point of access for pedestrians and bicyclists to cross the St. Johns River in Jacksonville.
Spanning the St. Johns River at 4,654 feet long and 12 feet wide, the Fuller Warren SUP includes two 6-foot lanes for east/west traffic and features two rest/observation areas featuring panoramic views of the St. Johns River. Users can access the SUP from Riverside Avenue in Riverside, from Palm Avenue in San Marco or from the sidewalk adjacent to the river behind Nemours Children’s Hospital.
 
The Fuller Warren SUP is part of the $126 million operational improvements project at  I-10 and I-95.
 
Stay informed about lane closures and roadwork in your area by following FDOT District 2 at @MyFDOT_NEFL on Twitter, at MyFDOTNEFL on Facebook or by visiting nflroads.com.
 

Award recognizes individuals who have made outstanding contributions resulting in a significant impact on the continued development of Downtown Jacksonville

On Feb. 8, 2023, more than 500 people got a glimpse of the future of Downtown Jacksonville during Riverfront 2025: A Look Ahead, a live event that provided updates on more than 20 private and public building projects along the St. Johns River in the heart of Jacksonville.
Now, the information presented during the event is available for the entire community to see online. A new online production hosted by Build Up Downtown includes re-recordings of all presentations and video from the event, plus all other information that was shared at the meetings – including architectural renderings and photos, a list of the partnering host organizations and how to support them, answers to questions from the audience, and upcoming events.
Visit the webpage here.

From One Riverside to the Four Seasons, where some of the $4.7 billion in projects stand

Jacksonville native George Saoud joins the DIA’s governing body

Program updates come on the heels of successful pilot program for electric scooters

Owners of the historic building at 323 E. Bay St. can start redeveloping it as a music venue, bar and lounge.

Plans label it “Decca.”

The city issued a permit Feb. 28 for First Impression Contractors of Jacksonville to renovate the building at a project cost of almost $3.31 million.

The work includes a new roof and supporting structure; a third-floor addition for a rooftop bar; interior alterations of stairs, restrooms and bars; structural modifications to increase the size of the opening between the first and second floors and reconfiguring the stage; and a new exterior storefront, ramp and steps.

The permit says 17,706 square feet of enclosed area will be renovated.

Jacksonville City Council voted in July 2022 to approve a $1.53 million incentives package to help finance a Miami-based developer’s plans to renovate the building. It approved Ordinance 2022-0452.

Get the full story from the Jacksonville Daily Record.

A $72 million historic renovation is happening right now in Jacksonville to the Union Terminal Warehouse. It will become the place where hundreds of people can live, work and entertain.

The four-story warehouse sits just beside the Arlington Expressway. In 1913, the warehouse was known as the finest warehouse in the state of Florida, and was the largest commercial building too.

“This is going to create similar opportunities for people to live and work in a building that’s been part of our fabric for decades but long been forgotten for the most part in terms of its productive capacity,” said Steve Kelly, Director of Downtown Real Estate and Development for the Downtown Investment Authority.

The 110-year-old building, with a grid-like façade, terracotta tiles on the walls, steel clad doors, concrete stairwells and reinforced concretes support will transform.

“We will actually be roasting here and have a café here so we are super excited about this opportunity,” Leo Baker, President of Vantage Point said. “We are just excited to be here in Jacksonville and expand our business by employment and great coffee to the community.”

House Bill 499 and Senate Bill 288 would provide state funding for other historical buildings in the state to be renovated and preserved. Local politicians hope the bills pass.

State Representative Paula Stark said, “It gives developers and even individuals who are interested in older buildings and restoring them, a little more incentive to do it.” Stark represents District 47, Osceola County and South Orange County.

Currently projects like the Union Terminal Warehouse get a 20% federal tax credit but if the bills pass, it would create a 10% credit on the state level.

“Absolutely we are going to support it,” State Representative Dean Black said. “It is going to have a lot of support and really for a couple of reasons because you get the best of both worlds. We actually get to preserve our history but we are also going to help address housing affordability at the same time.”

State Senator Tracie Davis said, “This is a perfect example of a partnership on the local, state and federal levels and it’s just amazing.”

In less than a year, the Union Terminal Warehouse will begin a new renaissance as a home, business and entertainment cornerstone for the growing bold city.

See the whole story from News4Jax.
 

Meeting will provide updates on destination parks and other public-private development planned for Jacksonville’s Downtown

JACKSONVILLE, FL – Agency Landscape + Planning LLC (AGENCY), a nationally recognized landscape architecture and urban planning firm, has been selected to develop a design for a new 10-acre park in Downtown Jacksonville, along the western end of Downtown Jacksonville. The project will rehabilitate and transform an expanse of waterfront lands, which have been a central part of the city’s diverse and rich history, into a rich cultural, recreational, and civic asset for Jacksonville residents. The working name for the park is Shipyards West Park. Shipyards West Park is planned between Catherine Street and Hogans Creek along the St. Johns River Northbank.
 
The project is being led by the Downtown Investment Authority (DIA). The DIA and the City’s Parks, Recreation, and Community Services Department oversee the project to build a destination riverfront park connecting City Center and the Sports and Entertainment District. Shipyards West Park will be a world-class riverfront park inclusive of complementary amenities that will provide the missing link between Riverfront Plaza and Metropolitan Park. The park is an important project within the waterfront activation plan developed by the Jessie Ball DuPont Fund as part of its riverfront development study in 2021.
 
AGENCY is joined by a core design team of designers and engineers - WXY and Haskell - who will contribute to schematic design drawings for a shared vision for the future of Shipyards West Park. Together, this team is generating a comprehensive and actionable design that will honor the site’s unique historical and ecological heritage, transform the identity and use of this underutilized gem, strengthen the connection of the waterfront to the city and the community, and intentionally link City Center to the Sports and Entertainment neighborhood through welcoming, walkable, and vibrant connections.
 
The collective experience of the core design team is supported by the expertise of a team of specialists who will investigate and advise on a broad array of cultural, environmental, and economic topics to ensure that every voice in the community is heard, and every aspect of the waterfront’s future is thoughtfully considered. Specialist team members include ADG, DVDL, ETM, Fluidity, HLB, JLPD, Mechling, Mekel, Moffatt & Nichol, and SSG.
 
"We recognize this opportunity - the Shipyards West Park design project - as a critical next phase in a long and building riverfront legacy story for Jacksonville. Change seems to be everywhere - the momentum established through years of incremental planning and building. The Shipyards as a whole is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to shape a regional riverfront destination." Says Gina Ford, FASLA, Principal and co-founder of Agency.
 
While the design is in its preliminary stages, fundamental high-level aspirations for the project have been discussed. A wide diversity of passive and active programming will be considered as well as ecological regeneration strategies. This park will be for everyone bringing the community together and having design elements and park features that support the needs of the community as a whole. The project duration is approximately 12 months. Each phase of the project will be notated on the project website.
 
AGENCY and the team conducted a thorough analysis of the 10-acre site area, building from the foundation established by previous studies. The team will then interpret and layout desired programming and longer-term goals for the park. From this, AGENCY will begin developing design concepts for the park which stakeholders will vet and refine to a preferred idea before commencing schematic design. AGENCY and the DIA are committed to crafting an actionable design and creating a treasured new asset along the St. Johns River.
 
“This is an exciting time in history for Downtown Jacksonville. We are connecting people, creating opportunity, and embracing the beautiful views and majestic aura of the St. Johns River,” said Lori Boyer, DIA CEO. “Creating a world-class destination riverfront park system in Downtown is a top priority for the DIA, and the completion of Shipyards West Park is key to making that vision come to life. We look forward to providing the citizens of Jacksonville a space they can feel proud of.”

Learn more at https://www.shipyardswest.com.

Downtown Jacksonville is in the midst of a transition as a host of major projects are currently under way or in the planning process.

The list of projects features ventures from out-of-state and local developers, both adaptive reuses and new construction, spread across a variety of multifamily, hotel and retail sectors.

 

Much of the new energy — and capital — is understandably focused on the city's riverfront.

2022 saw several projects break ground, including the One Riverside redevelopment of the former Times-Union building site.

Other projects are still just concepts, but important decisions have been made. That includes the $166 million high-rise proposed by American Lions, which was the sole company to respond to a request for proposals for a one-acre development pad at Riverfront Plaza, the former site of the Jacksonville Landing.

The city also moved forward with plans for The Hardwick at Ford on Bay, a $150 million project with 300 apartment units and a significant amount of retail space along Bay Street facing the St. Johns River.

Get the full story (and view the gallery!) from the Jacksonville Business Journal. 

More than three years after the city began to search for a developer to build for-sale town houses in LaVilla, Corner Lot Development Group and JWB Real Estate Johnson Commons LLC broke ground Oct. 18 on a 91-unit project.

Representatives of the Johnson Common partnership joined city officials for a ceremony at the 3.45-acre site in the historic Downtown neighborhood near the future Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing Park and the JTA Jacksonville Regional Transportation Center.

Corner Lot COO George Leone said the three-story town houses will be priced in the mid-to-high-$300,000s and will be “a little higher end” than the multifamily affordable and workforce housing built in LaVilla in recent years, primarily by The Vestcor Companies Inc. 

“We’re going to drive some price points in the area,” Leone told reporters after the groundbreaking.

“Development so far in LaVilla is a little bit more on the affordable side. Well, now we’re going to bring a little nicer product and try to get people that live and want to work in Downtown Jacksonville.”

Corner Lot and JWB have been working with the Jacksonville Downtown Investment Authority since March 2021 to build what Leone estimates will be an $18 million to $20 million project. 

City Council agreed to convey the land, appraised in 2019 at $3.58 million, to the Johnson Commons partnership for $100 in exchange for keeping the prices affordable for middle-income buyers— what the city considers “the missing middle.”

It will be the first large-scale, single-family home project built in Downtown Jacksonville’s historic black neighborhood since much of LaVilla’s housing was acquired and demolished by the city in the 1980s and ‘90s. 

Designs approved by the Downtown Development Review Board in September 2021 show the town houses will feature a shotgun-style design with gabled roofs.

Johnson Commons representatives said the design is inspired by LaVilla’s architecture of the late 19th and early 20th centuries when the neighborhood was thriving.

“To get to this point, it’s just very fulfilling,” Leone said. “Especially to be a part of what’s going on in LaVilla. LaVilla is on a great trajectory.” 

Get the full story from the Jacksonville Daily Record. 

When Fidelity National Information Services Inc., or FIS, began planning its new headquarters building in 2019, company officials had no idea the concept of office work would change by the time it opened.

“Would you build a new corporate headquarters in the middle of a pandemic?” CEO Gary Norcross said after an Oct. 12 ribbon-cutting ceremony officially opening the building at 347 Riverside Ave.

When plans for the financial technology firm’s 12-story, 300,000-square-foot office were unveiled three years ago, FIS promised to add 500 jobs to the 1,216 workers it already had in Jacksonville.

The $156 million project included $29.9 million in city and state incentives.

“I am proud to say we’re 75% of the way there (to adding the jobs) as we open our headquarters today,” Norcross said during the ceremony.

Before the coronavirus pandemic, FIS did not anticipate employees spending at least part of their workweek at home and part in the office,  and Norcross said it’s difficult to determine just how many employees the new building could accommodate.

“We’re still trying to figure out exactly what that looks like in the future,” he said.

Norcross said the office along the St. Johns River was built to withstand a 500-year flood with hurricane-proof windows. And it is environmentally friendly.

“We aspired to have the greenest building in the state,” he said.

The project team included Gilbane Building Co. as the contractor; Hines as the developer; Gensler as the architect; and England-Thims & Miller Inc. as the civil engineer.

FIS is a global company with 65,000 employees in about 120 locations. It ranks 268th on the Fortune 500 list of largest U.S. companies, based on its 2021 revenue of $13.9 billion.

The company was spun off from title insurance company Fidelity National Financial Inc. in 2006 and had maintained its headquarters in the same Riverside Avenue office complex since then.

Deputy City Administrator Charles Moreland said FIS’ decision to build a new headquarters and expand its local employment solidifies Jacksonville’s reputation as a leader in the financial technology industry.

“This is very big for our city,” Moreland said. “It’s a big win.”

Get the full story from the Jacksonville Daily Record.

The former home of the Florida Times-Union stood on the banks of the St. Johns River since the 1960s, housing the newspaper offices and production facility for some 50 years.

That building is almost totally demolished now, preparing the site for what comes next: a $182 million project that will bring apartments, a grocery store, restaurants and more to the site in the Brooklyn neighborhood.

Ground was officially broken Thursday morning on one part of the project, which will see 270 residential units and a restaurant built at the former newspaper office.

The leadership of Tribridge Residential — which is developing the apartments — were joined by representatives of Live Oak Contracting, Prosser, Dwell Design Studio, Banko Design and Land Design for the ceremony.

W. Gardner will soon begin working on clearing and doing utility work at the site, setting the stage for the foundation to be laid and construction to begin.

The multifamily development and 130-seat restaurant should be competed by the end of 2024, TriBridge Residential partner Katherine Mosley said. 

More apartments as well as the grocery store are slated to come later.

As well as bringing more residents to the growing Brooklyn neighborhood on the edge of downtown, the project will help connect Brooklyn and Riverside with the urban core, with public access to the riverwalk included in the project.

“It will provide a heightened sense of community,” said Mosely, who has been working on developments in Jacksonville for the past decade. “I think it’s very exciting to see the activation of the river.” 

A decade ago, there was little development in that part of Jacksonville, with the area across from the Times-Union building just vacant land.

Then, 220 Riverside opened in 2015, kicking off a wave of projects. That apartment complex was joined by Vista Brooklyn and the Brooklyn Station retail center brought shops and restaurants to the area.  

Along the river, the multimillion-dollar Winston Family YMCA replaced the 60-year-old building that had been on that site and — more recently — FIS built a 12-story, 300,000-square-foot headquarters.

“This is going to be the cherry on top,” said Paul Bertozzi, CEO of Live Oak Contracting, which will be building the Tribridge project.

And the apartments are just part of the development, with three projects taking place at the 18.84-acre site. Fuqua Development of Atlanta will be developing a retail center anchored by a Whole Food Market, while the city is slated to uncover McCoy’s Creek and develop a park that will connect with the Emerald Trail.

That will amount to a “transformation” project, said Lori Boyer, CEO of  the Downtown Investment Authority, which is providing $31.59 million in incentives for the $182.2 million project.

“We are so excited to see this ground breaking and development come to fruition,” Boyer said. “There’s all the naysayers about what is happening downtown and are things really going to get built. I think TriBridge is a wonderful example of the fact that once it gets to our approval process, it may take a while for all the permitting, but they are in fact happening.”

Get the full story from the Jacksonville Business Journal. 

A $36.93 million incentives package for American Lions LLC’s proposed 44-story residential tower at the former Jacksonville Landing is headed to City Council.

The incentives are up $1.05 million from the package presented to the DIA board committee Sept 15. 

The Downtown Investment Authority voted 6-0 on Sept. 21 to approve the deal that would partially finance the New York City-based developer’s proposed $166.6 million project.  

American Lions is a joint venture of Fetner Properties and the Lions Group.

American Lions and international architect Bjarke Ingels Group are pitching a 480-foot-tall tower with 332 apartments, 15,000 square feet for resident amenities, 5,000 square feet of outdoor terrace space open to the public and 31,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space. 
 

It will integrate with a new Riverfront Plaza, the park that will take up most of the former Landing space.

The incentives include the discounted payback on a $27.5 million construction loan to be repaid over 20 years with one 10-year extension option. 

The board approved the deal as part of the meeting’s consent agenda. 

The majority of the city investment would be from a property tax refund, cash completion grant and land.

Before the vote Sept. 21, DIA CEO Lori Boyer gave a more complete breakdown of the loan payout and payback at the request of board members, which showed an increase to the incentives total. 

Board member Todd Froats said Sept. 15 he thought the previous summary overstated the amount of city incentives by including a loan that would be paid back to the city.

In all, the DIA is covering $2.39 million of the loan, according to the latest breakdown provided by Boyer.

She told the board American Lions would have a present value payoff on the loan of $8.57 million and interest at $17.87 million. 

That means the developer would pay back $26.45 million. 

The incentive attached to the loan includes $1.344 million in interest payments covered by DIA plus another $1.05 million net incentive. 

That increases the previously reported $35.88 million in incentives to $36.93 million. 
 

Here’s how the rest of the incentives package breaks down: 

• A Recapture Enhanced Value Grant capped at $28.557 million in the form of a 20-year, 75% property tax refund.
• A $2.5 million completion grant based on the Sky Garden Terrace paid after the tower is substantially complete.
• The land appraised at $3.48 million.

The term sheet allows for the city to provide a larger construction loan, capped at $29 million. 

The deal says American Lions would have to receive final design approval by the Downtown Development Review Board by June 1, 2024, and start construction by Sept. 1, 2024. 

American Lions would have until Dec. 31, 2027, to finish construction.

Boyer will now take the DIA resolution to the Mayor’s Budget Review Committee to approve filing legislation with Council. 

The DIA board also unanimously approved an access agreement during the meeting so American Lions can start geological testing and surveys of the site before the Council debates and approves the agreement. 

The building’s proposed physical connection to the 7-acre park at the former Landing, now Riverfront Plaza, is the most important part of the tower design, according to DIA and city officials.

Council is poised to approve $25 million Sept. 27 for the park’s construction as part of the fiscal year 2022-23 city Capital Improvement Plan. 

Boyer said that’s enough money to fully fund the work. The city hopes to start soliciting construction bids by January 2023 and start construction no later than June.

Get the full story from the Jacksonville Daily Record. 

Jacksonville’s Downtown Investment Authority is working to debunk a long-held belief that it is a city of renderings and convince a skeptical public that momentum revitalizing the urban core is real. 

Officials for the city agency trying to spur Downtown investment have picked up the messaging effort in the past year, showing business and civic groups the data to back up the trend that local, regional and nationwide developers are pursuing projects in Downtown Jacksonville. 

DIA Director of Downtown Real Estate and Development Steve Kelley told the Southside Business Men’s Club on Aug.  31 that $262 million in private investment projects have been completed Downtown since 2021 and $1.4 billion in projects are under construction. 

According to the DIA, another $2.7 billion of private capital projects are approved or in review with $657 million proposed.

Residential, predominantly apartments, is leading the boom in what was historically an office market. Kelley said 4,931 residential units soon will be added to the 4,499 available Downtown with a 98% occupancy rate. Another 722 units are proposed. 

The DIA official, a 30-year Jacksonville resident, said Downtown will surpass the city’s 10,000-resident goal in the next two to three years and will top 16,700 if the proposed units are built.

His presentation highlights six riverfront projects that the DIA says, if completed, will spur more development, retail and accelerate residential growth.

“Any one of these projects back in the day when I first came here would have been the headline news,” Kelley said. 

“And now we have multiple underway simultaneous.” 

Get the full story at the Jacksonville Daily Record.

From One Riverside to JAX River View Plaza and Jacksonville Jaguars owner Shad Khan’s Four Seasons hotel, more than $3 billion of investment is in the pipeline for the urban core.

Downtown Investment Authority Director of Downtown Real Estate and Development Steve Kelley offers an update on where those projects stand:

One Riverside

Demolition of the former Florida Times-Union headquarters on the Brooklyn riverfront is nearly complete, prepping the site for One Riverside, a residential and retail mixed-use project to begin construction by fall 2022.  

Fuqua Development of Atlanta and project partner TriBridge Residential LLC are planning 271 apartment units. Fuqua will lead 39,256 square feet of retail, including a Whole Foods Market and a riverfront restaurant at the 18.84-acre site.

The DIA and city will restore McCoys Creek and add a 2½-acre park that will be part of the Emerald Trail. 

A planned second phase includes 125 apartments and 15,000 square feet of retail. In total, the development will have three restaurants — one on the river. 

Kelley said waterfront restaurants are “a common theme” in the riverfront developments proposed and breaking ground Downtown — a DIA board priority.

Riverfront Plaza

Architecture firm Perkins & Will is scheduled to finalize designs by early 2023 for a nearly 7-acre park at the former Jacksonville Landing and construction will begin sometime in the next six to nine months.

Park features will include a flexible multipurpose lawn; destination playground; pedestrian ramp from the Main Street Bridge; beer garden; water feature; and a monumental sculpture.

The centerpiece sculpture proposed for the park may or may not be the conceptual “Jax” statue designed by Orlando-based artist Jefrë.

“There will be a major sculpture there and whether or not it’s that one exactly, is yet to be determined,” Kelley said.

The 2023 Capital Improvement Plan that City Council is considering as part of the 2022-23 fiscal year budget includes $25 million for the Riverfront Plaza project.

Jax River View Plaza 

The DIA is “negotiating in great good faith” with American Lions LLC, Kelley said, on a city incentives package for the New York City developer to build its proposed 44-floor, 332-unit multifamily tower adjacent to the Riverfront Plaza park. He said the deal could come to the DIA board in September.

The company, a joint venture between Fetner Properties and Lions Group, has tapped international architecture firm Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) to design what could be the tallest tower in Northeast Florida.

The plan would integrate the building into the park through a sky garden terrace with retail and park access. The design shows a 7,500-square-foot restaurant and includes amenities such as a day care.

There would be a food and beverage venue on the 44th floor with park and river views open to the public; a 1,500-square-foot cafe with indoor and outdoor seating; and a parking garage.

The Hardwick at The Ford on Bay

Atlanta-based developer Carter could be returning to the city with an updated design that allows more density for its estimated $150 million mixed-use residential high-rise The Hardwick. The 22-story tower is proposed at the former Duval County Courthouse site.

The changes would increase the units from 332 to 360. The plan would bring a 120-space parking garage and 25,000 square feet of retail space with two restaurants to the riverfront site facing the future Liberty Marina.

The DIA board approved $41 million in tax, cash and land value incentives for the project in May that still need City Council approval. 

RiversEdge: Life on the St. Johns

St. Johns River bulkhead construction that will protect Dallas-based Preston Hollow Capital LLC’s long-delayed master-planned Downtown Southbank development is 75% complete, Kelley said.

The DIA expects work to start on roads and city parks in late 2022. The company announced in May 2021 that residential developer Toll Brothers will build 39 town houses at RiversEdge.

Preston Hollow has not announced who will build the majority of the remaining vertical construction.

The project scope calls for 950 residential units; 147 hotel rooms; 200,000 square feet of office space; 134,000 square feet of retail uses; and a 125-slip marina. 

Four Seasons hotel and residences/office building

Iguana Investments Florida LLC, the development arm of Jacksonville Jaguars owner Shad Khan, is expected to start construction later this year on the $370 million Four Seasons hotel and residences at the Downtown Shipyards.

Kelley noted the project would be Downtown’s first five-star hotel and include 176 rooms, resort amenities like a spa, pool and meeting spaces, and 25 Class A residential condominium units.

Khan’s company is negotiating with the city to buy land adjacent to the hotel for a six-story office building with ground-floor retail.

Iguana seeks to lease the land as part of a $114 million incentives package approved in 2021 by City Council.

The project is scheduled for completion in 2025. 

Get the full story from the Jacksonville Daily Record.

Although indicators begin to point an economic downturn sooner than later, developers focused on downtown Jacksonville say they aren’t pressing pause just yet.

Downtown was spotlighted Thursday during a panel discussion at the Urban Land Institute Florida Summit, a gathering of real estate professionals whose schedule includes a bike tour of the Springfield neighborhood, a walking tour of downtown and golf at The Player’s Championship Stadium Course

The opening session gave downtown developers a chance to talk about their view of the area to an audience of hundreds.

Several on the panel noted that although costs of construction are steadily rising and interest rates are increasing, the amount of demand and level of rents are still present in Jacksonville to support continued development.

Greg Blais, president of multifamily developer RISE, noted that in general developments aren’t stopping, but the pace will begin to slow down.

“We’re still very bullish,” Blais said. RISE — which moved its headquarters to Jacksonville last year —  is underway on The Doro apartment project in the Sports & Entertainment District and several others.

Several panelists noted Jacksonville is better positioned than other metros because of the amount of land it still has available for development, in addition to factors like job growth and low unemployment.

Mark Lamping of the Jacksonville Jaguars pointed out that overall infrastructure needs to keep up with the amount of development that will happen over the next few years as Jacksonville continues to grow.

Panelists pointed to Tampa as an example of a place that Jacksonville can emulate when it comes to transforming downtown into a destination.

Downtown Investment Authority CEO Lori Boyer led the panel, which included Lamping, Lane Gardner of Hines, Blais, Marc Munago of VanTrust, and Heather Reynolds of Fuqua Development.

Get the full story from the Jacksonville Business Journal.

A new state law will allow smaller restaurants along a stretch of Kings Avenue to serve liquor and cocktails as long as the establishment meets a series of conditions including a minimum of 50 seats.

The newly approved law also will enable restaurants in the downtown Northbank to obtain the special licenses if they can serve at least 50 people at a time, half of the former 100-diner threshold.

The measure — House Bill 1497 introduced by state Rep. Wyman Duggan, R-Jacksonville — took effect immediately after it was signed this week by Gov. Ron DeSantis.

The law creates and adds the Kings Avenue Commercial Corridor to existing areas in downtown Jacksonville and historic neighborhoods such as Riverside, Avondale, San Marco and others where the state previously opened the door to smaller restaurants being able to serve liquor and cocktails.

Fuqua Development announced April 29 that Whole Foods Market will lease the grocery space at its One Riverside Jacksonville center in the Brooklyn neighborhood Downtown.

Atlanta-based Fuqua is developing One Riverside at the former Florida Times-Union campus it bought at 1 Riverside Ave. 

The grocer will lease about 43,000 square feet of space. There also will be 11,000 square feet of retail space for lease in the first phase.

It will be the third Whole Foods in Jacksonville, with the first operating in Mandarin and the second in Jacksonville Beach.

Apartments also will be built on the 18.8-acre Northbank riverfront site next to the Acosta Bridge.

The Times-Union buildings are being demolished. Construction of the Whole Foods Market could start in late summer.

The release said that located on a major commuter corridor and directly adjacent to the future Brooklyn Skyway monorail station, “1 Riverside Ave. will offer convenient access to organic groceries, fresh restaurant concepts, boutiques and services and a new avenue of connection to the St. Johns River and McCoy’s Creek.”

Get the full story from the Jacksonville Daily Record. 

JACKSONVILLE, FL (April 25, 2022) – The City of Jacksonville is launching a contactless payment option for on-street parking in Downtown Jacksonville via ParkMobile. ParkMobile makes paying for parking an easier and more convenient experience, allowing users to pay for and monitor parking sessions on-the-go. The new payment option will go live today and will be available on metered parking spaces where ParkMobile decals have been deployed. The Office of Public Parking will continue installing decals throughout the week and once complete, ParkMobile will be available for all 1,420 metered parking spaces Downtown.

"As we continue to see unprecedented growth and development in downtown Jacksonville, there is a notable need for convenient parking," Mayor Lenny Curry said. "We are excited about our partnership with ParkMobile as it will make it easier for residents and visitors to frequent this portion of our city."

ParkMobile has almost 35 million users across North America, is available for both iPhone and Android devices, and can also be accessed on a mobile web browser. To pay for parking using the mobile or web app, a user enters the zone number posted on the parking meter, selects the amount of time needed, and presses the "Start Parking" button to begin the session. The user will receive an email or text message confirming their payment. Although the meter may not display receipt of payment, parking enforcement personnel will instantly know the payment has been made. The user can also monitor their transaction and remotely extend the time of the parking session, if needed.

“Not only is the timing of this partnership nearly perfect, the fact that a national leader in smart parking, with nearly 35 million users, is expanding their services into downtown Jacksonville is a testament to our growth and development," said Lori Boyer, CEO of the Downtown Investment Authority. "Parkmobile will help to ease the stress of parking in downtown and allow citizens to focus on what our amazing downtown has to offer."

ParkMobile mobile payment solution is an added payment option and is intended to complement existing parking payment options. All existing forms of payment (credit and debit cards, coins) are still valid for meter use.

To learn more about ParkMobile in Jacksonville, visit https://www.coj.net/parkmobile.

About the Downtown Investment Authority
The Downtown Investment Authority was established by the City of Jacksonville to revitalize Jacksonville’s urban core by utilizing Community Redevelopment Area resources and is guided by a nine-member board of directors. The DIA seeks to attract investment, facilitate job creation and increase residential density through capital investments, planning, marketing and public-private partnerships including the provision of incentives for the general community and Downtown stakeholders. For more information, visit https://dia.coj.net/ and https://investdtjax.com/.

About ParkMobile
ParkMobile, LLC is the leading provider of smart parking and mobility solutions in North America, using a contactless approach to help millions of people easily find, reserve, and pay for parking on their mobile devices. The company's technology is used in thousands of locations across the country, including 8 of the top 10 cities as well as college campuses, airports, and stadiums. People can use ParkMobile solutions to quickly pay for on-street and off-street parking without having to use a meter or kiosk. Additionally, ParkMobile offers parking reservations at stadium venues for concerts and sporting events. Reservations are also available in metro area garages, allowing people to drive into the city without having to worry about finding parking. ParkMobile has been named to the Inc. 5000, Deloitte Fast 500, Smart Cities Connect "Smart 50," and the Atlanta Journal Constitution's Top Workplaces. Additionally, the company won the 2020 Stevie Awards for Achievement in Product Innovation and the 2019 Stevie Awards for Most Innovative Tech Company and Best Travel App. For more information, visit ParkMobile.io or @ParkMobile on Twitter.
 

The next five years are shaping up to be critical for downtown Jacksonville, and the Downtown Investment Authority's new strategic plan will play a huge role.

The DIA board will meet Wednesday afternoon to discuss adoption of an updated Business Investment and Development and Community Redevelopment Area plan.

One of the big changes being discussed: rolling out a new plan to incentivize downtown growth, which includes revamping some existing programs and introducing new ones.

Ahead of that meeting, the Business Journal caught up with DIA CEO Lori Boyer to hear what makes the new five-year plan different than the last, and which of the new incentive programs may have the biggest impact.

What are the biggest differences between the new five-year plan and the previous one? 

The biggest differences in the plan reflect the growth and maturing market in downtown. This is reflected in the new discrete goals on retail and the St. Johns River, the revisions to existing incentives and the addition of new incentives as well as the enumerated redevelopment projects. There is also an effort to streamline processing times by providing clear criteria for each program.

In the current plan, our focus was to bring residential units and population to downtown. It still is the focus, but now the incentive is more selective about street-front activation, resiliency, etc. Retail and restaurants are increasingly important as we build our residential population, hence the increased emphasis on those uses that are becoming viable.

Which of the incentives mentioned in the plan are new?

The new incentives are small-scale residential, affordable housing loans (which we have made on a case-by-case basis without an explicit program), retail enhancement in non-core areas, waterfront restaurants, the Commercial Revitalization Program is completely revamped, and the boutique hotel, parking screening, and mobility credits are completely new.

If you had to pick one incentive that you think may have the biggest impact on the next five years downtown, which would it be? 

It is a toss-up between the waterfront restaurant incentive and the changes in multifamily REV that require retail or restaurants on the waterfronts.

What's one thing from your perspective that  businesses need to know about the new five-year plan? 

The primary focus is residential growth supported by retail, and the many "off the shelf" incentive programs are designed to streamline processing time, make it easy to understand whether your project qualifies and to reduce the documentation we require from applicants.

Get the full story from the Jacksonville Business Journal.

The Downtown Investment Authority will search for a developer to build a mid-rise or high-rise tower for a one-acre parcel to complement a proposed park at the former Jacksonville Landing site. 

The DIA board Retail Enhancement and Property Disposition Committee is scheduled to vote Feb. 11 on development terms for the pad next to the park that the city renamed Riverfront Plaza.

The vote sets up the DIA to issue a notice of disposition on what the draft term sheet released Feb. 7 says will be a minimum seven-story building but preferably a more than 15-story tower. 

If approved by the full board, the DIA would solicit bids for a mixed-use project next to the park being designed by firm Perkins & Will Inc. 

The DIA and city started moving toward creating a park flanked by private development at the 2 Independent Drive W. site in late 2020. 

The two-story 178,838-square-foot Jacksonville Landing shopping mall and plaza was built in 1987 and demolished in 2020.

The two-story 178,838-square-foot Jacksonville Landing shopping mall and plaza was built in 1987 and demolished in 2020.

The term sheet indicates the size has increased from 4½ acres to a 7-acre “world-class park” on the St. Johns River.

The DIA wants the private development to complement the park design and will be required to plan for a “raised plaza for outdoor dining overlooking the park,” the term sheet says. 

The bid terms say limited space for parking on the site would make hotel and office uses more suitable than multifamily residential. The DIA documents say a hotel would “economically benefit the most from, and be most compatible with the adjacent park.”

Bids for the site also must include restaurant and bar space. 

The DIA says any hotel pitched for Riverfront Plaza should be at least a four-star flag determined by Forbes magazine or travel group AAA. 

Office space should be Class A and “ideal for a corporate headquarters,” according to the draft terms.

DIA scorers will not restrict bids to a hotel and office and said high-density multifamily would be considered.

Architects working with the winning bidder will have to orient the building perpendicular to the river and parallel to the Main Street Bridge.

When city and DIA officials vetted park designs for Riverfront Plaza in July 2021, there was concern that any private development should preserve the river view from the street and the Wells Fargo Tower.

The term sheet gives parking garage parameters as a minimum three-level deck with one subterranean level available. 

At least 30% of the length of the building facing Independent Drive will be wrapped with ground-floor retail. 

The building also will be required to have restaurant/bar/event/meeting room space that frames a public plaza/open space built two- to four-stories up on the Independent Drive side of the project. 

The space was referred to as a “Sky Garden Terrace” in Perkins & Will’s preliminary design. 

On the park side, the DIA wants a minimum 7,500 square feet of retail for a “destination restaurant” and bar space that can serve at least 100 people at a time. 

The term sheet calls retail a crucial component for the site that will feature a sculpture designed by Orlando-based international artist Jefrë Manuel.  

The winning developer would have to coordinate its project with construction of the park and planned pedestrian ramp to connect the Main Street Bridge with Riverfront Plaza. 

The DIA expects both to be complete in early to mid-2024, according to the term sheet.

The city finalized a $1.7 million contract in December with Perkins & Will to compete the Riverfront Plaza park design. 

In its contract, the design firm aims to have pricing for the park ready by May 27 so the city can budget for construction costs in fiscal year 2022-23.

During a Nov. 17 board meeting, DIA CEO Lori Boyer said the DIA’s goal is to select a bid for the private development pad by April so architects and designs with the private developer and Perkins & Will can integrate the two projects.

This would be the second bid process for city-owned land since November when the DIA determined the amount of required retail space.

The winning project the DIA selected in January for The Ford on Bay — Atlanta-based Carter’s proposed $140 million mixed-use The Hardwick — will have 25,000 square feet of retail and a riverfront restaurant.

Get the full story from the Jacksonville Daily Record. 

he Museum of Science and History agreed to terms of a ground lease for 2½ acres on the city-owned Shipyards property as part of its proposal to build a new facility on the Downtown Northbank.

The Downtown Investment Authority board voted 6-0 on Jan. 19 to sign off on the details of a 40-year lease with MOSH for $1 per year.

In exchange, MOSH CEO Bruce Fafard says the nonprofit will complete an $85 million, 130,000-square-foot museum facility by Dec. 31, 2027. 

MOSH announced in October 2020 it plans to relocate from 1025 Museum Circle on the Downtown Southbank, its location since 1967.

The deal would allow MOSH to build a facility as small as 75,000 square feet, but Fafard told board members during a Jan. 18 committee meeting that the museum’s board is committed to the larger space. 

He reassured the DIA that, if there was a lag in fundraising, it would be addressed by the phasing in of exhibits and not the building’s footprint.

“The 130,000-square-foot building from our perspective is really nonnegotiable. That is what we feel is the size that we need,” Fafard said.

“The signature building is very important to us, as I’m sure it is to the community.”

Get the full story at the Jacksonville Daily Record.

The Downtown Investment Authority will start negotiations with Atlanta-based developer Carter to build The Hardwick at The Ford on Bay, a $140 million mixed-use apartment project. 

The DIA board voted 6-0 on Jan. 19 to award Carter the 2.4-acre riverfront parcel at 330 E. Bay St. after the company scored the highest of six firms in the city’s request for proposals to redevelop the former Duval County Courthouse site. 

Carter’s proposal comprises 332 apartments in a 300-foot-tall tower and 75-foot-tall pedestal with ground-floor retail. 

The vote followed a unanimous recommendation Jan. 18 by the board’s Retail Enhancement and Property Disposition Committee.

Board members Bill Adams and Braxton Gillam attended the Jan. 19 meeting via Zoom and could not vote. Ron Moody was absent. 

Carter has been in business since 1958 with a national reach, according to CBRE, which provided the real estate analysis of The Ford on Bay bids.

Carter President and CEO Scott Taylor said Jan. 18 that his company sees Jacksonville’s job growth rate, quality of life and “reasonable” cost of living as putting the area development market in an “upward trajectory.”

“Frankly, we believe that Jacksonville has a tremendous amount of opportunity to be that next frontier,” Taylor said.

Carter said its design is inspired by the midcentury modern architecture and designs of Jacksonville architect Taylor Hardwick.

Hardwick’s projects include the Haydon Burns Library and Friendship Fountain. The library nows is the Jessie Ball duPont Center.

During the Jan. 18 committee debate, board member Oliver Barakat said The Hardwick’s proposed architectural quality and homage to a prominent local voice in building design “took it to another level.” 

“You look at all the comments and controversy around the (former Jacksonville) Landing site, Riverfront Plaza, you see a city that wants something unique and iconic,” Barakat said. 

“I think Carter has brilliantly tapped into our history and also tapped into this newfound appreciation for midcentury architecture and on open space and hit on a lot of our hot buttons.”

DIA CEO Lori Boyer said she hopes to complete negotiations on the terms of the land deal and possible incentives package by March to return to the board for additional approval.

The resolution passed Jan. 19 calls for 75 days to complete talks. If those fail, the board could consider one of the other five bids. 

Carter said it plans to ask for 20-year, 75% Recapture Enhanced Value Grant, a property tax refund, and for the city to offer the riverfront site at no cost.

Legislation that would finalize those requests could be filed with City Council as soon as April, Boyer said.

The DIA board said the $140 million price was an attractive part of the bid but had some concern about how long it would take Carter to secure equity and financing for it.

The only pitch that offered a higher capital investment was SouthEast Development Group’s $253.45 million Reverb by Hard Rock hotel, apartment and retail proposal.

Board members liked The Hardwick’s $2.79 per-square-foot rental rate proposed for its apartments, but they also did not want financing troubles to create a repeat of the last time the DIA tried to develop The Ford on Bay.

The DIA canceled a tentative deal with New York City-based Spandrel Development Partners LLC for a $136 million mixed-use multifamily retail project after negotiations fell through. 

The DIA branded the former courthouse site The Ford on Bay in 2019. It included the adjacent 2.39-acre former City Hall Annex site at 220 E. Bay St. and 3.1 acres of submerged land in the St. Johns River.

The DIA this time included only the courthouse site in its request for project bids.

CBRE says Carter has invested in $1.2 billion in assets in the last decade, primarily in mixed-use multifamily, office and student housing projects.

In Florida, the company has about $300 million in multifamily development under construction as of summer 2022 near Orlando, Tampa and Lakeland.

Taylor also told the committee he is working to obtain financing locally with Ross Singletary, a managing partner with investment advisory firm Arcus Capital Partners.

The Carter executive said the firm has $25 million in local investment commitment in the project.
Taylor said it has not gone out into the market to raise the capital, but Carter noted in its presentation it expects $91 million in debt financing and $49 million in equity investment.

Boyer said Jan. 19 she is optimistic that Carter’s team can deliver financially.

“I don’t think that the board would have selected this project if they didn’t believe it was financially feasible and that it would really happen,” Boyer said.

“That’s not to say there weren’t other responses that were not a sure thing.” 

Get the full story from the Jacksonville Daily Record.

In a record Jacksonville apartment sale, CS 1031 Brooklyn Apartments DST bought Vista Brooklyn at 200 Riverside Ave. for $126.3 million.

On Dec. 30, 2021, the affiliate of Richmond, Virginia-based Capital Square bought the 308-unit property from Bristol Development Group and Hallmark Partners for a record $410,064 per unit, according to Jennifer Beerli, Hallmark Partners marketing director. 

The 10-story apartment community, on 2.1 acres, opened in 2021. 

It has studio, one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments ranging in size from 460 to 1,626 square feet. Monthly rents range from $1,690 for a studio to $2,850 for a two-bedroom unit.

There was no pricing information for a three-bedroom apartment because there are none available, according to the leasing office. 

There is 12,687 square feet of commercial space on the ground floor.

“Our goal for Vista Brooklyn was to set a new standard of apartment living in Jacksonville and we are proud of that accomplishment,” said Charles Carlisle of Bristol Development in a news release.

“Jacksonville is an important market for us, and we believe that Jacksonville is quickly becoming an 18-hour city – with robust population and economic growth, great amenities and a high quality of life.”

Get the full story from the Jacksonville Daily Record.

The year 2022 could finally be the year that downtown Jacksonville takes big steps toward reaching its potential. For the first time in a while, both the interest in revitalizing downtown and the capital to make it happen are available at the same time. That could yield big results in 2022.

One reason is the number of residents is increasing. City officials have targeted 10,000 as the number of residents needed in the city center to create the demand for new retail and restaurants and begin creating community density. That number stands around 6,800. Several multifamily developments are in the pipeline already for downtown, and others are expected to be announced in 2022. That means that 10,000 resident goal is within reach.

Aside from just multifamily development, hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of real estate developments are proposed for the city, several of which will take shape this year. A key one of those is a public park at the former site of Jacksonville Landing. Watch for work to begin at that site in 2022, as well as for a developer to sign on to handle a commercial pad on the site near the Main Street Bridge.

Finally, the city is putting a focus on programming and events designed to foster community in the city and to draw Jaxons downtown. One of the newest of these is Sip & Stroll, which takes place once a month on the Southbank Riverwalk. Events like these will be key component of an overall revitalized and attractive downtown Jacksonville.

Get the full story from the Jacksonville Business Journal. 

Six applicants made oral presentations Jan. 5 to the Downtown Investment Authority Review Committee for their suggestions for The Ford on Bay property at 330 E. Bay St.

The proposals including apartments, retail space, restaurants, artwork and hotels, including a Reverb by Hard Rock, which calls itself “Hard Rock Hotel’s affordably cool and contemporary hotel connecting today’s traveler though music, local culture and events.”

Mid-America Apartments L.P., Related Development, Silver Hills Development Inc., SouthEast Development Group LLC, VanTrust Real Estate and Carter had an hour each for their presentations starting at 8:30 a.m. at the Ed Ball Building Downtown.

They responded to the DIA’s notice of disposition for vacant city property at 330 E. Bay St. along the Northbank Riverfront. The cleared site was the former Duval County Courthouse property.
 

The developers intended to show the committee how their proposals meet the “City’s vision of increased activation” on 2.4 acres of the urban core through design, increased density and a mix of uses that will draw people downtown.

Each applicant had 30 minutes to present their views followed by 30 minutes for questions from the DIA Review Committee, comprising Lori Boyer, DIA CEO; Stephanie Burch, city deputy chief administrative officer; and DIA members James Citrano Jr., who is senior vice president of Seacoast Bank, and Carol Worsham, retired managing principal of HDR Engineering.

The DIA Review Committee will make recommendations  Jan. 18. DIA plans to select the winning mixed-use project Jan. 19.

Get the full story from the Jacksonville Daily Record. 

The year 2022 could be a pivotal one for downtown Jacksonville.

With hundreds of millions of dollars worth of real estate development already in the pipeline in the urban core, that momentum should continue to build over the next 12 months. 

Here are three key things to watch:

Riverfront activation:

From Northbank developments like One Riverside in the west to Shad Khan’s luxury hotel and office building in the east, there’s plenty of riverfront property that could begin to look radically different over the next year.

Simultaneously, there’s a push to take advantage of the St. Johns River by providing more ways for Jaxons to interact with it. Expect to see some of the findings from the duPont Funds’ riverfront study start to take shape, along with events like Downtown Vision’s Sip & Stroll on the Southbank.

And don’t forget One Park Jax to be developed on the site of the former Jacksonville Landing, which is expected to take significant steps in 2022.

More apartment development:

The multifamily market in Jacksonville is on fire, and experts say downtown is poised to take advantage of the apartment boom.

There are already more than 6,800 downtown residents, with an overall goal of growing that number to 10,000. Several apartment buildings are already underway in the greater downtown area, and multifamily professionals say there are several developers looking at possible development sites in the city.

With more downtown residents, city and business officials say the downtown area could finally begin to reach its potential.

Laura Street Trio:

Southeast Development's plan to revive the three historic buildings on the corner of Laura Street should get fully underway in the year ahead. The buildings, which have been vacant for decades, will be completely renovated into a mixed-use development that will feature a Marriott Autograph hotel.

City Council this fall approved a $24.7 million incentive package for the project.

Bringing those buildings back to life should have a huge impact on the central core of the city, and help spark further activity in the surrounding blocks.

Get the full story from the Jacksonville Business Journal.

Fuqua Development Group plans to buy the former Florida-Times Union property in January for a $182.2 million mixed-use redevelopment.
 

The Jacksonville City Council on Nov. 23 approved a $31.59 million incentives package for One Riverside, the redevelopment of the former Florida Times-Union site in Brooklyn. 

Atlanta-based Fuqua Development LLC and partner TriBridge Residential propose a $182.2 million project with a grocery store, retail uses, restaurant and apartments.

The 15-0 vote authorizes property tax breaks, a forgivable restaurant loan and a parkland buyback to support the multiphase development.

The project along the St. Johns River involves development of the 13.42-acre west portion of the 18.43-acre property in two phases.

The plan also would restore McCoys Creek and add about 4.95 acres for public park and submerged lands for river access on the east side of the property.

Council members Garrett Dennis, Kevin Carrico and Joyce Morgan were absent for the vote. 

The Council’s vote comes after the Downtown Investment Authority board endorsed the terms in September.

Get the full story from the Jacksonville Daily Record. 

2 min read October 2021 — The Jacksonville Downtown Investment Authority (DIA) was created to revitalize Jacksonville’s urban core, helping Downtown reach a tipping point of self-sustaining success. In an interview with Invest:, CEO Lori Boyer discussed how Downtown has become such a robust economy, her main priorities at this time to continue that growth and her outlook.

How did DIA take advantage of the downtime during the pandemic?

We took advantage of a slight pause in the first part of the pandemic to focus on development of several new programs, primarily incentive programs. One program is for adaptive reuse of our historic, older fabric in the central core of Downtown. The other was to create two targeted food and beverage districts where we wanted to focus on vacant spaces, current inventory and an opportunity to build those up. Prior to the pandemic, in normal day-to-day business, we never had quite enough time to get to the policy-driven new programs.

The second opportunity was working in conjunction with the mayor to assemble a package of infrastructure projects that would stimulate private investments, everything from parks to roads to various other improvements within our Downtown. 

What is your main priority with regard to revitalizing the Downtown area?

For DIA , our top priority is residential growth to create a 24/7 environment. 

What is your main priority for infrastructure that supports revitalization of Downtown?

Our top priority infrastructure project is restoration of two-way traffic. We have a number of Downtown streets that were converted to one way 20 years ago. That has led to a situation where there is a daily  suburban flight from the office and decline of retail use. There are certainly other initiatives, such as road diets, trail development and pedestrian walkability improvements that are equally important, but they really go hand in hand with the restoration of two-way traffic.How do you view the future of retail?

I see it shifting but I don’t see it going away. Clearly, experiential retail will continue to be popular, whether that is a service like a hair salon or a restaurant or other types of entertainment venues. If you look back to April, May and June 2021 when we all thought we could travel again, airlines were booked and Airbnbs were booked because there was pent-up demand, and we’ll see that again as soon as people feel comfortable in those experiential environments. We’re social creatures. We want that opportunity; it’s just been difficult in the short term. 

How is Downtown Jacksonville benefiting from the exodus to Florida?We are sharing in that growth. We had a goal of adding at least 350 residential units to Downtown each year and we are adding double that amount right now. We have about 600 under construction that will be finished by the end of 2021. Those numbers may be small compared to other cities but in Jacksonville’s Downtown, where 10 years ago we had only a couple thousand people, that makes a real difference. We have a steep growth trajectory in Downtown, and I think over the next five years we’ll likely have an additional 5,000 residents.

What industries are experiencing labor challenges?

We are certainly struggling with labor challenges like everyone else today. We had challenges pre-pandemic in our hospitality industry because the potential tip and income levels in Orlando, Tampa and Miami were so much higher than in Jacksonville that folks who graduated from the local colleges or hospitality programs were moving to those other cities. I know of a number of restaurant and small-business owners who say their No. 1 problem is finding staff. Now, I don’t think we’re experiencing the same thing from the perspective of our fintech companies or others that are relocating here. They seem to be doing quite well in attracting the workforce.

How is Downtown benefiting from the relocation of fintech companies?

Fidelity National Information Services Inc.(FIS) is building a new major office building. As they expanded, they selected Jacksonville for their international headquarters. But there are many other fintech companies that are relocating to Jacksonville and backfilling office space in Downtown. We’re very excited about the growth of this industry. When you start to become a particular destination known for an industry, it builds on itself as you gain more people who are experienced in that particular field and other employers locate there because they have a local workforce they can draw from.

What is your outlook for Downtown?

We’re very bullish. Downtown has a momentum that we haven’t seen in several decades. This is primarily driven by residential growth. Statistically, we have about 56,000 people who work in Downtown, and in 2013 we had just 2,000 to 4,000 people who lived in Downtown. There is real opportunity to further build Downtown’s housing market and capture some of those workers as Downtown residents. By doing that, we build demand for restaurants and retail. We’ve finally reached a tipping point on the number of residents located in Downtown that, at least in some parts of Downtown, is already a self-sustaining environment where new businesses will choose to locate there because they have enough customers to be profitable. We’re trying to build the rest of Downtown to that level and all indicators are very positive.

For more information, visit: https://investdtjax.com/



Get the full story from Capital Analytics Associates. 

JACKSONVILLE, FL (October 29, 2021) – The City’s Downtown Investment Authority (DIA) was recently honored with the Capital Project/Infrastructure award for its project, Riverplace Boulevard Complete Street, in the 2021 Florida Redevelopment Association (FRA) Awards. The FRA Awards are presented each year at the association’s annual conference and recognize outstanding achievement in a variety of categories, from annual reports to cultural enhancement.

“We’re immensely honored to receive this award,” said Lori Boyer, DIA CEO. “This project was a great way to bring Mayor Curry’s focus on Downtown development and healthy lifestyles to fruition, to use Community Redevelopment Area (CRA) resources for both economic benefit and to improve quality of life, and to implement the adopted CRA plan for the Southbank.”

The new street eliminates two automobile lanes in favor of enhanced pedestrian amenities, protected bicycle lanes, improved on-street parking and low impact design (LID) stormwater raingardens. The plan also includes enhanced bus transit and service from JTA, and utility enhancements completed with JEA.

“As a former councilmember for this area, I was contacted by residents in 2014 with concerns about a proposed dedicated bus lane that had been planned before the residential population boomed,” said Boyer. “DIA, in collaboration with their consultant GAI Community Solutions Group, the Jacksonville Transportation Authority, and the Mayor’s office worked together to design a project that listened to stakeholders, facilitated all modes of mobility, promoted access to the Riverwalk, and will carry us into the future as the Southbank grows over time.”

The project goal was to reposition the corridor to better support new investment and diverse community needs, including the growing number of residents who call Southbank home and street level retail that will follow. GAI’s Community Solutions Group led inclusive community visioning sessions to confirm the preferred design for the Street, as well as leading the landscape architecture and civil engineering for implementation. 

“We truly enjoyed the discussions and visioning sessions where we explored the needs of the community’s residents, workforce, and property owners, as well as gaining the guidance and leadership of the DIA and City team necessary for bringing this project to life,” said Pete Sechler, PLA, AICP, MBA, GAI Vice President and Community Solutions Group Director. “The process of looking at the past, present, and future of Southbank was revealing for all of us and will serve as a positive example for other community planning and livable infrastructure design efforts.”

The Riverplace Blvd Complete Street is a landmark project for the CRA that has brought renewed focus to the future of Downtown’s Southbank as well as expanded discussion about the general evolution of Downtown. The original urban planning and community workshops were conducted in 2015-2016.  Final design, engineering and construction were completed in 2017-2020. 
 

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About the Downtown Investment Authority
The Downtown Investment Authority was established by the City of Jacksonville to revitalize Jacksonville’s urban core by utilizing Community Redevelopment Area (CRA) resources and is guided by a nine-member board of directors. The DIA seeks to attract investment, facilitate job creation and increase residential density through capital investments, planning, marketing and public-private partnerships including the provision of incentives for the general community and Downtown stakeholders. For more information, visit https://dia.coj.net/ and https://investdtjax.com/.

About GAI Consultants
GAI Consultants is an employee-owned company that delivers award-winning engineering, planning, and environmental expertise to energy, transportation, development, government, and industrial clients. GAI’s accomplished specialists are dedicated to earning our clients’ trust—they approach every initiative with enthusiasm and integrity, delivering multifaceted services to meet the greatest challenges.

About GAI’s Community Solutions Group
Experienced People, Open Minds, Fresh Ideas. GAI’s Community Solutions Group integrates landscape architecture, urban planning, economics, and finance in an idea-driven strategic consulting practice committed to enhancing community in ways that are practical, sustainable, and authentic to the people we serve while being politically aware, financially feasible, and aesthetically compelling.

About FRA
FRA is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to assisting Florida professionals and volunteers in community revitalization efforts. With its mission of “transforming spaces, revitalizing places,” FRA is committed to providing a forum for its more than 300 members to share knowledge and common experiences regarding revitalization opportunities and issues throughout Florida. For more information, visit http://redevelopment.net.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 26, 2021

CONTACT: Katherine Hardwick
904-634-0303, ext.1230
katherine@dtjax.org

NEW MONTHLY SIP & STROLL EVENT, PRESENTED BY PNC, KICKS OFF NEXT MONTH TO ENLIVEN THE SOUTHBANK RIVERWALK, DOWNTOWN JACKSONVILLE

WHO: Based on the successful 6th Annual #DTJax Gala of the same name, Downtown Vision, Inc. today announced a new opportunity for everyone to gather on the Southbank Riverwalk, thanks to support from PNC and the Downtown Investment Authority.

WHAT: Downtown Vision will unveil the monthly “Sip & Stroll,” presented by PNC on the Southbank Riverwalk with live music, food vendors, bars and picnic areas. The November Sip & Stroll lineup includes live music by Honey Hounds and Kalani Rose; culinary delights by 904 Burgers, Dos Vatos Tacos and Lazy Days Hot Dogs; two bars featuring spirits by Manifest Distilling plus beer and wine. Event goers are encouraged to bring picnic blankets and lawn chairs. Dogs on leashes are welcome. Parking is available for $5 at 1301 Riverplace Blvd., located in the lot in front of DoubleTree Hotel. The River Taxi will also be taking fares during Sip & Stroll evenings.

Patrons can also enjoy happy hour or grab dinner at one of the restaurants nearby, including: bb’s restaurant and bar, Chart House, Flavors of Thai, Pier 1515, Ruth’s Chris Steak House, Sake House, Southbank Johnnie’s, St. Johns Provision Co., The Southern Grill and Village Bread Cafe.

Sip & Stroll, presented by PNC, is made possible in part by the Downtown Investment Authority, the City of Jacksonville Parks Department, Southbank Hotel and Riverplace Tower, and is produced by Downtown Vision. The monthly lineup and event map can be found at DTJax.com/sipandstroll. For more information on sponsorships, email Haley Tinkle at haley@dtjax.org.

WHERE: The Southbank Riverwalk between the DoubleTree Hotel (1201 Riverplace Blvd.) and the Southbank Hotel, (1515 Prudential Dr.).

WHEN: 5-8 p.m., every third Thursday of the month, beginning Thursday, November 18.

QUOTES FROM PNC AND DOWNTOWN INVESTMENT AUTHORITY "The Southbank Riverwalk has been an important part of this community’s footprint and PNC is pleased to provide a grant for this culturally engaging initiative while supporting the revitalization of Downtown Jacksonville,” said Brian Bucher, PNC Bank regional president for North Florida. “I’m confident that Sip & Stroll will not only make the Riverwalk the place to be every third Thursday night, it will ultimately strengthen our community and economy.” 

“Part of our mission is to invest in programming that makes Downtown Jacksonville the vibrant center for culture and entertainment in the region,” said Lori Boyer, CEO of the Downtown Investment Authority. “Sip & Stroll creates a new opportunity for residents, employees and nearby neighbors to come explore our one-of-a-kind riverfront.”

About PNC Foundation
The PNC Foundation, which receives its principal funding from The PNC Financial Services Group (http://www.pnc.com), actively supports organizations that provide services for the benefit of communities in which it has a significant presence. The foundation focuses its philanthropic mission on early childhood education and community and economic development, which includes the arts and culture. Through Grow Up Great, its signature cause that began in 2004, PNC has created a bilingual $500 million, multi-year initiative to help prepare children from birth to age 5 for success in school and life.

About the Downtown Investment Authority
The Downtown Investment Authority was established by the City of Jacksonville to revitalize Jacksonville’s urban core by utilizing Community Redevelopment Area (CRA) resources and is guided by a nine-member board of directors. The DIA seeks to attract investment, facilitate job creation and increase residential density through capital investments, planning, marketing and public-private partnerships including the provision of incentives for the general community and Downtown stakeholders. For more information, visit https://dia.coj.net/ and https://investdtjax.com/.

About Downtown Vision
Downtown Vision is a not-for-profit organization revitalizing Downtown through clean and safe initiatives, experience creation, marketing and information management. Created by commercial property owners and residents through a self-assessment and governed by a board representing Downtown property owners, DVI administers a 1.3-square mile Business Improvement District. For more information, visit dtjax.com/dvi.

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A $114 million public financing package to help support Jacksonville Jaguars owner Shad Khan’s proposal to build a Four Seasons Hotel and Residences-anchored development on the Downtown riverfront near TIAA Bank Field is headed for a final City Council vote.

The Council Finance and Rules committees both voted unanimously Oct. 5 to support the deal that backs developer Iguana Investments Florida LLC’s estimated $321 million plan to develop the city-owned former Kids Kampus Park.

This follows a unanimous vote Oct. 4 by the Neighborhoods, Community Services, Public Health and Safety Committee.

If approved at the Oct. 12 full Council meeting, the bill would grant Khan’s company a $25,834,887 cash grant after construction is complete in addition to a 20-year, 75% Recapture Enhanced Value Grant, or tax rebate, of up to $47,683,955 for the hotel.

The remaining city investment comes from land value, infrastructure and public amenities integrated into the project the city would agree to fund.

The deal also gives Iguana the option to build a support building and with a ship store and restaurant for the Metropolitan Park marina, events lawn and Northbank Riverwalk improvements. 

The estimated $17.273 million in construction costs would be funded by the city with Iguana responsible for cost overruns.

In its term sheet, the DIA estimated it will cost the city $8.72 million to relocate the Marine Fire Station, dock and historic Fire Museum on the property.

The remaining $2 million comes from easements granted to the developer and projected loss of land value from leasing the office building parcel.

The city will retain ownership of the 1.05-acre office parcel and lease it to Iguana for $36,000 per year for 40 years. 

In July, the DIA board voted to recommend Council approve the agreement with the Jaguars’ affiliate.

The legislation commits Khan to a minimum $301,057,548 development. Iguana says the project will comprise a 176-room Four Seasons with 25 for-sale luxury condominiums, a full-service spa and restaurant and a 157,027-square-foot, six-story, Class A office building. 

“It’s a very big, very complex project but I think it’s going to really change that part of Downtown Jacksonville for generations to come,” Jaguars President Mark Lamping said Oct. 4.

The Finance Committee voted 7-0 to support the legislation and the Rules Committee voted 6-0.

Before the Rules Committee decision, Council member Rory Diamond said the city’s investment in Khan’s would increase surrounding property value. 

He said incentive deals, including the total $114 million price tag for the Four Seasons, are often “misunderstood” by taxpayers. 

“When people see the big money number coming from the city, it’s literally a targeted tax cut for money that wouldn’t exist but for the development. If you have an empty piece of land, it is actually costing us money to maintain it and it has no taxable value. Especially if the city owns that land,” he said.

“We allow someone to have it and then they build a beautiful hotel on it, all of the sudden it’s taxable value skyrockets.”

Diamond said “every city needs a great sports and entertainment district. And right now, we don’t have one. And without this hotel and these developments that are coming, we’ll never have one.” 

Get the full story from the Jacksonville Daily Record. 

A financial technology company with ties to VyStar Credit Union is moving its headquarters to Jacksonville, with plans to site 600 workers downtown.

Nymbus, which creates software for banks and credit unions, will receive $4.5 million in city and state grants to incentivize the move, which is already underway.

The tech company will locate inside VyStar's downtown campus, with plans to lease about 4,000 square feet. The credit union is a customer of Nymbus, using the company to replace the platform that customers, employees and vendors use to interface with the bank. That project is underway and should be completed in the coming months.

VyStar is also an investor, putting $20 million into Nymbus in April, one of a number of fintech investments the credit union has made recently.

The discussions about Nymbus moving from Miami Beach to Jacksonville began as part of the investment conversation.

"We started thinking about how do we go beyond just a financial investment — how do we create a true partnership," said Nymbus CEO Jeffery Kendall, "and that meant actually being in the same office together, being shoulder to shoulder and having those daily conversations. We love the fact that we're just an elevator ride away from some of our key products and capabilities that we're launching with VyStar."

Other investors in Nymbus include Financial Service Capital and Insight Partners.

The relocation is another sign of the area's growing fintech sector and will help propel the sector even higher, said Joel Swanson, VyStar's chief member experience officer.

"We want to be a San Francisco or a Boston," Swanson said, and for that the area needs an ecosystem of talent.

The incentives, which Nymbus received under the codename Project Endgame, include a Targeted Industry Grant from the city of up to $1.8 million based on $4,500 per job for 407 positions. The grant would be payable in $1,125 per-job increments over four years after the average wage and job creation is verified by the city of Jacksonville.

It will also receive a CareerSource Florida Quick Response Grant up to $4,000 per job for 673 positions, which totals $2.7 million. The differences in job numbers is because the city is not incentivizing 200 call center jobs.

In return for the incentives, the company agreed to make a capital investment of $6.4 million, which would include investment across real estate improvements, IT equipment, furniture and fixtures.

Nymbus has about 400 employees today, with 250 based in the U.S. The company describes itself as remote first, but Kendall said its workers want a "center of gravity, where they could come towards in terms of office space, to collaborate when needed, but then also be able to have flexibility in working when they wanted."

"This is an incredibly attractive community for people to move from in other parts of the country," the CEO said. "Given the pandemic and people's point of view that they can live anywhere they want, we believe that this is a great option."

Get the full story from The Business Journals. 

Here is a look at eight projects underway in the Downtown Jacksonville North Core.
 

Ashley & Hogan Street Apartments

211 W. Ashley St. and 604 N. Hogan St.

Investment: $40 million-$45 million

Developers: Jim and Ellen Wiss through AWP331 LLC

The project: Mixed-use residential with about 185 apartments and 12,000 square feet of commercial retail space.

Where it stands: The National Park Service is reviewing the historic buildings. Site plans are complete. Jim and Ellen Wiss said they have sent a financing package proposal to project backers and could file for city incentives in 30 to 45 days. 

Why the North Core?: “We’re firm believers in looking at all cities similar to Jacksonville where their downtowns have redeveloped. It’s all happened from the core,” Jim Wiss said. “We believe in urban cores.” 

Timeline: Groundbreaking fourth quarter 2022 or first quarter 2023.

Jones Brothers Furniture Co.

502, 520 and 524 N. Hogan St.

Investment: Estimated $30 million

Developers: Corner Lot Development Group and ACE JAX LLC

The project: Historic renovation and new construction for about 100 market-rate residential units and about 10,000 square feet of retail/office space.

Where it stands: Jones Brothers is in the design phase, according to Corner Lot Companies CEO Andy Allen.

Why the North Core?: “Jones Brothers has always been a specific property that I’ve always wanted to develop,” Allen said.“When Alex (Sifakis) and Bryan (Greiner) came in (to the North Core), it’s like rising tides lift all ships and it made sense.”

Timeline: Developers plan to submit the project for city historic incentives by the end of 2021 and seek a property tax rebate for the new construction. Groundbreaking is expected in 2022.

Federal Reserve Bank Building

424 N. Hogan St.

Investment: $7.7 million 

Developer: JWB Real Estate Capital LLC

The project: Historic adaptive reuse of the four-story, 18,430-square-foot building for restaurant, business and event space. 

Where it stands: Building permits are approved and construction is expected to start late November.

Why the North Core?: “We think it’s really important to cluster development to make it successful, especially in Downtown. So, knowing that there were a number of developers that already owned property or were eyeing property in the area was really important,” said Alex Sifakis, JWB Real Estate Capital president. He also noted the proximity to the center of Downtown.

Timeline: Construction is expected to be completed by August 2022.

Florida Baptist Convention Building

218 W. Church St.

Investment: $9.85 million 

Developer: JWB Real Estate Capital LLC

The project: Historic adaptive reuse of the five-story, almost 26,000-square-foot building for restaurant space, retail suites and 24 studio and one-bedroom apartments on the upper floors. An outdoor courtyard will connect the project with the adjacent Seminole and Federal Reserve buildings.

Where it stands: Under construction. 

Timeline: Construction is expected to be completed by July 2022. 

Porter House Mansion 

510 N. Julia St.

Investment: $43.2 million 

Developer: JWB Real Estate Capital LLC

The project: The first phase is a renovation of the historic mansion for 10,000 square feet of office space on the upper three floors for a single-tenant. The 4,300-square-foot basement will be leased to a restaurant/retail operator. The second phase includes a mixed-use, 160-unit residential building. 

Where it stands: JWB President Alex Sifakis said his company has a letter of intent from the office user but has not completed a lease agreement. The city is reviewing a construction permit for the project’s exterior renovations. JWB is awaiting City Council approval on $670,000 in historic restoration incentives. Design work has started for the second phase. 

Timeline: The first phase is expected to be completed by early 2022. Second-phase construction could begin in mid-2022.

Ambassador Hotel 

420 N. Julia St.

Investment: $18 million

Developers: AXIS Hotels LLC (Augustine Development Group)

The project: Historic restoration for a 100-room TRYP by Wyndham Hotel with a “SoHo concept” ground-floor restaurant.

Where it stands: Demolition is complete and restoration work is underway. 

Why the North Core?: “You have the State Attorney’s Office, the county courthouse, the federal courthouse, City Hall all adjacent to (the North Core). It’s the natural expansion of a solid development core,” said George Bochis, Augustine Development Group CEO. “Those assets adjacent to it are never going anywhere.”

Timeline: Construction is expected to be completed by early summer 2022.

Independent Life Building

233 W. Duval St.

Investment: $35 million

Developers: PEP10 LLC (Augustine Development Group)

The project: Historic adaptive reuse for the 19-story, 135-unit mixed-use residential tower. Plans include a 21,000- square-foot “neighborhood market” grocery and a 10,000-square-foot sky lounge restaurant on the top floor.

Where it stands: Interior demolition is underway. Augustine Development Group CEO George Bochis said he expects the city building permit to be approved within days but needs to finalize construction closing, including a historic tax credits sale. 

Timeline: Construction is expected to be completed by January 2023.

Central National Bank Building

404 N. Julia St.

Investment: Estimated $50 million

Developers: AXIS 404 Julia LLC (Augustine Development Group)

The project: Historic adaptive reuse and new construction project with 139 apartment units and a gym for public and Ambassador Hotel guest use.

Where it stands: The project needs final Downtown Development Review Board design approval. Augustine Development Group CEO George Bochis said the project also is waiting for review by the National Park Service to proceed with historic renovation. Bochis said Augustine Group will approach the city for historic financial incentives. The project received the OK from the State Historic Preservation Office. 

Timeline: Construction is expected to be completed in 2023.

Get the full story from the Jacksonville Daily Record. 

Even with a pandemic, several key metrics are trending positively for growth in downtown Jacksonville, according to Downtown Vision's 2020-2021 State of Downtown Report, which was released Monday.

The report shows the number of visitors, new retail establishments and hotel occupancy are at or above pre-pandemic levels.

"Despite the challenging last few years, investors are targeting Downtown Jacksonville more than ever before,” said Jake Gordon, CEO of Downtown Vision. “Catalyzed by our elected officials at the City of Jacksonville, the Downtown Investment Authority and a supportive business climate, investment and development in Downtown are surging. As we continue to recover, Downtown is poised for even more success, making Jacksonville an even better city and supporting our whole region. A better Downtown helps all of Jacksonville.”

Notably, the number of downtown residents has grown 40% in the last five years to almost 7,000. This is a metric that many city and business leaders say is one of the most important for supporting continued revitalization downtown.

Occupancy for multifamily is up to 97.5%, the report said. Experts have said that strong performance is one of the factors that has multifamily developers eagerly searching for sites on which to build additional projects.

Visitors are also returning to the urban core, with downtown hotels hitting 72% occupancy, the same rate as in January 2020.

Get the full story from the Jacksonville Business Journal.

Visitor foot traffic in Downtown Jacksonville is rebounding from the COVID-19 pandemic, up 24% for the first two quarters of 2021 over the same period a year ago, according to the 2020-21 State of Downtown Report released Sept. 27.

The Downtown Investment Authority and Downtown Vision Inc. produced the report.

The report said foot traffic dropped in March 2020 when the pandemic struck and total visits that year were 44% lower than in 2019.

The report shows there is a distance before Downtown reaches pre-pandemic levels. Visits by week at the end of June were 345,000, down from 454,000 in January 2020.

In 2018, there were 23 million Downtown visitors, more than the 21.3 million in 2019 and 11.9 million in 2020.

Office space

The report said there are 56,000 Downtown employees and 2,400 businesses.

It says that 30.2% of the Jacksonville office inventory is Downtown, totaling 6.98 million square feet and not including government-owned property. 

Another 539,000 square feet is under construction, including the 386,000-square-foot Fidelity National Information Services Inc. headquarters and the 153,000-square-foot JEA headquarters.

According to the CBRE real estate company,  the fourth quarter 2020 office vacancy rate Downtown was 14.4% with an average lease rate of $21.94. 

By comparison, for the 16 million square feet of office space in the suburbs, the vacancy rate was 16.5% and the average lease rate was $21.04.

The Downtown Jacksonville average lease rate is lower than in other Florida cities. Miami is $48.72; Tampa, $33.45; and Orlando, $29.23.

Downtown living

The report says Downtown has 6,830 residents, up 9% from a year ago. The number of multifamily units is 4,314, up 13% since last year with 596 units added since January 2020.

Average occupancy, excluding properties opened in 2021, is 97.5% with an average monthly rent of $1,579.

The report says 552 units are under construction, 1,800 are under review and 981 are proposed and 596 have been added since January 2020.

Residential communities opening in 2021 include Vista Brooklyn, Elena Flats, the Shipping Container Apartments and the Lofts at Brooklyn.

Retail and tourism

The report said that more than 20 retailers have opened Downtown since the beginning of 2020, most in the food and beverage category.

Among them are Anejo Cocina Mexicana, Bread & Burger, Estrella Cocina, Honey’z Plates, Ruby Beach Brewing Co., Chipotle, Jumpin’ Jax House of Food and Underbelly.

The report said there were 342,300 hotel room nights in 2020, down from 611,010 in 2019. It said The Residence Inn by Marriott is near completion in Brooklyn, the first Downtown hotel to open since 2012.

The occupancy rate was 72% in June, with an average daily rate of $108.98.

Get the full story from the Jacksonville Daily Record.

Jacksonville, FL (September 27, 2020) – Downtown Vision, Inc., Downtown Jacksonville’s Business Improvement District non-profit, today released their newest study of the growth of Downtown Jacksonville. Using more than a dozen sources, Downtown Vision tracked and analyzed many key Downtown indicators over an 18-month period—from January 1, 2020 to June 30, 2021—such as: development and investment, residential demand, office market and employment base, transportation expansions and tourism health. Highlights include:

Visitors are returning to Downtown.

• The first two quarters of 2021 had 70% of the visit traffic as the same period as in 2019, prior to COVID-19.
• Despite COVID-19, new retail is opening Downtown, such as: Bento Asian Kitchen + Sushi, Bread & Board Provisions, The Bread & Burger, Crazy Bean Coffee, Estrella Cocina, Ruby Beach Brewing and Underbelly.
• Downtown hotel occupancy is at 72%, matching pre-COVID rates in January 2020.
• A 135-room Residence Inn by Marriott is currently under construction in Brooklyn, and more than 500 rooms are in review with the City at hotel flags such as TRYP by Wyndham, Home2 Suites by Hilton, Marriott Bonvoy Autograph Collection and the Four Seasons.

Downtown residents have increased 40% in five years to nearly 7,000.

• The average occupancy for multi-family residential is 97.5%, up from 94% in the previous year.
• Five hundred and fifty-two units in three residential projects are under construction—Ashley Square Apartments in the Cathedral District, The Doro in the Sports & Entertainment District, and The Southerly on the Southbank—and more than 1,800 units are in review with the City. Once these more than 2,300 units come online, we can expect to have more than 12,000 residents Downtown.
• Residents cite city living/atmosphere, proximity to work and walkability as top reasons they enjoy living Downtown.

More than half of Downtown’s office market inventory is Class A space.

• Though Downtown makes up less than 1% of Jacksonville by area, 30% of Jacksonville’s office market inventory is located Downtown.
• New FIS and JEA headquarters are under construction, adding 539,000 square feet of inventory.
• While the full impact of COVID-19 is still to be determined, Downtown and the suburbs are seeing similar office trends. Office occupancy has increased to 19.7% vs. 19% in the suburbs. The average lease rate is holding steady at $22.41 vs. $21.32 in the suburbs.
• Employees cite restaurants, entertainment, events and walkability as top reasons they enjoy working Downtown.

The surge in public-private investment in Downtown continues with nearly $5 billion in major projects in the pipeline. 

• Over $200 million in projects have been completed since the beginning of 2020 including the Jacksonville Regional Transportation Center, Vista Brooklyn and VyStar Credit Union headquarters.
• Nearly $2 billion in projects are currently under construction including the transformational, mixed-use RiversEdge: Life on the St. Johns and Emerald Trail model-mile.
• Significant adaptive reuse projects, such as the Laura Street Trio, Florida Baptist Convention and Federal Reserve Bank buildings, Ambassador Hotel and the Independent Life Building, are in review with the City.
• The DIA invested approximately $70 million to leverage more than $400 million in private capital investment and new construction.

"Despite the challenging last few years, investors are targeting Downtown Jacksonville more than ever before,” said Jake Gordon, CEO of Downtown Vision. “Catalyzed by our elected officials at the City of Jacksonville, the Downtown Investment Authority and a supportive business climate, investment and development in Downtown are surging. As we continue to recover, Downtown is poised for even more success, making Jacksonville an even better city and supporting our whole region. A better Downtown helps all of Jacksonville.”
 
View and download the 2020-2021 State of Downtown Report at dtjax.com/reports.
 

Downtown Vision, Inc., in partnership with the Downtown Investment Authority, presents LiveDTJax.com, your new, go-to guide for all things Downtown living!

LiveDTJax.com is the perfect resource for the #DTJax curious, the newly moved-in, and established residents alike.

Visitors can:

• Browse available listings and request information directly from properties
• Search by number of bedrooms, pet-friendly options, and other criteria
• Take virtual tours
• Explore our Resident Guide to learn how ot live the dream in #DTJax. 

Downtown Jacksonville’s North Core near City Hall is prepped for restoration into apartments, office space, restaurants and event uses.

Jacksonville-based JWB Real Estate Capital LLC, which already has permits for work on two more North Core buildings, now has approval for the $3.2 million adaptive reuse of the Federal Reserve Bank Building.

The city issued a permit Sept. 3 for Auld & White Constructors LLC to renovate 18,430 square feet of the four-story Federal Reserve building at 424 N. Hogan St. Property records show it was built in 1922.

JWB intends to build-out restaurant, business and event space at the three-story building and in its basement space.

The permit comes two months after the city issued one July 1 for Auld & White to renovate the adjacent Baptist Convention building at 218 W. Church St. at a cost of $5.8 million. It was built in 1924.

The design for the five-story, almost 26,000-square-foot Baptist Convention property includes restaurant space, retail suites and  24 studio and one-bedroom apartments on the upper floors.

JWB applied to the city in December for the permits, totaling $9 million in construction costs, for the two buildings at Hogan and Church streets.

It paid $2.4 million for the properties in August 2020, comprising $1.75 million for the Federal Reserve Building and $675,000 for the Baptist Convention structure.

JWB’s proposes an $18.55 million redevelopment of the sites.

The Jacksonville City Council voted 16-0 in June to help with an $8.6 million incentives package for the historic restoration project for the two buildings.

The forgivable and deferred principal loan package is the first Council awarded from the Downtown Investment Authority’s Downtown Preservation and Restoration Program. 

The public investment includes an almost $3.6 million historic restoration forgivable loan; an almost $3.3 million code compliance forgivable loan; and a $1.7 million deferred principal loan.

The program was designed to address what developers say are financial gaps, viability and risk in the adaptive reuse of older and designated historic buildings Downtown, according to DIA CEO Lori Boyer.

Get the full story from the Jacksonville Daily Record. 

There will be a riverfront restaurant in the Brooklyn area of Jacksonville, now that developers and the city have come to an agreement — one that will see the city help pay for the eatery.

The Downtown Investment Authority voted 7-0 Thursday to approve nearly $30 million in incentives for Fuqua Development's plan to redevelop the former Florida Times-Union property. That includes splitting the cost of building a restaurant, which the city agency has argued is needed for riverfront activation.

The lynchpin of the agreement is that Fuqua will include the riverfront restaurant in phase one of the development in order to receive a rebate on some of its property taxes.

The city has agreed to split the construction cost of the restaurant with Fuqua, with the city's cost not exceeding $750,000.

Fuqua's proposed plan for 1 Riverside Ave. would turn it into a mixed-use property consisting of apartments, a grocery store and retail space. A separate project on the site will involve the City of Jacksonville working to relocate McCoys Creek to the east and establish a new public park along the water.

"I think this is a great project," said DIA member Todd Froats. "And fact that we’re activating the creek and riverfront is a home run. If it’s not a home run, it's a stand-up triple."
It's not yet clear if the restaurant will be a freestanding building located where a helipad currently sits, or if it will be incorporated into one of the residential buildings planned for the site. Developers are expected to have the decision on the restaurant location before presenting the plan to the Downtown Development Review Board.

The first vote on incentives for the project was postponed in August after the DIA board asked developers to further activate the riverfront, specifically with a restaurant of some sort in the earliest phase of the development.

Fuqua's plan involves development in two phases.

The city will have to complete work on the creek before Fuqua could begin on phase two of the project. A provision in the agreement says that if the city doesn't complete the creek project in a certain time frame, then the developer would have the option for the city to re-purchase the remaining property.

A couple of public comments before the meeting began Thursday asked the DIA to ensure that if public money is incentivizing this development, to make sure the project will have excellent design and engages the public.

DIA board chair Braxton Gillam pointed out that Fuqua's project will turn the site from unused and blighted into a property that not only includes mixed-uses, but even a new public park.

Another public comment called the proposed buildings ugly.

DIA board members pointed out that there aren't renderings for the buildings yet and the plan is still conceptual, and that design is the purview of the DDRB.

Get the full story from the Jacksonville Business Journal. 

It wasn’t that long ago that there were very few residents – and a limited number of places available to rent – in Jacksonville’s urban core.

But these days both the number of downtown residents and the number of apartment units are trending upward.

A few years after the city set a goal of 10,000 residents for downtown, that number now sits at 6,878, DIA CEO Lori Boyer told the Business Journal in an email.

And with several hundred more apartment units currently under construction, and more in planning phases, that 10,000 number could quickly be within reach.

In a sense, what you’re seeing is Jacksonville’s downtown apartment market “growing up,” said Cliff Taylor and Joe Ayers with CBRE.

An in-migration to the First Coast is bringing some people who are looking for the urban living experience–walkable to restaurants, nightlife and events. 

Taylor and Ayers said the existing apartment developments in the city are showing strong occupancy numbers and significant rental rate increases, which shows potential developers that the numbers make sense to build more multifamily.

Taylor and Ayers said that rental rate growth in the downtown area for the trailing five months ranged from 9.2% to 30%, depending on the property.

“That really speaks to the growth of the city and the quality of the assets and the pent-up demand,” Taylor said. “But rent growth has been incredible across the market, not just downtown and not just for brand-new product.”

Taylor and Ayers said in addition to downtown multifamily projects already in the works, such the former River City Brewery site on the Southbank, they know of there are developers currently looking for sites in the urban core.

Altogether, the outlook seems bright for a downtown that usually lags behind other metros.

Taylor and Ayers said a similar push years ago for more residents in the urban core of Charlotte, N.C., over time led to massive demand for retail and other services, and ultimately helped office market since employers want to locate near where their employees live.

“The push to increase that resident count (in Jacksonville) will help everything else,” Ayers said. “It’s a really encouraging time for the city.”

Get the full story from the Jacksonville Business Journal. 

The shade of two oak trees could not diffuse the bright future ahead of Jacksonville now that the Emerald Trail project is underway.

Tuesday morning, Groundwork Jacksonville celebrated the groundbreaking of the 30-mile trail that will connect 14 neighborhoods across the urban core with downtown.

It all starts with the LaVilla Link, which is a 1.3-mile project that will feature walking lanes, additional lighting and overlooks with shade and railings.

General contractors Astra Group hope the project will be completed within 12 months. Pond & Company was the architect for the first trail project.

The LaVilla Link is the first of nine Emerald Trail projects that are expected to be completed over the course of the next decade.

Groundwork Jacksonville will be the primary conduit between the public and private sector for the Emerald Trail project.

“This is a historic day because the Emerald Trail is a historic opportunity,” Groundwork Jacksonville CEO Kay Ehas said. “(It’s) an opportunity for millions of dollars of infrastructure and economic investment in our urban core neighborhoods; an opportunity for entrepreneurs to establish new businesses along the trail; an opportunity to increase social equity for longtime residents that enables the creation of generational wealth and opportunity for green infrastructure that will contribute to the resiliency of our city and an opportunity for improved health, recreation and social connections.”

The City of Jacksonville’s Capital Improvement Plan will help fund the LaVilla Link as well as the second phase, the Hogans Creek restoration. The latter was made possible through VyStar Credit Union providing enough of a donation to serve as its presenting sponsor.

“Every major city has an amazing trail system that brings people out of their houses, gets them moving, gets them active and gets them engaged in their communities,” said VyStar CEO Brian Wolfburg, who noted the credit union invested in the trail before it made the final decision to move its headquarters downtown. “To not have that here at our size, and on our growth trajectory, was strange. I saw the potential for it to be an asset for the city.

“The number of neighborhoods that it went through, the areas that it’s going to spur economic development and growth – if you go to any other major trail system and you look at the growth that goes up and down that (trail) – and we’re already starting to see that. That was exciting for us.”

The Emerald Trail will connect, LaVilla, Durkeeville, New Town, Lackawanna, Brooklyn, San Marco, Riverside, Springfield and a handful of other neighborhoods. It will link 16 schools and 21 parks with businesses, retail and restaurants.

Five of the trail projects will be erected through a partnership with the Jacksonville Transportation Authority. The transit authority will serve as the project manager for the Westside, Northside, Northwest, Eastside and S-Line Connector portions of the Emerald Trail. That quintet will be funded through additional local option gas tax revenues that will begin to be levied in January 2022.

JTA CEO Nathaniel Ford Sr. called Tuesday a legacy day because the Emerald Trail is an investment in people, not just steel and concrete. He said his organization and Groundwork Jacksonville will finalize their partnership this fall and begin in earnest on the five segments of the trail afterward.

“With all of the development that is happening downtown, the investment in downtown — and this particular project adds to that investment — you’re adding one more jewel to this crown as it relates to downtown development,” Ford said. “… There is a lot of positive momentum that’s underway, and it’s going to make for a greater city.”

Get the full story from the Jacksonville Business Journal. 

When VyStar Credit Union decided to build and own an estimated $22 million, seven-story parking garage to support its growing Downtown corporate campus, CEO Brian Wolfburg said the organization “didn’t want to build just any parking garage.”

“Downtown Jacksonville is our home and we know investing in the infrastructure of Jacksonville will help it to prosper, will help it to grow,” Wolfburg said. 

“We invested time and energy in putting forward a best-in-class design.”

Wolfburg and VyStar board members were joined Aug. 11 by city and JAX Chamber officials at a groundbreaking ceremony for the 807-space structure at 28 W. Forsyth St.

The garage, designed by Dasher Hurst Architects, features fabric sails, VyStar’s branded blue uplighting and 12,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space.

The credit union bought the nearby 23-story VyStar Tower at 76 S. Laura St. in July 2018 for $59 million. It acquired an adjacent parking garage and is renovating a seven-story building next door at 100 W. Bay St. with three restaurant concepts by The Bread and Board.

Retail part of plan

Project contractor Danis expects the garage construction to be completed in 12 months.

Danis Vice President of Operations David Kottmyer said site work will begin Aug. 16 and cranes could be in the air within four to six weeks.

Wolfburg told reporters that he’s “very confident” the garage’s 8,000- to 9,000-square-foot retail space on Laura Street will be leased by the time the parking deck is in operation. 

VyStar leadership has not settled what will be in that space or the remaining 3,000- to 4,000-square-foot retail area facing Main Street, which Wolfburg said could be leased for “experimental” or pop-up shops.

Wolfburg said the credit union is considering restaurants, child care and pet services. 

“We try to think through things that would be needed by our employee base, as well as other individuals as they make the chose to move Downtown,” he said. 

Downtown Investment Authority CEO Lori Boyer said that VyStar and her agency are aligned in their strategy to create street-level activity in the Central Core.

“This is a beautiful building. It is not just a parking garage that creates dead space along the street,” Boyer said. “It won’t.” 

Get the full story from the Jacksonville Daily Record. 

JACKSONVILLE, FL (July 22, 2021) – After a seven-month process, a tremendous amount of public engagement and three outstanding designs, the Perkins&Will design team was named winner of the Riverfront Plaza (FKA The Landing) Design Competition. The City of Jacksonville (COJ) Professional Services Evaluation Committee (PSEC) announced the winner today during its Special PSEC meeting. Perkins&Will scored the highest among the final three teams, followed closely by Agency Landscape + Planning and OLIN, respectfully. Contract negotiation for final design will begin immediately with the park slated to begin construction in about one year.

The Downtown Investment Authority (DIA), on behalf of COJ and PSEC, would like to congratulate all three design teams for their hard work, innovative designs, thoughtful community engagement and creative approaches for the iconic, prized property in Downtown Jacksonville. Each team provided bold, high-quality proposals that paid homage to the importance of this site to the community and illustrated the immense impact a reimagined design would have for Downtown and the Jacksonville community at large.

"I am extremely happy with the turnout of this process and the quality designs it produced,” expressed Lori Boyer, DIA CEO. “Prioritizing the public park space on the site and engaging the public in the design process was of utmost importance from the onset of this effort. I commend all who took the time to provide their valuable insights and congratulate the three design teams for their exceptional work. I look forward to seeing the Perkins&Will vision come to life in what will be a first-class asset for all to enjoy.”

Perkins&Will presented their 50% designs on Thursday, June 24^th, 2021, and quickly garnered excitement from the public. The winning design – dubbed One Park Jax – boasts a central lawn, a destination play space, a river terrace, a park pavilion building, a hotel and sky garden, which includes outdoor dining options, a bike and pedestrian connection to the Main Street bridge, and an iconic sculpture situated atop civic stairs that is undeniably unique and authentic to Jacksonville.
Input from the dedicated public played a huge role in this effort and was integral to each design. Countless hours of public engagement resulted in common themes sought by those who live, work, and play in the community. Criteria of highest importance included the need for a versatile lawn, a restaurant and playground, an iconic art piece, as well as resiliency and shade – all of which have been met by the winning design.

"This is an exciting project that will change the Downtown experience for years to come, said Daryl Joseph Director of Parks, Recreation, and Community Services. “Parks connect people to each other, and Riverfront Plaza will connect the community to the St. John’s River in a meaningful, heartfelt way."

It is important to note that the two top proposals with the most public feedback (Perkins&Will, and Agency Landscape + Planning) shared common design features, including only one mid-to-high rise development pad adjacent to the Main Street bridge and a much smaller, public-use facility (park facility, visitor center, restaurant, etc.) adjacent to Hogans Street. An additional noteworthy design element presented by both top-scoring teams includes a connection from the Main Street bridge to the elevated portion of each site design via a new pedestrian ramp – a feature Perkins&Will complements with outdoor dining and a river-facing beer garden.

Upon completion, Riverfront Plaza will transform into an extraordinary recognizable symbol of Jacksonville’s waterfront – from the Riverfront and aerial views as well as within the space – that will shape the Northbank and Jacksonville-at-large for generations to come. It will be, as Perkins&Will state, “one park for all of Jacksonville.”

“We are absolutely thrilled and humbled to be selected for this amazing project,” said Christopher Counts, Perkins&Will Landscape Architect Design Principal. “The transformative potential of this project cannot be overstated. This new world-class park will be reflective of the culture, diversity, and vitality of the City of Jacksonville. It will become part of the public consciousness of the City and a source of civic pride for the citizens of Jacksonville. We look forward to having the opportunity to fulfill our promise to work with the city and community members to create a park for ALL of Jacksonville.”

For more information on the Perkins&Will Riverfront Plaza design, visit: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/7a4d455r9zltw7f/AACARMF0GJeV_gCmc96ozksda?dl=0.

At a topping off ceremony June 7 at Fidelity National Information Services Inc.’s next world headquarters in Brooklyn, CEO Gary Norcross said the company hired 5,000 workers globally during the pandemic with 200 for its Jacksonville operation.

Norcross said after the event that FIS’ global growth and the flexibility created by a hybrid office-remote work model will allow the company to “blow through” the company’s 2019 job creation estimates of 500 employees by 2029.

Mayor Lenny Curry, Enterprise Florida Inc. CEO Jamal Sowell and other city officials joined Norcross at the event to celebrate the installation of the final steel beam at the highest point of the 12-story tower at 347 Riverside Ave.

Norcross told the crowd the financial technology services company joined the Fortune 200 last week with about $14 billion in annual revenue and more than 60,000 employees in 100 countries. 

He said FIS plans to bring more corporate leadership and executive positions to its Jacksonville headquarters.

“We’ll continue to push our strategies to expand geographically but also bring the kind of world-class services that our customers and clients and prospects are looking for,” Norcross said. 

Get the full story from the Jacksonville Daily Record. 

VyStar Credit Union CEO Brian Wolfburg and The Bread & Board owners Jonathan Cobbs and Dwayne Beliakoff were joined by Downtown stakeholders May 27 at the ribbon-cutting for the local restaurant chain’s dining and grab-and-go market concepts at VyStar’s corporate campus.

 Cobbs and Beliakoff’s Baja Mexico-inspired restaurant Estrella Cocina is open on the rooftop at the credit union’s 100 W. Bay St. building. The Bread & Burger in the VyStar breezeway will open June 1.

Guests toured The Bread & Board Restaurant and The Bread & Board Provisions market on the ground floor of the 100 W. Bay St. building, which Cobbs said will open in about three weeks.

Wolfburg said VyStar’s growth the past two years allowed the partnership with The Bread & Board.

“One of the important parts of the Downtown campus is bringing it to life … for employees, for our members and for the community,” Wolfburg said.

Estrella Cocina will take reservations beginning May 28 and be open from 4-11 p.m.

Beliakoff said The Bread & Burger courtyard dining concept “popped naturally” when they saw the size of the shipping container that houses the restaurant kitchen.

The courtyard seats 231 and Cobb said the space has a 2,000-person capacity with beer and wine allowed throughout.

The restaurant will offer beef, turkey and veggie burgers, french fries and milkshakes.

Wolfburg said VyStar added a stage to the outdoor space to partner with other organizations and offer live music at lunchtime.

The breezeway will be open 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday-Friday and for events. Cobbs said weekend hours could be added as the Downtown market grows.

The Bread & Board Provisions market’s focus will be local vendors and products from beer and wine, produce, sauces, espresso and more. 

The market will open at 7 a.m. daily and the restaurant will be open 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday-Thursday; 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday; 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday; and 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday.

Get the full story from the Jacksonville Daily Record. 

More than six years after JEA sold its Southside Generating Station site for a massive mixed-use development, ground has been broken at the Southbank property.

The 30-acre site will be home to the newly dubbed RiversEdge, a development by Preston Hollow Capital that will include public parks, townhomes and apartment buildings, a hotel, and retail and office space.

Toll Brothers is in the process of purchasing property in the development that will be used for 39 townhomes, and Preston Hollow has a signed contract for work to begin on the riverfront bulkhead, which could kick off as early as next week.

“Come some time next summer, this site will look very, very different,” Preston Hollow Managing Director Ramiro Albarran said Tuesday during a groundbreaking ceremony.

The site will be developed as one project, not in phases, said Albarran, who has been heading up the company’s partnership with the city involving the site.

“It’s important for the market to realize this is happening,” he said following the ceremony.

The city has long pushed to have the site developed — Mayor Lenny Curry remembered the excitement around the project when he first campaigned for the office in 2015 — and its 950 residential units, 140,000 square feet of retail space, 125 boat slips and more are seen as a game changer for the area.

“This mega project will have a huge impact,” said Downtown Investment Authority CEO Lori Boyer, who used to represent the council district containing the project.

Get the full story from the Jacksonville Business Journal. 

JACKSONVILLE, FL (May 11, 2021) – The City of Jacksonville Downtown Investment Authority (DIA) closed on its first Storefront Façade Grant agreement to recipient Hatfield & Hatfield, P.A., a local law firm doing business in Downtown since 2016. Grant funds, totaling $7,370, will be used to help preserve the building’s exterior quality and enhance the aesthetics of the building. Improvements include replacing street-facing windows to provide better protection from the elements, removing aging window frames and glazing, and adding protective film to the entrance doors so that they will better match the new-and-improved windows and provide additional security.

“We at the law firm of Hatfield & Hatfield, P.A. are grateful and honored to be approved to receive matching funds from the Storefront Facade Grant Program to allow us to make upgrades to the facade of our nearly one hundred-year-old building”, expressed Kate Hatfield, Esq. “We would like to thank the City of Jacksonville and the Downtown Investment Authority for their commitment to partnering with small businesses like ours to improve the overall Downtown experience. We would also like to encourage our Downtown neighbors to take advantage of this opportunity to make improvements to their properties that will benefit the safety, aesthetics, and enjoyment of all those who live and work Downtown.”

The DIA Storefront Façade Grant Program launched in 2020 and offers a valuable opportunity for Downtown property owners. The restoration, rehabilitation and revitalization of first-floor storefront facades – while sometimes seemingly minor changes – have a big impact on Downtown at large. New paint, awnings and windows can transform a tired, drab storefront into an inviting business that attracts visitors and offers a pleasant pedestrian experience. Furthermore, façade grants increase the utilization of existing buildings, enhance economic vitality, attract new tenants, strengthen the overall image of Downtown and foster community pride – because when Downtown looks and feels its best, we all reap the rewards.

To learn more about the DIA’s Storefront Façade Grant Program and find out if your property is eligible, visit: http://dia.coj.net/Facade-Grant-Program.

About the Downtown Investment Authority
The Downtown Investment Authority was established by the City of Jacksonville to revitalize Jacksonville’s urban core by utilizing Community Redevelopment Area (CRA) resources and is guided by a nine-member board of directors. The DIA seeks to attract investment, facilitate job creation and increase residential density through capital investments, planning, marketing and public-private partnerships including the provision of incentives for the general community and Downtown stakeholders. For more information, visit https://dia.coj.net/ and https://investdtjax.com/.

Downtown investors Jim and Ellen Wiss, through AWP331 LLC, bought more Downtown property from First Baptist Church of Jacksonville.

The Wisses paid $292,500 on March 8 for the parking lot of the warehouse purchased the same day by JWB Real Estate Capital at 331 W. Ashley St.

JWB and the Wisses are allowing the building and parking lot to be used temporarily for homeless services.

Ellen Wiss said she and her husband plan for a Phase 2 multifamily development of 60 units on the parking lot site to complement the larger development they plan nearby, creating a total of about 260 units in addition to some retail use.

That will depend on creating enough parking for those units.

 The Wisses bought property in February 2020 from First Baptist bounded by Beaver, Julia, Ashley and Hogan streets that includes a four-story, 20,000-square-foot structure built in 1954 and a two-story, 10,000-square-foot building completed in 1947.

The couple plans a more than $40 million adaptive reuse of the site.

A preliminary artist’s rendering shows redeveloped buildings and new apartment construction.

Ellen Wiss said 211 W. Ashley St. is a four-story historic building and 604 N. Hogan St. is the two-story structure next to it. Both are shown in the project rendering. 

Wiss said they plan about 200 units and retail on that block. They do not own the First Coast Barber Academy building.

They plan 80 ground-floor parking spaces topped by the new construction and another 55 spaces at the corner of Ashley and Julia streets.

“Strong cities have thriving downtowns. Core development is key,” she said March 29.

Wiss said a strong public-private partnership is needed to spur activity. They are evaluating options for Downtown Investment Authority and city assistance.

She said the time frame to start is at least 12 months.

They have not named the development.

Get the full story from The Jacksonville Daily Record. 

On Tuesday, February 23rd, 2021, the DIA held a public workshop to present a holistic, informational overview of current Downtown riverfront development plans, both public and private, and the applicable processes for review and consideration. Watch the Workshop Here!

Presenters included Jessie Ball duPont Fund, Museum of Science and History (MOSH) and Iguana Investments.

An update on the largest infill new construction project to take place in the Downtown Northbank in more than a decade.

Ryan Companies US Inc., a national developer, builder, designer, and property manager offering full-service commercial real estate solutions, announced today the topping out of construction at the new JEA Headquarters in Downtown Jacksonville. Work crews laid the final steel beam at the top of the 125-foot-tall tower, which will feature large windows and open floor plans geared toward collaborative meeting space for one of the nation’s largest community-owned electric utility companies.

The seven-story, 153,000-square-foot build-to-suit project is projected to revitalize the central business district, with a completion date of 2022. The building’s design team weaved in aspects of the surrounding area’s bridges and rich industrial history, while providing access to Jacksonville’s major roadways and public transportation.

“Despite the challenging year, Ryan Companies and JEA have displayed exceptional planning, teamwork, and creativity to reach the height of development on this Downtown Jacksonville office project,” said Scott Stenman, Vice President of Construction at Ryan Companies. “Our team has faced different obstacles throughout 2020 as the pandemic has changed the way we safely construct buildings as well as how society views traditional office space. I am proud of our progress and our ability to reach this milestone on time. The JEA Headquarters is a sign of revitalization, and economic growth in Downtown Jacksonville and Ryan is thrilled to be part of the team bringing the project to fruition.”

Get the full story from The Jaxson.

The Downtown Investment Authority and city parks department want a minimum 4.5-acre facility at the Downtown riverfront site.

City procurement officials selected three national firms March 18 to compete for the contract to design a public riverfront park at the former Jacksonville Landing site.

The city Professional Services Evaluation Committee voted 3-0 to select the companies that each will be paid $125,000 to complete 50% of the design work for a minimum 4.5-acre park for the site at 2 Independent Drive W., now called Riverfront Plaza.  One of the designs will be selected to complete its design.

The firms are:

• Agency Landscape + Planning LLC of Cambridge, Massachusetts. The company’s work includes phase one of the 10-acre Bay Park in Sarasota and the 2015 Downtown Experience plan in Raleigh, North Carolina.
• Olin Partnership Ltd. of Philadelphia. Olin is designing a 1.2-mile stretch of riverfront in Alexandria, Virginia, and in 1991 designed Bryant Park’s restoration in New York City.
• Perkins & Will Inc. of Chicago. The company’s work includes historic Emancipation Park in Houston and Waterfront Botanical Gardens in Louisville, Kentucky.  

DIA CEO Lori Boyer and city Director of Parks, Recreation & Community Services Daryl Joseph received and scored 14 responses to the request for proposals issued Jan. 20.

During the award meeting, committee members called the design teams “diverse” based on their portfolios.

“I couldn’t be happier with the level of response we got from this,” said Greg Pease, city procurement chief and committee member.

“It was a pretty creative RFP and delivery method. … These are all great responses, fantastic firms and teams that were put together. No matter where we land we’re going  to end up with a great concept and a good little design competition here.” 

Boyer said there will be a public meeting March 26 to provide the firms with site information. 
 

Plans submitted to the city must include a riverview corridor from Laura Street and public art pieces must be an integral part of the design, according to the RFP qualifications. 

The teams are required to have a landscape architect, an urban designer and/or architect and an artist.

During the Feb. 4 prebid meeting, Boyer said the selected firms will present their designs in a public workshop in late June to allow community and stakeholder input.

DIA officials want the firm selected to have its design complete by Oct. 1, then the city will bid construction and break ground on the park in early 2022.

Boyer said Feb. 4 that the timeline would allow for construction costs to be included in the city’s 2021-22 fiscal year budget.

DIA officials want the public park under construction before private development begins on two pads which city documents show on the northwest and northeast corners of the site.

The 7.64-acre former Landing property includes a 1.67-acre public parking lot that will be available for development after the city’s proposed demolition of the adjacent Main Street Bridge on-ramp.

Get the full story from the Jacksonville Daily Record. 

A $24.7 million financial incentive package for restoring the historic Laura Street Trio won unanimous backing Wednesday from Downtown Investment Authority as its board members noted the high cost but said the benefits will ripple beyond the Trio's century-old walls.

The three buildings were constructed between 1902 and 1912 and have been vacant for decades, despite their place in the heart of downtown and their architectural significance.
 

SouthEast Development Group plans a $70 million renovation of the Trio and construction of a new eight-floor building that together would create a Marriott Autograph Collection hotel with restaurants, a bodega, and other retail space.

"I recognize this is a great deal of money in terms of incentives, and we will be cognizant of that as we restore these buildings to the highest standard," SouthEast Principal Steve Atkins told the board after its unanimous vote.

The incentives will come from the Downtown Preservation and Rehabilitation Program that City Council created last year.

The $24.7 million in taxpayer support for the Trio consists of city loans, but the city would forgive $19.4 million of the loans if SouthEast Group complies with terms of the agreement.
 

A third loan for $5.3 million would only require interest payments until it became due in 10 years.

The city would provide the loans after work is done, so the money won't go up-front to the developer.

The DIA board's approval will go to City Council for its vote on the incentives.

DIA board member Oliver Barakat said the cost of the redevelopment project equates to about $440 per square foot, with the taxpayer incentive share of that cost at about $150 per square foot.

"These are high, potentially record watermarks for this organization," he said. "If there was a project to get us there, it would be this one."

He said the Downtown Investment Authority has been seeking redevelopment of Laura Street Trio since the city formed the agency in 2012.

"We appreciate your tenacity," DIA board member Craig Gibbs told Atkins.

SouthEast has a track record in downtown because it completed restoration of the Barnett Bank building across the street from the Trio.

Get the full story from The Florida Times-Union.

JACKSONVILLE, FL (March 4, 2021) – Jacksonville is joining major American cities in welcoming a Dockless Mobility Program to its Downtown. The City of Jacksonville (COJ) officially launched a one-year pilot program for e-scooters, e-bicycles and dockless bicycles and starting today, locals and visitors alike can rent and ride electric scooters Downtown via smartphone applications. Legislation for the program was introduced by Council Member Cumber and co-sponsored by Council Members White, Carlucci, Diamond, Gaffney, Priestly Jackson, Morgan, Bowman, Hazouri, Pittman, DeFoor, Freeman, Salem and Newby.

“I’m so excited that Micromobility has come to Downtown Jacksonville,” expressed Council Member Cumber. “These vehicles provide a modern, efficient and fun way to get around downtown. It has truly been a great partnership between all the stakeholders to bring this to fruition. I can’t wait to ride my first scooter here in Jacksonville!”

Blue Duck, Helbiz, LINK and SPIN received permits under the pilot program. Each company will deploy 100 electric scooters for a total of 400, all operating within the Dockless Mobility Zone (DMZ). The DMZ boundary encompasses much of what is known as the central core, extending east to the TIAA Bank Field and west to the Duval County Courthouse, and includes an additional, narrow path to JTA’s Jacksonville Regional Transportation Center. Scooters can be rented and dropped off 24/7 at 35 designated, geofenced corrals on the sidewalk and out of the way of pedestrians, parked cars or other users.

This program is yet another step towards reclaiming options for pedestrians and bicyclist Downtown by providing healthy, viable and environmentally sustainable transportation alternatives. Additional information on the program, including a map of the program boundary and parking corral locations, can be found by visiting https://dia.coj.net/downtown/COJ-Dockless-Mobility-Program.

Units in the workforce housing community are reserved for residents making less than 80% of the area median income.

The Vestcor Companies opened Lofts at Brooklyn, a 133-unit community in the Brooklyn area of Downtown, on Feb. 11.

“We are proud that this community provides 80 workforce housing units in the Brooklyn neighborhood,” said Ryan Hoover, president of TVC Development, in a news release.

The property at 190 Chelsea St. comprises studio, one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments. Amenities include a fitness center, internet café, resident lounge with billiards and shuffleboard, clubroom with a kitchen and TVs, a pavilion with grills and a dog walk area. 

Lofts at Brooklyn is a workforce housing community with 80 units reserved for residents making less than 80% of the area median income and 53 reserved for residents making less than 140% of the area median income. 

A combination of financial support from the Jacksonville Housing Finance Authority,  Downtown Investment Authority and Florida Housing Finance Corp. made the community possible, according to the release.

Summit Contracting Group was the contractor and Group4 was the architect. 

Get the full story from the Jax Daily Record.

The Downtown Development Review Board awarded conceptual design approval to the historic Laura Street Trio renovation.

The board voted 8-0 during its Feb. 11 meeting to advance developer SouthEast Development Group LLC’s estimated $70.4 million plan to convert the three vacant urban core structures into a 146-room hotel with restaurant and retail spaces.

Board member Matt Brockelman with The Southern Group is a lobbyist for SouthEast. He recused himself from the vote.

The project will return to the board for final approval before work can begin.

During his presentation, project architect Tom Hurst of Dasher Hurst Architects said the eight-story addition to the historic Trio was needed to bring the proposed hotel to 146 rooms and be financially viable.

Hurst said the design team and SouthEast Managing Director Steve Atkins wants the layout to emphasize the three historic structures —  the Florida Life, Bisbee and Marble Bank buildings — that comprise the Trio at 51 W. Forsyth St.

“We want to make sure that we’re deferential to the existing historic buildings and we don’t try to overwhelm them,” Hurst said. “We could have probably designed a 20-story high-rise here and we could have made the numbers work better. But we want to pay homage to them.”

Get the full story from the Jax Daily Record. 

A free concert series is coming to the former Jacksonville Landing site in April.

The Jax River Jams series is planned for Thursday evenings on the site, officially known as Riverfront Plaza. They are scheduled for April 8, 15, 22 and 29.

No performers were named, but Jake Gordon, CEO of Downtown Vision, said national acts will headline and local and regional musicians will open the shows. He said the shows will be themed, with country, rock and hip-hop nights planned.

Acts will play on a stage set up on the Times-Union Center end of the field, which Gordon referred to as "the Lawnding." An artists' market, food trucks and bars will be on site during the events, which will start around 5:30 p.m. 

Get the full story from the Florida Times-Union. 

JACKSONVILLE, FL (January 28, 2021) – The Downtown Investment Authority (DIA) commissioned CHW Professional Consultants, Acuity Design Group and Lewis, Longman & Walker, PA in September of 2019 to abandon the Downtown Regional Impact (DRI), develop methodology to preserve vested development rights and remove antiquated regulatory processes from Downtown. A little over one year and a lot of hard work later, Jacksonville City Council approved legislation that officially abandons the DRI, paving the way for a more streamlined approach to Downtown development.

With the abandonment of the DRI, the limitations instituted in the 1980s on the type and amount of development within Downtown no longer apply. Further, over the years, impacts relating to development that previously justified the DRI – such as transportation and infrastructure – have been incorporated into the City’s Comprehensive Plan and Zoning Ordinances, leaving the DRI, at least with respect to Downtown, an unnecessary layer of review. Removing this layer of review allows development and redevelopment within Downtown to move at a pace that can better respond to market demand and enhances economic growth in Downtown Jacksonville.

"I commend the hard work put into abandoning the DRI – it was no small feat, but it was surely needed,” expressed Ron Moody, DIA Board Chair. “Initiatives that help streamline Downtown development benefit not only our urban core, but our City at large. The easier we make it for interested parties to invest Downtown, the more opportunities we create to elevate our community. I look forward to continuing our efforts in making Downtown a great place to live, work, play and invest.”

The DIA will maintain regulatory authority and development control in Downtown Jacksonville, continuing to allocate development rights by resolution and distributing Mobility Fee Credits at its discretion for Downtown projects. At present, the DIA holds +/- $32,800,000 in Mobility Fee Credits ready to disburse for qualified developments. 

About the Downtown Investment Authority
The Downtown Investment Authority was established by the City of Jacksonville to revitalize Jacksonville’s urban core by utilizing Community Redevelopment Area (CRA) resources and is guided by a nine-member board of directors. The DIA seeks to attract investment, facilitate job creation and increase residential density through capital investments, planning, marketing and public-private partnerships including the provision of incentives for the general community and Downtown stakeholders. For more information, visit https://dia.coj.net/ and https://investdtjax.com/.
 

Jacksonville, FL (January 20, 2021) – The City of Jacksonville’s Downtown Investment Authority (DIA) released a Request for Proposal (RFP) for the selection of qualified design firms and their consultants, who will then participate in a design competition for the development of a vibrant and iconic public space on the premier waterfront site in Downtown Jacksonville now dubbed Riverfront Plaza, formerly The Jacksonville Landing. The competition will include presentations at a public workshop and will result in the selection of one team to complete the design. The DIA understands the magnitude and importance of this site and as such, the aesthetic, functional and programmatic design of the public space and the integration of public art to create a recognizable symbol of Downtown Jacksonville are paramount.

“We are so thrilled to release this much-anticipated RFP,” expressed Lori Boyer, DIA CEO. “We dedicated a lot of time and effort to prepare a scope and assign evaluation points that both reflect the significance of the site and effectively capture the critical requirements and input needed to activate this premiere space on our beautiful Riverwalk. We look forward to reviewing the submissions come March and wish all interested parties the best of luck.”

The RFP selection process is comprised of two parts. Part one includes submission of qualifications, which the City will evaluate, score and select three (3) shortlisted design teams to participate in a design competition. This selection is scheduled to occur prior to the end of March 2021. In the second half of the process, the three shortlisted design teams will receive a stipend to complete 50% designs where they will showcase their vision for the plaza, including how their design would interface with the future private development. The teams will present their 50% designs via public oral interviews in late June, allowing for public comment. The City will also solicit input from subject matter experts and Downtown stakeholders, all of which will be shared with the evaluation committee.

The selected winner of the design competition for the best qualified design will be invited to negotiate a full professional services design contract with the City, bringing design of the public space to 100%.
The City is working diligently to ensure the timeline of the park design and subsequent construction is coordinated with additional nearby public infrastructure improvements, such as the Hogan Street Cycle Track, the Times Union Center for the Performing Arts bulkhead restoration and Music Commons and bulkhead improvements at the Riverfront Plaza. As such, the City is taking reservations for use of the park between now and December 2021 and hopes to be under construction on the new public space by January of 2022.

Any questions regarding this RFP should be submitted via email to Dustin Freeman at dustinf@coj.net. A non-mandatory pre-bid conference will be held via Zoom on January 29^th at 11:00 am ET.
 

JACKSONVILLE, FL (January 20, 2021) – The City of Jacksonville’s Downtown Investment Authority (“DIA”) Board voted unanimously to pass a resolution adjusting on-street parking rates as recommended by the 2019 Downtown Parking Strategy and Implementation Plan prepared by Tim Haahs and Associates (“Haahs”). The Plan recommends the elimination of on-street parking credit card transactions below $1.00 and the implementation of an on-street parking rate of at least $2.00 per hour. The rate increases approved today by the DIA Board are in line with the Haahs recommendations while also remaining sensitive to the Jacksonville market. 

“This rate change discourages the all-day use of on-street spaces,” said Bob Carle, Public Parking Officer. “It should result in the quicker turnover of Downtown parking spaces by forcing all-day meter feeders into garages and thereby increasing customer parking availability for restaurants, retailers and other downtown businesses.”

This adjustment follows a recent change to rates in municipal garages and is but another step in a long list of parking strategies designed to make on-street spaces available for customers and easier to access, to manage supply and demand for off-street spaces to facilitate full office occupancy in the core of Downtown, and to modernize and upgrade Downtown parking. Other strategies will include the implementation of one or more mobile phone parking payment apps, the installation of parking pay stations (kiosks) and an overhaul of the City’s current meter-bagging policies to keep more metered spaces in service and available for use rather than bagged and out of service. These strategies were designed to help foster restaurant and retail growth in downtown and complement the DIA’s many existing grant programs available to retailers and restaurateurs interested in relocating to or expanding in downtown.

The on-street parking rate will increase from $0.50 to $1.00 for the first two half hours and from $0.50 to $2.00 for every subsequent hour in high demand areas. The rates are to remain at $0.50 for every hour in low demand areas. The rates apply Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. – 6 p.m. The resolution allows the DIA and Office of Public Parking to review and modify the boundaries of the high and low-demand areas as needed.

The rate schedule also includes a provision to implement night, weekend and holiday parking rates for special events such as Jaguar games or concerts. On-street event parking rates will fluctuate between $5.00 and $15.00 depending on the type of event, with a duration of six hours. 

The rate increases will become effective March 1, 2021, unless and until, the Jacksonville City Council enacts an ordinance to the contrary.

About the Downtown Investment Authority
The Downtown Investment Authority was established by the City of Jacksonville to revitalize Jacksonville’s urban core by utilizing Community Redevelopment Area (CRA) resources and is guided by a nine-member board of directors. The DIA seeks to attract investment, facilitate job creation and increase residential density through capital investments, planning, marketing and public-private partnerships including the provision of incentives for the general community and Downtown stakeholders. For more information, visit https://dia.coj.net/ and https://investdtjax.com/.
 

The new Fuller Warren Shared Use Path (SUP) is rapidly nearing completion.

The shared use path is part of the Interstate 10/ Interstate 95 Interchange Improvements Project and is expected to be complete in spring 2021, said Daryl Goss, community outreach specialist for the Florida Department of Transportation.

The multi-use path will run adjacent to the southbound lanes of the Fuller Warren Bridge. In spanning the St. Johns River, it will provide and easy and scenic connection between Riverside and San Marco for bicyclists and pedestrians. On the San Marco side, the shared-use path will connect to a new multi-use path that runs along the river behind Nemours Children’s Specialty Care. That path will extend down Children’s Way to Nira Street toward Hendricks Avenue and Kings Avenue eventually connecting with the Southbank Riverwalk near The District.

“Pedestrians will have access to the SUP upon completion of the project. There have been no significant changes to the concept or the design,” he said.

According to the FDOT website, the project will widen the Fuller Warren Bridge by expanding the northbound and southbound lanes from three to four lanes in each direction. The Interstate 10 improvements include a dedicated ramp to Irene and Stockton Streets to reduce weaving traffic merging from Interstate 95 southbound to Interstate 10 westbound. A widening of the overpass from Interstate 95 northbound to Interstate 10 westbound will allow for future improvements along westbound Interstate 10.

Also included in the project will be sound barriers for residents along the east side of U.S. 17 northbound between McDuff Avenue and Rosselle Street. Sound barriers will also be built for residents along the south side of Interstate 10 eastbound between Stockton and College Streets. Proposed sound barriers on the west side of U.S. 17 southbound between McDuff Avenue and Roselle Street have been removed from the project’s plans, according to the FDOT website.

Enhancements to the shared-use path on the Fuller Warren Bridge will include Riverside Arts Market aesthetics on the Riverside on-ramp as well as an accommodation for art in public places. Architecturally decorative lighting features along the bridge’s SUP will be installed, and the new bridge elements will mirror current bridge elements with special artistic features similar to those at RAM and the Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens.

Also included in the project will be New monument signs for Stockton and College Streets, according to the website.

By Marcia Hodgson
Resident Community News

Construction of Infrastructure Improvements at Former JEA Generating Site to Start Soon

The Downtown Investment Authority wants to secure designs for a minimum 4.5-acre public park at the former Jacksonville Landing site before putting the remaining property on the market for development.

The DIA filed a draft request for proposals to the city Procurement Division for review that solicits designs for park space at the site’s St. Johns riverfront area and Laura Street corridor, according to CEO Lori Boyer. 

At the DIA board’s Nov. 18 meeting, Boyer outlined plans to create three design teams to generate options for the vacant city-owned green space at 2 Independent Drive W.

In an interview Nov. 11, Boyer said the DIA is prioritizing public space at what the city now is calling “Riverfront Plaza.”

“I don’t want to put those (development parcels) into the marketplace until we have some preliminary design done on the public space,” she said. “I don’t want it to just be a lawn of a private space.”

Boyer said each design team would include a landscape architect, artist, urban designer or architect and be given a stipend to complete a proposal.

Their work products would be evaluated. “There would be public input and that would be the opportunity to decide which one we would want to build,” Boyer said at the Nov. 18 meeting. 

Get the full story from the Jax Daily Record.

Jacksonville’s Corkscrew Park is becoming the first in the city to count people walking and biking to show how busy it’s been. 

City officials and bike and walking enthusiasts dedicated a new “Eco-Counter” at the park located right under the Acosta Bridge, which will display how many people have walked or biked by throughout the day, and how many total have done so throughout the year. 

“Data is something we have been sorely lacking from a bicycle [and] pedestrian standpoint downtown, not only on our trail systems, but also on our public streets,” said Lori Boyer, the CEO of Jacksonville’s Downtown Investment Authority. 

Boyer and other city officials said that the data tracked using the eco-counter will make the process a lot easier when determining the bike and foot traffic for a specific area.

“Oftentimes, we're applying for grants, and we have to provide numbers and data to document the need for the improvements that we're going for,” said Daryl Joseph, the director of the Parks, Recreation and Community Services department for the city.

Joseph said there are already five other mobile versions of the eco-counter at parks throughout the city, with plans to add more. The current kiosk is located on the Northbank Riverwalk. 

Get the full story from WJCT Public Media.

JACKSONVILLE, FL (November 16, 2020) – The Downtown Investment Authority (DIA) launched the Downtown Perseveration and Revitalization Program (DPRP) to boost the City incentive for historic redevelopment. Jacksonville City Council unanimously approved the DPRP bill, lifting previous restrictions that no longer meet the financial realities of rehabilitating historic structures. The new program intends to foster the preservation and revitalization of unoccupied, underutilized, and/or deteriorating historic, and qualified non-historic, buildings located in Downtown Jacksonville. The DPRP is designed to serve projects applying for more than $100,000 as well as code compliance projects on older buildings that do not have historic landmark status.

The bill also modifies the existing Downtown Historic Preservation and Revitalization Trust Fund (HPRTF) limiting it to historically landmarked properties seeking forgivable loans of $100,000 or less. These grants can be approved by the DIA provided funds are available in the Trust Fund.
Council Member Matt Carlucci, who spearheaded the original Downtown Preservation and Revitalization Ordinance, is very excited about the DIA’s new and updated Downtown DPRP. “I believe this will be one of the best tools to truly expedite restoring Historic downtown buildings while also helping promote the reuse of older buildings – mostly in the Downtown core – which I call the ‘real Downtown’, Carlucci said. “I truly appreciate the DIA board and executive director Lori Boyer – this will be a game changer!”

The recently approved bill removes the $1 million cap on grants that had been in place since the HPRTF was created in 2002. In doing so, the DPRP creates more opportunities for developers interested in adaptive reuse. “The DPRP legislation is a badly needed revamp of DIA policy towards adaptive reuse of our historic building stock,” said Alex Sifakis, President of JWB Real Estate Capital. “Far too often we see historic buildings in Downtown being torn down, and the reason is pure economics. In the past it has been a better financial decision for developers or owners to tear down historic building. DPRP changes that calculation for developers and owners and will ensure that many of these historic structures will be saved and renovated – creating true vibrancy in Downtown Jax.”

The DIA encourages adaptive reuse of our historic Downtown buildings and invites interested parties to see why Downtown is unmatched in opportunity.  Contact the DIA today to learn the ways the agency can support your investment in the revitalization of Downtown’s inventory of historic properties.
 

Ryan Companies US Inc. announced its groundbreaking of Downtown Jacksonville’s first ground-up office development in nearly a decade. Prominently known as the new headquarters for JEA, the seven-story, 153,000-square-foot build-to-suit project is transforming an underutilized city block into a modern office environment in the civic core of downtown Jacksonville’s central business district.

Ryan, alongside local leaders and officials – including DIA CEO Lori Boyer – JEA employees, leasing and owner’s rep team CBRE and other project team members, celebrated the milestone with a virtual groundbreaking.

Downtown Investment Authority CEO Lori Boyer said Oct. 13 that she expects a new deal to redevelop the Laura Street Trio will be ready within six months after City Council passed a bill overhauling the city’s adaptive reuse incentives.

Boyer told Council members that plans for the Trio project and two others are nearing completion and were waiting for Ordinance 2020-0527 to be enacted.

Plans for the Trio at 51 W. Forsyth St. include a Courtyard by Marriott hotel, an urban grocery store and a restaurant.

“I have probably three applicants that you would see very quickly, including the Trio, who have been working on putting together a project,” Boyer said. 

The DIA CEO did not name the other two projects.

“There are a number of others that I would like to encourage to come forward and apply for it because they are eligible and I think it would dramatically improve Downtown if they move forward, but they have not been on their own initiating a request yet,” Boyer said. 

Council voted 19-0 at its Oct. 13 meeting to pass the bill that expands city programs that offer incentives for the renovation and redevelopment of historic properties and contributing structures to Downtown’s historic district. 

The contributing structures must be at least 50 years old.
Steve Atkins, Trio developer and SouthEast Development Group president, said Oct 14 the bill is “a true catalyst for some of our community’s most important projects.”

Get the full story from the Jacksonville Daily Record. 

Author: Alexandra LaRocque, Downtown Vision Marketing and Events Intern

Clean ups are a vital part of keeping our city in pristine condition, and the willingness of the community to assist has not gone unnoticed. On Saturday October 10th, in effort to beautify the Riverwalk and community, 904 Happy Hour along with Downtown Vision Inc, The Downtown Investment Authority, City of Jacksonville & Downtown Dwellers, hosted a clean up at the Riverwalk in Downtown Jacksonville. With over 165 bags filled with trash, we’d say this event was a major success.

The clean up spanned from The South Bank Riverwalk to the former site of the Landing, to Gefen Park, including tents along the way stocked with supplies for the volunteers to utilize while generously offering their time. While Downtown Vision has a team of Ambassadors keeping Downtown clean everyday, extra helping hands are always appreciated. We witnessed all ages providing their time in Downtown for this event and we can’t express our gratefulness enough to all of the #DTJax supporters. A morning of cleaning the Riverwalk may seem like a small effort, but it indeed makes all the difference. As we begin to gather as a community and partake in other events with the goal to better our city, we hope to see you back out there. Let’s keep Downtown beautiful together!

Get the full story (and check out some awesome photos) from Downtown Vision, Inc.'s blog!

Architect Joe Cronk said nobody had to sell him on Brooklyn.

“We’re ex-Haskell guys. We grew up on Riverside. Brooklyn is a vital link between 5 Points and LaVilla and Downtown,” he explained.

And Cronk isn’t the only one who is “sold” on Brooklyn. In the last five years, the historic black neighborhood has undergone a renaissance that has transformed vacant lots and dilapidated buildings into high-rise residences and busy shopping centers.

And, the renaissance isn’t over. A hotel, a major office building and more apartments are in the works, along with road and infrastructure improvements that will add momentum redevelopment in neighboring LaVilla as well as Downtown.

Cronk’s contribution to the renaissance is the proposed Hub Brooklyn.

In its promotional material, Cronk Duch Architecture describes the concept for the Hub as “a place to meet friends for coffee and artisanal fare, a refuge from the office grind, a spot to refresh after walking the Emerald Trail, perhaps cocktails and al fresco before the evening’s big event.”

It was warmly received by the Downtown Development Review Board, which still must give its final approval.

The Hub will be two stories built on 0.2 of an acre, what Cronk described as a “lost lot” at Forest and Riverside. The firm’s design studio will take up part of the second floor, but the rest of the space will be devoted to food and beverage by their primary vendor Southern Grounds.

The food space will be divided into three pods for fast casual, including a coffee shop and a bar. Seating will be available inside and outside on the second-floor terrace or under cover on the first floor. Cronk hopes to have it completed by next fall.

Cronk envisions people stopping by for their morning coffee, coming back for lunch and lingering over a beer after work.

The site is well positioned to become a neighborhood gathering spot. 

Get the full story from Resident Community News Group, Inc. 

JACKSONVILLE, FL (October 1, 2020) – The Downtown Investment Authority (DIA) – the City of Jacksonville’s sole economic development and community redevelopment agency for Downtown – is pleased to announce the launch of its new, investor-focused website at https://investdtjax.com. The new website has been designed to offer the ultimate user-friendly experience with unique tools aimed at attracting investment and promoting Downtown Jacksonville nationwide. This City is brimming with possibilities, and https://investdtjax.com strives to be the go-to source for finding the next opportunity in Downtown Jacksonville.

“Downtown Jacksonville continues to move forward! Despite the impact of a global pandemic, projects continue to break ground and both the public and private sector are working hard to keep the momentum going,” says DIA Board Chair Ron Moody. “Downtown is open for business, and we are thrilled to debut our new website which allows us to spread that message near and far. We invite you to see why Downtown is unmatched in opportunity and learn the ways we can support your investment in Downtown.”

Created with investors and developers in mind, the site offers valuable resources for those interested in bringing their business Downtown. Key features include a comprehensive real estate database of Downtown properties available for sale or lease, valuable statistics on Downtown’s demographics, labor force and business, updates on DIA’s breadth of incentives as well as a detailed information on recently completed, under construction and approved projects in Downtown Jacksonville.

The DIA worked closely with Downtown Vision, Inc. and Wingard Marketing Agency to create the new site and to ensure it would help achieve core business initiatives and serve the target audience while representing the DIA’s mission strategically and effectively. Visitors are encouraged to explore the website and contact the DIA with any comments or questions.

October 01, 2020
New design honors Jacksonville’s strong Black and immigrant heritage and continues revitalization of broader LaVilla neighborhood

Today, the City of Jacksonville is pleased to reveal design plans for the highly-anticipated Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing Park in the historic LaVilla neighborhood. The park is located at 120 Lee Street, the birth site of Jacksonville natives James Weldon Johnson and John Rosamond Johnson. The Johnson brothers wrote and composed what is now known as the Black National Anthem, “Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing,” at their home in LaVilla between 1900 and 1905. As one of the first cultural landmarks to be developed as part of the greater LaVilla redevelopment strategy, Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing Park was carefully designed to honor the contributions of some of Jacksonville’s most renowned citizens, as well as encourage the next generation of artists and thought leaders to make their marks on this historic space.

“The legacy of the Johnson brothers and of Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing is an important part of our city’s history, and one that we are deeply committed to honoring,” said Mayor Lenny Curry. “We are excited to move forward with design plans for Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing Park as the next step in bringing to life an inclusive community space and a more vibrant LaVilla for generations to come.”

The vision for Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing park comes after years of planning, input meetings, and discussions with community stakeholders about how to best revitalize the city’s historic LaVilla community, a once bustling and vibrant neighborhood with arts, culture, and entrepreneurship. The neighborhood was often referred to as the “Harlem of the South.”

The park design was based on past community conversations and feedback, and conceptualized by Walter Hood, the renowned landscape architect and 2019 recipient of the MacArthur Foundation “genius grant.” His process included several trips to Jacksonville and primary-source research into LaVilla’s rich history.

Preliminary design and engineering plans for the park are underway and are expected to be complete by summer 2021. Park construction will then be bid out following the City of Jacksonville’s procurement process, and final design and contractor selection is expected to be complete by Fall 2021. Construction is expected to be complete by fall 2022, with the park open to the public shortly thereafter. Preliminary costs for design and construction are estimated to be approximately $2-3 million, which will be comprised of a combination of City funding and private philanthropy.

Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing Park is just one component of a more expansive LaVilla Heritage Trail first proposed as part of a 2019 joint Downtown Investment Authority (DIA) and Jacksonville Transportation Authority (JTA) study to redevelop the LaVilla neighborhood. While conversations around a larger Heritage Trail and redevelopment strategy are ongoing, Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing Park will join two other major initiatives in the neighborhood: the newly opened Jacksonville Regional Transportation Center housing the city’s primary bus terminal, a revamped Skyway station and new administration offices for JTA; and several new affordable housing projects, including The Vestcor Companies’ Lofts at LaVilla and Lofts at Monroe, which are bringing multifamily residential space back to the area.

“This park will serve as a reminder of how critical LaVilla was for the economic and cultural expansion of Jacksonville,” said Councilman Reggie Gaffney. “I am excited to see the momentum around Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing Park as we continue working to revitalize LaVilla. This project is possible because of the hard work and collaboration of many individuals and organizations who believe that to make Jacksonville better tomorrow, we must always remember what happened yesterday. By blending the past, present and future we celebrate our city’s unique African American heritage.”
 
Community input has been critical to the LaVilla revitalization process thus far, and the City and its partners look forward to continuing that dialogue. On Tuesday, Oct. 13, the Jessie Ball duPont Fund will facilitate a virtual community town hall for interested members of the public to learn more about design plans for Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing Park. This event is free and open to the public. Please RSVP at http://jbd.fund/park.

The city’s Downtown Investment Authority announced the launch of a new website geared towards attracting investment and promoting downtown development.

DIA’s new website - https://investdtjax.com – offers resources for investors and developers, including a comprehensive real estate database, information on DIA incentives, demographic data and up-to-date project information.

“We have been through a very trying and challenging time. I feel there is pent up demand that’s just building up,” said DIA Board Chair Ron Moody. “When everything does settle down, we’re going to see some real activity and real growth. We have a lot of projects that have been simmering, and they’re going to going to be moving forward very shortly.”

The website was created in conjunction with Downtown Vision Inc. and Wingard Marketing Agency.

Moody said the website is an important tool that’s been due for some time, adding that it gives investors from out of town a chance to gather information quickly about the city.

“Jacksonville hasn’t ever had this before, and this is something we need people to see so they’ll know that we’re serious about doing business,” Moody said.

Additional resources on the website include an interactive map of ongoing development and links to studies and reports such as DVI’s State of Downtown report.

Get the full story from the Jacksonville Business Journal.

JOIN US: DIA RIVERWALK CLEANUP!

Date: Saturday, October 10
Time: 8 a.m. - 10 a.m.
Location: Gefen Park, 505 Alfred Dupont Pl, Jacksonville, FL 32202

Event Details: Please join us for a socially responsible cleanup event in Downtown Jacksonville. Anyone and everyone is encouraged to attend this free, family-friendly event as we spend a Saturday morning working together to help care for our riverwalk while taking in the scenic views its provides!

Gloves, trash bags, grabbers, etc. will be provided. Volunteers are encouraged to bring their own garden gloves, if possible.

Please RSVP by emailing rmezini@coj.net.

Designs for Ruby Beach Brewing Co.’s Downtown brewery and taproom cleared their final hurdle Sept. 10.

The Downtown Development Review Board voted 6-0 to grant final approval for the project proposed by developer Petra at 228 E. Forsyth St. in The Letter Shop building.

Ruby Beach will lease the 5,347-square-foot building from Petra. Built in 1904, The Letter Shop is a contributing structure to the Downtown Jacksonville Historic District.

Mark Vandeloo, president of Ruby Beach owner Zeta Jax Inc., announced in February the brewery would relocate Downtown from Jacksonville Beach.

The total redevelopment cost for the adaptive reuse project is $445,000, according to documents submitted to the Downtown Investment Authority by Zeta Jax and Petra.

Get the full story from the Jax Daily Record.

Trees and weeds grow through the floorboards on the fourth and fifth levels of the vacant office building at 218 W. Church St.

Alex Sifakis, president of JWB Real Estate Capital, said nature has “reasserted itself” inside the dilapidated historic structure, but he sees potential.

“I think that bringing these old buildings back to life is really important for Downtown. I mean, it looks like a fricking disaster, but we’re (JWB) used to this,” Sifakis said. 

The five-story, 26,500-square-foot building constructed in 1924 was purchased by JWB on Aug. 26 for $675,000. It’s the company’s latest investment in what Sifakis and three other development groups have collectively branded Downtown’s “North Core.”

JWB, Augustine Development Group, ACE JAX LLC and husband-and-wife team Jim and Ellen Wiss paid a combined $15.38 million for historic buildings and parcels in the Downtown neighborhood since January 2018. The four development firms have announced a total of $86.1 million in plans, with more in the works.

Get the full story on the Jax Daily Record.

JACKSONVILLE, FL (August 19, 2020) – The Downtown Investment Authority (DIA) is allocating $950,000 to support renovations of street-facing facades on old downtown buildings. The new DIA Storefront Façade Grant program will provide grant funding for the improvement of storefronts, and, if applicable, second story façades in the Downtown Jacksonville Historic District — located in the Northbank CRA — to activate the streetscape and the overall revitalization of Downtown Jacksonville. This program is focused on physical improvements to the exterior of buildings, unlike the DIA's Retail Enhancement Grant program, which is focused on the operating business and interior and exterior improvements required for such business operations.

The incentives take the form of a five-year, interest-free, forgivable loan. Applicants may receive funding at a maximum amount of $30 per square foot of eligible building façade. The grant is capped at 50% of eligible costs, with a maximum grant award of $75,000 per applicant. Eligible buildings must be at least 50 years old but need not be designated historic landmarks. Recipients of a Storefront Façade Grant must obtain all required authorizations from the Downtown Design Review Board, the Planning and Development Department, and any other necessary department or agency prior to commencing construction.

“We are determined to improve the appearance of our Historic District in Downtown,” says DIA CEO Lori Boyer. “This program helps building owners renovate deteriorating windows, doors, siding and the like without requiring historic designation which has been a deterrent for some. We are hopeful this added incentive will be what it takes to encourage owners to invest in exterior improvements that not only increase their building value, but also enhance walkability and overall Downtown values.”

Interested parties are encouraged to visit the DIA website for complete program information via
http://dia.coj.net/Facade-Grant-Program or by contacting Steve Kelley, DIA Director of Downtown Real Estate and Development at DIAPrograms@coj.net.

JACKSONVILLE, FL (August 13, 2020) – Officially launched in June 2020, the Downtown Investment Authority’s (DIA) Targeted Food and Beverage Retail Enhancement Program (FAB-REP) aims to cluster restaurants and bars in two distinct, walkable districts in the Central Core of Downtown: the Laura/Hogan Street Corridor and The Elbow Entertainment District. The DIA will incentivize investment through five-year forgivable loans to eligible businesses, funding capital improvements up to 50% of eligible build-out costs. Over $3 million is reserved for FAB-REP and incentives will be scaled by type of business. Eligibility requirements include certain dedicated hours of operation, service type, size and locations with ground-level access and street-level visibility. Applications will be evaluated on operator experience and other factors contributing to the success of the business to be operated on the site.

FAB-REP expands upon the DIA’s Retail Enhancement Program with a focus on food and beverage establishments to revitalize business corridors and underutilized or vacant buildings. The two FAB-REP districts will provide concentrated areas of dining and entertainment opportunities that are visible from the street, open beyond workday hours, and utilize unique place making efforts such as creative lighting, interesting public art and inviting outdoor spaces. To encourage more outdoor dining activity and place- making, a Sidewalk Enhancement loan may be awarded to those who qualify.

These activated streets will provide the urban lifestyle that many Downtown residents seek and promote small businesses by cultivating vibrant retail districts that will attract visitors. Further, patrons and business owners alike will benefit from the variety of options and the unique, walkable, and visually connected areas.

Since its recent launch, the FAB-REP has already welcomed two successful applicants – Ruby Beach Brewing Company and The Bread & Board. The DIA is equally excited and hopeful for both projects to break ground and is ready to welcome many more to Downtown’s central core.

“Now is the time to negotiate leases, design and build out new restaurants, bars, coffee shops and ice cream parlors so that they are opening a year from now when demand for these businesses will be booming,” expressed DIA CEO Lori Boyer. “This program is designed to make that possible. The targeted districts will also enjoy free garage parking at night as well as planned art, lighting and infrastructure improvements. Please join us in creating the vibrant Downtown we all want to see.”

Interested parties are encouraged to visit the DIA website for complete program information via
http://dia.coj.net/FAB-REP or by contacting Steve Kelley, DIA Director of Downtown Real Estate and Development at DIAPrograms@coj.net.

The City of Jacksonville Development Services Division is currently accepting Dockless Mobility permit applications for the 1 Year Pilot Program. Applications will be accepted from Thursday, July 23, 2020 - Monday, August 17th, 2020 at 5:00 p.m. The new program will allow permits for providing dockless bicycles, electric scooters and electric bicycles within the City's right-of-way. All interested parties are encouraged to submit applications.

Please direct any questions to Ellyn Cavin, P.E. at 904-255-8205 or ECavin@coj.net.

​DOCKLESS MOBILITY APPLICATION FORM

Please email all completed responses to reviewgrp@coj.net. 

JACKSONVILLE, FL (July 29, 2020) – The Downtown Investment Authority (DIA) closed on the sale of a key Downtown parcel to Minneapolis-based Ryan Companies US, Inc. (“Ryan Companies”). The DIA, acting as the Community Redevelopment Agency for Downtown, issued a Notice of Disposition for the City-owned property and voted unanimously to sell the land to Ryan Companies at the full $2.6 million appraised price. Proceeds from the sale will be used to support and fund Community Redevelopment Area infrastructure projects Downtown for the betterment of the community and the City at large.

Ryan Companies will build the new 162,000-square-foot JEA headquarters for Jacksonville’s electric authority in the Central Core at 325 W. Adams St. Plans call for an adjacent 657-space garage with 10,690 square feet of activated ground floor space. Emphases were placed in honoring the downtown skyline by designing with outdoor workspaces affording views of the courthouse lawn, the St. Johns River and the historic Hemming Park. Total project investment is $72.2 million.

“We are excited to partner with JEA and the DIA on this exciting project,” says Ryan Companies Senior Project Executive Mike Harryman. “We understand how vital it is to keep key businesses at the heart of the community and are happy that we can be a part of the team doing just that. Finally, we cannot wait to move into the construction phase of the project, which is anticipated to begin in August.”

The new headquarters, fully equipped with upgraded facilities, will allow JEA to serve its customers and the community, support economic development in the Downtown central business district and attract and retain an engaged workforce – all of which align with the DIA’s goals of retaining jobs Downtown and, as a result, increasing residential demand build around a quality workforce. The DIA is excited to welcome a world-class, class A office building to downtown and looks forward to construction.

“Thanks to Ryan Companies and JEA – this is a big win for DIA and Downtown! We are certainly pleased that we were able to place a vacant, undeveloped parcel in the heart of Downtown back into service and retain the JEA workforce in the Central Core,” says DIA CEO Lori Boyer. “This is the second major new office building project to close this year. We now have the opportunity to use the sale proceeds to complete the long overdue two-way street conversions of Adams and Forsyth, a project prioritized as far back as 2014.”

JEA’s new seven-story headquarters will break ground in September 2020 with a completion date in early 2022.

In a busy meeting Wednesday, the Downtown Investment Authority approved funds to support major projects to revamp vacant historic buildings, incentivize retailers to come downtown, incentivize the restoration of street-facing storefronts and provide some Covid relief to downtown tenants.

The board unanimously approved a $3 million Historic Preservation Trust Fund Grant to redevelop downtown's Independent Life Building. The 18-story, 165,000-square-foot building at 233 W. Duval St. was constructed in 1955 for the Independent Life Insurance Company, a business that closed more than 25 years ago and was designated a local landmark by City Council in April.

St. Augustine-based Axis Income bought the building, which is vacant, for $3.7 million last fall. It is across the street from the Ambassador Hotel, which Axis also owns and plans to renovate into La Quinta Inn and Suites. Axis is also planning to develop apartments and a parking garage on an adjacent vacant lot.

Axis expects to spend $30 million to convert the Independent Life building into 140 units of luxury apartments with a first floor grocery store, rooftop pool and rooftop restaurant. The term sheet, which must still be approved by City Council, requires Axis to begin construction within six months of the agreement's approval.

Board members were enthusiastic about the development.

"It could be as important, maybe more important, than even the Barnett building that has been redone," said Ron Moody, referring to the $53 million rehab of the former Barnett Bank headquarters. "I'd like to get behind this."

The location was as important as the project scope to board member Oliver Barakat.

"Hopefully this will be a catalyst of more to come on the northern end of downtown, which probably at this point is the weakest link in the downtown area," said Barakat.

The board also approved a multimillion dollar incentive program to entice and support a variety of food and beverage retailers in the urban core's Elbow District and Laura Street/Hogan Street Corridor. The program offers tiered forgivable loans based on the size and retail type of applicants.

The board also awarded that program's first loan to Ruby Beach Brewing, which is relocating from Jacksonville Beach to a 116-year-old building downtown. DIA's loan will cover $75,000 of the project's $445,000 budget.

In Wednesday's meeting, the DIA amended a $950,000 grant program to support renovations of street-facing facades on historic buildings, changing the amount recipients can get from $10 per square foot to $30 per square foot. The grants are still capped at 75% of eligible costs, with a maximum payment of $75,000.

​Get the full story from the Jacksonville Business Journal. 

A Downtown Investment Authority board committee unanimously approved its first applicant for DIA’s Food and Beverage Retail Enhancement Program, which could be approved by the full DIA board next week.

The Downtown retail incentive program must be approved by the full DIA board before any grants can be awarded. DIA CEO Lori Boyer said May 20 she expects the board to consider final passage of the food and beverage incentive at its June 17 meeting.

Ruby Beach Brewing Co. is requesting a $75,000 forgivable loan from the program. The money will be used for build-out costs for its second phase of construction, which includes a taproom, second-floor event room and outdoor patio space at 228 E. Forsyth St., according to the application.

The application was included in the DIA Retail Enhancement and Property Disposition Committee meeting agenda packet.

Phase two is expected to cost $337,100. Landlord 228 Forsyth Inc., owned by Petra Realty’s Chris Hionides, will have to contribute $286,500 toward the second-phase costs, according to the program’s requirements.

The DIA board must approve the application, expected at the June 17 meeting. 

Board members Jim Citrano, Oliver Barakat, Carol Worsham and Todd Froats serve on the committee.

The company’s ability to succeed Downtown is a major factor in approving its application, said DIA CEO Lori Boyer. The application requires a business plan, market analysis, sales forecast and cash flow analysis to prove it will be solvent Downtown. 

“They are bringing their successful operation into Downtown Jacksonville, I think that’s a wonderful sign, the type of activity we are hoping to drive,” said DIA Director of Downtown Real Estate and Development Steve Kelley, who presented the application to the committee. 

Get the full story from the Jacksonville Daily Record. 

St. Augustine-based Axis Income Fund is seeking a $3 million Historic Preservation Trust Fund Grant to redevelop downtown's Independent Life Building.

The 18-story, 165,000-square-foot building at 233 W. Duval St. was constructed in 1955 for the Independent Life Insurance Company, a business that closed more than 25 years ago.

Axis Income bought the building, which is vacant, for $3.7 million last fall. City Council gave the building landmark status in April.

The developer expects to spend $30 million to convert the building into 140 units of luxury apartments with a first floor grocery store, rooftop pool and rooftop restaurant.

Axis plans to employ 100 people over 14 months at the building, including 55 grocery store employees, 25 restaurant employees, 10 building maintenance staff and 10 leasing personnel.

Get the full story from the Jacksonville Business Journal. 

The Downtown Investment Authority wants downtown landlords to spruce up historic, street-facing buildings in the urban core, and the agency is willing to put its money where its mouth is.

DIA's Retail Enhancement and Property Disposition Committee will take its first look at a draft of guidelines for a facade grant program in its Tuesday meeting. The meeting is taking place at 1 p.m. over Zoom. A budget for the program has not yet been set.

The program is limited to those buildings more than 25 years old within the Downtown Jacksonville Historic District, as designated by the National Register of Historic Places Program, according to the draft guidelines.

Properties with completely restored facades are ineligible, and the incentives can only be used on facades that face streets. All use types are eligible, except parking garages without ground-floor business or residential space.

The incentives will take the form of five-year, interest-free, forgivable loans for up to half of eligible costs, with a $75,000 cap. The amount received will be $10 per square foot of the facade being improved, up to the caps.

Get the full story from the Jacksonville Business Journal. 

The Downtown Investment Authority is getting back to work after being put on administrative leave during the Covid-19 pandemic, and first on the agenda is revisiting a multimillion-dollar program to get retailers to come downtown.

Through a food and beverage incentive program the DIA planned to vote on in March, the agency is attempting to entice fine dining and fast casual restaurants, cafés, bakeries, craft brewers and distillers, bars, ice cream parlors and more to open downtown locations and invest in sidewalk and facade improvements that would make downtown more walkable.

The incentive program, which offers tiered forgivable loans based on the size and retail type of applicants, will be taken up by DIA's Retail Enhancement and Property Disposition Committee on Tuesday at 1 p.m. DIA is still meeting via Zoom.

DIA is intending to concentrate retail vibrancy in two corridors – the Elbow and the Laura St./Hogan St. corridor – which are located in the center of downtown, have some established retailers, could funnel pedestrians towards the Ford on Bay and the Landing and neighbor city-owned parking garages, CEO Lori Boyer explained in previous meetings.

Get the full story from the Jacksonville Business Journal. 

JACKSONVILLE, FL (June 1, 2020) – The Downtown Investment Authority (DIA) commends and recognizes the contributions of James (“Jim”) F. Bailey to the DIA Board. Mr. Bailey’s dedication and service in promoting the successful revitalization and redevelopment of Downtown Jacksonville – both as a board member and as former board chair – have been of tremendous value to the DIA since his appointment in 2012.

Current DIA Board Chair, Craig Gibbs, expressed his thanks to Mr. Bailey for his committed to the DIA Board, stating “For years, I have enjoyed the pleasure and the benefits of serving our city with our former DIA Chair, Jim Bailey. He deserves much of the credit for the Board’s smooth operation, and many of its outstanding accomplishments advanced during his tenure. For example, through his stewardship, the DIA increased the number of downtown residents, expanded the number of restaurants and entertainment venues, and obsessively focused on establishing diverse and varied downtown events. While we understand Jim’s desire to retire and spend more time with his loving family, we will nevertheless miss his keen insight and his profound wisdom of various aspects of our city. And we deeply appreciate the countless hours that he spent at City Hall — all which exemplify his deep and persistent caring, his abiding concern and his unwavering love for Jacksonville. We wish him well.”

As a longstanding business and property owner, Mr. Bailey has been a decades-long stakeholder within Downtown. In 1988, Mr. Bailey was appointed as a member of the Jacksonville Waterways Commission, serving from 1988 through 2002, and again from 2005 through 2009, ultimately serving a total of 17 years on that commission. In 2002, Mr. Bailey was appointed to the Sports and Entertainment Board, serving several terms through 2010. In 2004, Mr. Bailey was appointed to the Downtown Design Review Committee, which was renamed shortly thereafter to the Downtown Development Review Board. In 2009, Mr. Bailey was appointed to the Downtown Development Review Board, being reappointed in 2011, ultimately serving three full terms between the Downtown Design Review Committee and Downtown Development Review Board. In 2012, Mr. Bailey was appointed to the Downtown Investment Authority, serving for eight years as a member, and as the Downtown Investment Authority Board Chair from July 2015 through July 2019.

Mr. Bailey – through his dedication, leadership, commitment, and overall passion for Downtown – guided the Downtown Investment Authority from its inception into what has become the largest resurgence in Downtown Jacksonville in recent history. The Downtown Investment Authority recognizes and commends Mr. Bailey for his years of dedicated service to the Downtown Investment Authority, and for his decades of service to Downtown as one of its most dedicated champions.

Lori Boyer, Downtown Investment Authority CEO, greatly appreciates Mr. Bailey’s contributions to the DIA Board, stating, “I have had the pleasure to know and work with Jim for many years and I can’t think of anyone who has devoted more energy to Downtown activation, revitalization and development than Jim Bailey. He is truly a Downtown Hero! His hand has shaped and guided DIA from the beginning and our legacy will rest on his shoulders.”
 

Jacksonville, FL (May 27, 2020) – Oliver Barakat, Senior Vice President of CBRE, was awarded the Broker of the Year Award at NAIOP’s Awards Gala – Honoring the Best of 2019. Mr. Barakat had an exceptional year in which he completed 33 transactions totaling more than $47,000,000.  Notable deals include Haskell Company’s lease of 111 Riverside Avenue and Mayo Clinic’s lease of 4315 Pablo Oaks.  Mr. Barakat has been a member of NAIOP since 2003 and has held several prominent positions on its board, including Chapter President.

Mr. Barakat specializes in the leasing and sales of office space. After attending university and living in Washington, DC for eight years, Mr. Barakat moved back home to Jacksonville in 1996. He started with CBRE that same year as an Office Building Specialist. Since then, he has participated in lease and sales transactions worth over $500 million. Mr. Barakat achieves the maximum value for clients disposing of real estate and significantly reduces occupancy costs for clients acquiring real estate with market knowledge, financial analysis and skilled processes and procedures.

Mr. Barakat has significant experience Downtown. He has served on the DIA Board since 2012 where he continuously provides invaluable insights and guidance on the revitalization of Downtown Jacksonville. Additionally, his Downtown experience includes a seven-year stint on the Design Review Committee, a member of the JEDC’s Downtown Infrastructure Task Force (which helped create the Downtown Action Plan) and was also a member of Mayor Brown’s Downtown Transition Committee. His dedication to the DIA Board and the Downtown community at large is greatly appreciated. DIA CEO Lori Boyer expressed her congratulations to Mr. Barakat, stating, “Oliver’s understanding of the Jacksonville office market, in particular the Downtown market, is invaluable to the DIA. It is no surprise that his expertise and hard work have brought him success as a broker and earned him this recognition from his peers. I am truly grateful that he has shared those professional talents with DIA, Downtown and the City for so many years as a volunteer.”

JACKSONVILLE, FL (May 27, 2020) – William E. Adams was recently appointed to the Downtown Investment Authority (DIA) Board – a nine-member group appointed by the mayor and City Council – filling a seat formerly held by Michael M. “Marc” Padgett. Adams was appointed by Mayor Lenny Curry on March 10, 2020, initiating his first term ending June 30, 2022. DIA Board Chair Craig Gibbs looks forward to working alongside Mr. Adams.

“As a trial lawyer and mediator, Mr. Adams is, by virtue of his extensive education and experience, keenly aware of the many dynamics that go into solving problems. We trust that he will bring those same problem-solving abilities to our board. His abilities, legal and otherwise, should help the board to arrive at a fair, equitable and favorable bright future for all the citizens of downtown Jacksonville and accordingly, our surrounding communities. We all look forward to working with him for the betterment, growth, and improvement of our downtown, and we heartily welcome his service to our city’s Downtown Investment Authority.”

Mr. Adams is a co-founder and managing shareholder of Gunster’s Jacksonville office responsible for Gunster’s strategic growth in Northeast Florida. Mr. Adams is a trial lawyer who is dedicated to resolving complex commercial disputes across the country, covering a wide range of disputes affecting businesses. While each conflict has its unique aspects, Mr. Adams is focused on the efficient resolution of every matter in which he is involved. He works with his clients to define their business objectives and is committed to devising strategies that achieve the desired result. Mr. Adams is also a certified e-discovery specialist and leads Gunster’s eDiscovery practice.

Mr. Adams has been regularly recognized by Florida Super Lawyers (2012-18) and Florida Trend’s Legal Elite (2008-12, 2015, 2018). He received his undergraduate and J.D. from Southern Methodist University, where he graduated magna cum laude. Mr. Adams resides within Duval County, and in his spare time, Mr. Adams owns and operates First Coast CrossFit. Mr. Adams is actively engaged in leadership and community service efforts in Jacksonville. As a 2014 alumnus of Leadership Jacksonville, current board member of Downtown Vision, Inc., and curreninvolvement with the Leadership Council of the Delores Barr Weaver Police Center, Bill is committed to building a strong future for the Jacksonville community. His desire to elevate Jacksonville coupled with his dedication to revitalizing Downtown makes Mr. Adams an asset to the DIA Board and Downtown community at large.

“I am honored to have the opportunity to serve on the DIA Board and look forward to working with the other members of the board to continue improving downtown Jacksonville.”
 

Boaters could soon have a place to dock downtown: A half acre of city-owned submerged land near the Berkman and the Ford on Bay.

The Downtown Investment Authority board will vote next Wednesday whether to solicit a term sheet for a company to build and operate dockage under a 50-year lease, with a 25-year renewal option.

The DIA resolution states, "Additional dockage is being created as part of a larger marina development plan to bring more boaters into downtown Jacksonville."

The resolution formalizes what DIA CEO Lori Boyer has repeatedly told the board, that despite Spandrel Development Partners' lack of interest in building a marina, others were lining up for the opportunity.

Get the full story from the Jacksonville Business Journal. 

The Downtown Investment Authority is looking to hand out $3 million or more to attract retailers to the urban core, with hopes that more than a dozen grants can be handed out in the programs's first year.

A committee of the Downtown Investment Authority on Monday finalized the details of the program to support retailers who move downtown, which is part of an effort to make downtown more walkable and enticing to potential residents.

The DIA hopes to open the application process by April 1.

Through a food and beverage incentive program, the DIA is attempting to entice fine dining and fast casual restaurants, cafés, bakeries, craft brewers and distillers, bars, ice cream parlors and more.

The program targets two districts within downtown's urban core: the Elbow and the Laura/Hogan corridor.

DIA CEO Lori Boyer said she honed in on these districts because they neighbor city-owned parking garages, contain a mix of occupied and vacant retail space, complement her efforts to convert some one-way streets to two-way and could funnel pedestrians toward the Ford on Bay and the Landing.

Get the full story from the Jacksonville Business Journal. 

A pilot program that would bring dockless bikes, electric bikes and scooters to downtown Jacksonville was unanimously passed Tuesday night by the City Council.

The program is envisioned as a year-long pilot program that would have the vehicles confined to a geofenced area.

That area would stretch from I-95 east to Broad Street between Bay Street and Water Street, boarded by Broad Street and the Acosta Bridge on the west, Beaver Street on the north, Gator Bowl Boulevard on the east and the Northbank Riverwalk on the south — encompassing both TIAA Bank Field and the JTA's new headquarters.

Get the full story from the Jacksonville Business Journal. 

The two bidders who want to develop the Ford on Bay — the 8.4-acre, riverfront site that used to house the courthouse and city hall annex — pitched their ideas for the site Tuesday morning to the Downtown Investment Authority.

Each presenter had 45 minutes for presentations and 45 minutes for questions and answers from the scorers, which include Downtown Investment Authority CEO Lori Boyer, DIA board member Ron Moody and the city's deputy chief administrative officer, Stephanie Burch.

The city received only two responses to its request for proposals, with pitches coming from New York-based Spandrel Development Partners and Miami-based The Related Group.

Spandrel has constructed a number of mixed-use developments in the downtowns of Savannah and Charleston, as well as residential projects in New York City. Related Group has constructed condo, apartment, workforce housing and mixed-use developments throughout South Florida.

Boyer attributed the low bid count to the Hyatt's having the first right of refusal to buy the Ford on Bay parcels, even after a winning bid is chosen.

Get the full story from the Jacksonville Business Journal. 

Negotiators for Jacksonville Jaguars owner Shad Khan and the city have not drafted a final deal for his $450 million to $500 million Lot J development, but team leadership already is looking ahead to a possible Phase II.

Jaguars President Mark Lamping outlined the Phase II concept during an interview Jan. 21 to include two high-rise towers and a connecting parking garage that he said could be nearly $200 million on top of the investment in the first phase.

“Our hope was that Lot J would be a catalyst for other development. In fact, we’re already talking about the next phase of Lot J which would bring the total to around $700 million,” Lamping said.

Get the full story from the Jacksonville Daily Record.

Downtown Investment Authority CEO Lori Boyer, hot off the heels of recommending a major shift in downtown retail incentives, laid out a wholistic strategy to rethink downtown parking in a Friday subcommittee meeting of the DIA.

Her presentation built from a Haas parking study that the DIA received last year, which recommended the creation of a garage shuttle system, an increase in street parking rates, reallocation of parking spaces at troubled city-funded garages owned by Metropolitan Parking Solutions and more changes.

Boyer's recommendations addressed many of the same concerns, but focused especially on implementing variable pricing for on-street parking, restricting short-term reservations of on-street parking, implementing mobile payment and pay-by-space or pay-by-plate options, moving city employee parking to economy lots and creating a shuttle system.

The goals, Boyer said, are "to encourage growth and redevelopment downtown, prioritize residential growth, retail activation and job growth – in that order."

Get the full story from the Jacksonville Business Journal. 

The Downtown Investment Authority is considering a targeted incentive program aimed at creating two vibrant restaurant and entertainment corridors in the heart of downtown.

Under the program, which Downtown Investment Authority CEO Lori Boyer presented in a Tuesday morning subcommittee meeting, retailers would be enticed to concentrate along Laura, Hogan, Forsyth and Bay streets by providing free or discounted city parking, rent control, grants for facility improvements, grants for sidewalk uses and incentives pegged to square footage and use type.

Boyer chose the two areas, known as the Laura and Hogan Corridor and the Elbow, because they had a significant inventory of vacant space while also having a concentration of retailers to build upon, were located near the city-owned Ed Ball and Yates garages and are oriented towards the sites of the former courthouse and the Landing, both of which the DIA expects to sell this year for development and riverfront activation.

Get the full story from the Jacksonville Business Journal. 

The Downtown Investment Authority will be asked to make many major decisions in 2020.

What will replace the Landing and the former courthouse? How should Shad Khan's Lot J plans be incentivized? How can a growing number of downtown employees be supplied with sufficient parking? What support do retailers need to create a vibrant downtown that is open outside of workday hours?

CEO Lori Boyer has been growing her team to handle this workload. Steven Kelley is the latest addition, starting his role as director of downtown real estate and development earlier this week. Kelley has a long career in community banking, with stints at TIAA, Iberia, SunTrust, Bank of America and Barnett.

Kelley discussed his new position in an interview with the Business Journal. This interview has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.

Get the full story from the Jacksonville Business Journal. 

VyStar's campus. The rebuilding of the Ambassador Hotel. The open question of what happens to the sites of the former Duval County Courthouse and the Jacksonville Landing.

Downtown may be at a tipping point, with projects underway and those slated to be developed in 2020 perhaps setting the stage for a more successful urban core.

What will become downtown's focal point? What will join the riverfront at the site of the former courthouse? Who will take on First Baptist's 11-acre urban core parcel, and what will it become?

The answers to some of those questions will come more quickly than others.

The DIA will pick a winning bid for the courthouse site, now dubbed the Ford on Bay, in February and is expected to bid out the Landing site soon after. Meanwhile, First Baptist Church is in the process of selling off several key acres of its downtown campus, looking to sell its properties as one parcel for a single use.

Some downtown questions, however, remain unanswered. Perhaps the biggest one: What is the future of Berkman Plaza II, an unfinished shell that has been part of downtown's skyline since 2007?

Last week, the Business Journal sat down with Downtown Investment Authority CEO Lori Boyer for a public conversation about how she'll approach downtown growth in the months ahead. 

Get the full story from the Jacksonville Business Journal

Approximately 40,000 programmable LED lights have been installed along Laura Street in Downtown Jacksonville.

Called the “Lights on Laura,” the installation spans 40 trees from Duval to Water streets, according to Downtown Vision.

The lights can generate millions of different hues and will be programmed to celebrate seasons, holidays and major events.

Get the full story from WJCT Public Media.

Jacksonville’s Downtown waterfront will look very different in 2020 with a host of projects underway that will significantly change the view.

At the top of the list is The Jacksonville Landing, where demolition is scheduled to be completed by May 28, 2020, at the latest.

Whether the Landing property will be reopened to the public following the demolition is still an open question, according to Downtown Investment Authority CEO Lori Boyer.

“I would hope that it would be available, but, understand, we are trying to be in a position where this could be put out for bid as early as March,” Boyer said.

So while the short-term plan does call for grass to be planted, the posibility of public events at the location will depend on how quickly the bid process goes.

Get the full story from WJCT Public Media

Downtown Investment Authority CEO Lori Boyer offered some perspective on two of downtown's most valuable, soon to hit the market properties: the Landing and First Baptist's 12-city-block campus.

Boyer addressed the Landing, the 32-year-old downtown fixture that is now being demolished, and the First Baptist parcels, which the church is selling as maintenance costs rise and attendance is declines, at the BOMA Jacksonville meeting Tuesday.

Get the full story from the Jacksonville Business Journal

A $6 million renovation and improvement project is expected to get underway in the spring that will bring state-of-the-art water and sound shows to Friendship Fountain and its surrounding Southbank park.

Technology has come a long way since the big fountain overhaul that was completed in time for Jacksonville’s 2005 Super Bowl and the last major renovation that was done in 2010 at a cost of $3.1 million.

The fountain has experienced a number of mechanical failures and repairs over the years, limiting its function, but the fountain’s redesign is being described as "water cinema": elaborate light shows with spray patterns coordinated with colors and music.

Planning for the upgrades at St. Johns River Park, more commonly referred to as Friendship Park, dates back to when Downtown Investment Authority CEO Lori Boyer was on the City Council.

Get the full story from WJCT Public Media

A Miami developer with several Jacksonville properties is considering building downtown's tallest building on the site of the former Greyhound station, Downtown Investment Authority CEO Lori Boyer said Monday on WJCT's First Coast Connect.

"I can tell you that the developer has come into my office and showed plans for a 54 story tower," said Boyer. "You know, they are a ways off from that, and I don't know if that will become reality."

Get the full story from the Jacksonville Business Journal

In early 2020, the Downtown Investment Authority could begin a program to promote a dense corridor of restaurants in vacant ground-floor spaces in the Northbank core.

DIA CEO Lori Boyer says she’s working on a plan that will either modify the authority’s existing Retail Enhancement Grant Program or create an initiative to provide financial assistance targeting restaurants and businesses with higher build-out costs.

The plan will include a marketing campaign, connecting building and restaurant owners with Downtown Vision Inc. and jaxrestaurantreviews.com to reach potential customers citywide and bring them Downtown.

Get the full story from the Jax Daily Record

Gov. Ron DeSantis and Fidelity National Information Services Inc. Chairman, President and CEO Gary Norcross announced Friday that FIS will build a $145 million, 12-story, 300,000-square-foot world headquarters at 323 Riverside Ave. and create 500 jobs.

That confirms FIS is the code-named Project Sharp, a long-expected disclosure.

“Today is really a neat announcement, because we’re able to announce that FIS has decided to double down on its commitment to Jacksonville and build a new and expanded headquarters just a few hundred yards away on ground right here in Jacksonville,” DeSantis said in the lobby of the building FIS shares with Black Knight at 601 Riverside Ave.

FIS has been in Jacksonville for more than 15 years. Because of its $43 billion acquisition July 31 of Worldpay Inc., it needs more space.

Get the full story from the Jax Daily Record

The Downtown Investment Authority is set to adopt new land-use rules that would allow apartment and hotel developers to break ground faster.

Downtown projects are governed by the Consolidated Downtown Development of Regional Impact, a rigid set of guidelines that caps types of development. The state has already abandoned its version, DIA CEO Lori Boyer told the Business Journal, and the DIA is about a year away from doing away with Jacksonville's. In the meantime, the DIA is set to adopt revisions to the rules in its Oct. 16 meeting. 

Get the full story from the Jacksonville Business Journal

JACKSONVILLE, FL (October 9, 2019) — Craig A. Gibbs, Esquire was recently elected chairman of the Downtown Investment Authority (DIA) Board, a nine-member group appointed by the mayor and City Council.  Having served on the board since January 2014, Gibbs has contributed to the urban core’s myriad development projects including the Laura Street Trio, the reawakening of Hemming Plaza into Hemming Park, and the residential Lofts of Monroe, LaVilla and Jefferson Station.

Gibbs expressed his commitment to shepherding new projects through the DIA board process.

“Projects like the disposition of the former Duval County Courthouse/City Hall waterfront properties, the development of the Shipyard and Lot J, and the rejuvenation of the Jacksonville Landing site are crucial to revitalizing the city’s center,” said Gibbs. “I hope to use my many years of experience to support Mayor Curry’s continuing effort to promote a healthy and vibrant downtown.”

Gibbs was a two-term member of the former Jacksonville Economic Development Commission (JEDC) where he helped facilitate the addition of 1,700 new jobs generating $89 million in new annual payroll. He also served on the Jacksonville Super Bowl XXXIX Host Committee, which succeeded in bringing the first Super Bowl game to the city. A committed community advocate, he currently serves or has served on the boards of the Clara White Mission, the AME Housing Agency of Florida, the Jewish Family and Community Service’s Citizen’s Advisory Board, the Jax Children’s Commission and GlobalJax.
 

Another Downtown office building is slated for redevelopment.

St. Augustine-based Augustine Development Group bought the former Independent Life and Accident Insurance Co. home office building at 233 W. Duval St. Downtown for $3.7 million.

Bryan Greiner, president of Augustine Development Group, said Tuesday his group bought the 64-year-old building last week and plans to invest about $28 million in the 180,000-square-foot, 19-story structure.

The group plans to develop 140 market-rate apartments on the second through 18th floors, a grocery store on the 21,000-square-foot ground floor and basement, and a rooftop terrace with a pool, lounge and a high-end sushi and seafood restaurant on the top floor.

Get the full story from the Jax Daily Record
 

Project planners with The District, a proposed $600 million mixed-use development on the Downtown Southbank, are closer to groundbreaking by starting the permitting phase.

Susan Watts, project manager for Kitson & Partners, filed a performance schedule Friday with the Downtown Investment Authority. Kitson was hired in March 2018 to execute the development plan for The District.

Bill Schilling, vice president at Kimley-Horn & Associates Inc., said Thursday that The District will begin construction by April 13.

Get the full story from the Jax Daily Record

The Downtown Investment Authority voted Wednesday to partially terminate a lease agreement between Barnett Tower LLC and the city to construct a parking garage at the southwest corner of Main and Forsyth streets. 

 VyStar Credit Union will instead purchase the property for $943,403 to construct the garage.

As part of the terms of the agreement, it will construct at least 550 spaces, and lease up to 250 of those spaces to the city for tenants in the Barnett Building and Laura Street Trio.

Until the Laura Street Trio is complete, VyStar will lease up to 125 spaces to the city. 

Get the full story from the Jax Daily Record

The Downtown Investment Authority took a number of steps Wednesday to set the stage for a new, $145 million corporate headquarters along the St. Johns River, including giving away land and approving two incentive packages.

Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry began his second term July 1 at the same time former City Council member Lori Boyer stepped into her role as CEO of the Downtown Investment Authority.

Jacksonville City Council member Lori Boyer was selected as the Downtown Investment Authority’s next CEO.

Earlier this month, the citizens of Jacksonville witnessed the implosion of the Old City Hall Annex building on Bay Street.

Iguana Investments was awarded the right to develop the Shipyards and Metropolitan Park by the Downtown Investment Authority in April.

The Hotel Indigo won conceptual approval from the city’s Downtown Development Review Board.

The Downtown Investment Authority voted to support the building of a new convention center, with a hotel and parking garage.

Hopes are high for the latest effort to redevelop four downtown properties.