Colliers exec predicts vibrant urban core for Jacksonville by 2027 as developments take shape

Jacksonville’s long-anticipated downtown revival is no longer a distant vision — it’s rising from the ground, brick by brick. With cranes in the air, restaurants opening and multifamily units leasing at record rates, developers and stakeholders say the city’s urban core is entering a defining moment.

That was the message delivered at Downtown Vision Inc.’s quarterly stakeholder meeting June 10, where Colliers Urban Division SVP Matt Clark laid out an optimistic timeline for when downtown’s transformation will truly take hold.

“Everything is happening simultaneously, so you really will start to feel Jacksonville becoming a vibrant city in 2027 or 2028 when everything starts to come online and mesh together. So get excited and start believing,” Clark told the gathered audience.

With a number of major downtown and downtown-adjacent development projects now open (Pizza Dynamo and Pour House, the Jacksonville History Center at the Casket Company, One Riverside and the Corner on Main from Corner Lot, etc.) and under current construction (the Greenleaf Building from JWB, retail at One Riverside and the Pearl Square project from Gateway Jax).

Clark made no major announcements, but elucidated on the Colliers team’s comprehensive urban Jacksonville vision.

“I’ve always viewed Riverfront plazas as the roots of downtown, Laura Street as the trunk and now, Pearl Square is the canopy that everything will branch off of,” Clark said.

While the city undertakes Jax Riverfront Plaza redevelopment, two stories of the seven-story, 205-unit building at 515 Pearl St. has already risen from the ground. And just two weeks ago, ribbons were cut to begin phase two — a 286-unit mixed-use project at 425 W. Beaver St.

Residential availability and subsequent concentration are the keys that will unlock the broker’s ability to populate the urban core, according to Clark.

“Pearl Square is going to create the residential density to create a neighborhood of people living downtown, which is what we've been missing,” Clark said.

For downtown developers, the question has always been if builders can achieve optimum residential occupancy rates. The adjacent One Riverside project (just across the river in Brooklyn) has elicited the highest multifamily rates that Colliers has seen in Jacksonville. The young professionals excited to move into this new urban development suggests the possibility of success for projects like Pearl Square.

“The opportunity has always been there,” Clark said. “We’re just now beginning to deliver on that.”

As phase one and two come together, Colliers’ job is to create retail density for approximately 40,000 square feet of retail space that the project will create.

While names will slowly be released over the next few months, Clark said that a number of national brands intend to sign on to open up on Beaver and Pearl streets, including an anchor grocer.

This is similar to the adjacent One Riverside project just across the river in Brooklyn. With Whole Foods signed on and now under construction, retailers followed. Clark reports that One Riverside’s retail is now 100 percent leased with names that will be announced in the coming weeks.

With at least 50 vacant storefronts downtown and numerous cranes to signify urban rebirth, national brands from Atlanta, Charleston and Nashville, don’t want to miss out on this growth. Simultaneous projects and new retailers also allows for each brand to distinguish itself, as aligned to Gateway’s urban theme.

“We really want to shape places that look and align to the community as well as give distinction to their brand,” Clark said.

The eventual grocer, for example, is going to be allowed to design according to their brand as well as to their local presence to establish “an authentic feeling there.”

As national brands come in, this gives local brands more confidence to make the significant investment in a downtown that has not always followed through on its promises. As evidence of this claim, Clark said that Colliers has four signed letters of intent from four “significant” local groups.

For its part, DVI is proud of the years-long alignment civic and private alignment that’s led not only to billions of dollars in downtown development, but that’s now generating confidence in the city’s populace and interest from its small businesses.

“It’s so refreshing to see this collaboration. It just goes to show that, in working towards a more vibrant downtown, that we’re all in this together,” Eduardo Santos, stakeholder engagement champion at DVI, told the Biz Journal.