Downtown Jacksonville's most ambitious development in decades is accelerating.
Gateway Jax CEO Bryan Moll recently said Pearl Square — the nine-block, nearly $1 billion mixed-use project in the downtown Jacksonville — should see its first completed component at the end of the summer.
The project aims to bring more than 1,250 apartments, a boutique hotel, a Publix grocery store, restaurants, retail and green space to the heart of the city.
When will the first Pearl Square apartments be ready?
Soon, according to Moll. The project, years in the making, will see its first completed building likely in September.
It was the first Pearl Square project to break ground in October 2024, and will include studio, one- and two-bedroom units along with a club room, co-working spaces, a pet spa and a rooftop terrace with a pool and grills.
"This is the culmination of all that work, opening it up, [is exciting]," Moll said. "One of the reasons why it is harder to do these mixed-use urban projects is that they take longer, they are more complex — you are dealing with utilities that have been in the ground for decades. There is so much hard work and effort being done by hundreds of people to get a building done."
The Vandeveer's ground-floor retail will include restaurants and other food and beverage concepts. A Japanese restaurant from restaurateur Steve Palmer, of The Indigo Road Hospitality Group, is expected to be among the first to open.
Adjacent to the building, parks surrounding the historic Porter House Mansion — including a garden and lawn — will also be complete as part of the Vandeveer delivery.
What's the status of the Hotel Merrydelle?
The boutique hotel planned inside the historic former Ambassador Hotel is under construction and moving in phases.
Gateway Jax is currently performing work to make the building weather-tight, stabilizing a structure that has been exposed to the elements for years. The company has requested additional city approvals to complete work, including brick repair and window installation, before the full redesign can be wrapped.
When finished, Hotel Merrydelle will offer 110 hotel keys, a ground-floor Italian restaurant called Coletta, a cafe, a coffee shop and a hotel bar — all operated in partnership with Steve Palmer and Indigo Road Hospitality.
A parking garage being built just west of the hotel and south of the Vandeveer is also under construction. It will serve residents of both the Vandeveer and the hotel, as well as the Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department headquarters with roughly 100 spaces reserved for JFRD vehicles.
Moll said the hotel will open shortly after the Vandeveer, adding that this will help the Pearl Square area "to feel like a neighborhood again."
When is the Publix coming — and what happens to the old church building first?
Demolition of the former First Baptist Church auditorium is expected to begin sometime this month, clearing the way for what Moll considers the most important anchor in all of Pearl Square.
The structure will come down over the next several months. In its place, Gateway Jax plans to build a 35,000-square-foot Publix with a full pharmacy, 250 apartment units and on-site parking. The project, known as N7, is expected to be complete by the end of 2028, if approvals and construction proceed on schedule.
Gateway Jax is currently working with the Downtown Investment Authority and incoming city council leadership on an incentives package that could include completion grants to help fund the infrastructure supporting the building — not the grocery store itself.
Moll has been emphatic about why the Publix is non-negotiable for the project's success.
"For what we're creating downtown, a grocery store is absolutely critical to what we're producing," he said.
What is the N4 building downtown?
Passersby may see a building labeled "N4" to the north of the Vandeveer.
Gateway Jax is constructing a building at 425 Beaver St. with approximately 275 apartment units and just under 24,000 square feet of retail space. The project is under construction and expected to be complete in May.
A name for the building has not yet been announced, Moll said, but Gateway is in conversations with restaurant concepts from Atlanta and Denver for the ground-floor retail space, though no deals have been signed publicly.
What's happening with the old parking garages downtown?
Two parking structures in the Pearl Square footprint are being modernized as part of the neighborhood's retail activation strategy.
The Lighthouse Garage at 721 N. Pearl St. — formerly owned by First Baptist Church — is being partially renovated to add approximately 15,000 to 16,000 square feet of ground-floor retail along Beaver Street, creating a pedestrian shopping corridor. The upper floors will retain 693 parking spaces with upgraded lighting and an exterior elevator. That renovation is expected to be complete by the end of 2026.
The Hogan Street Garage, known as N6, will undergo a similar upgrade. Work is expected to begin at the start of 2027 and be complete by the end of that year.
"We want our parking to feel very seamless," Moll said.
Gateway Jax is also working with the city and the Florida Department of Transportation to redesign Beaver Street, reducing it from four lanes to two with a center turn lane and adding bike lanes and landscaping — connecting the retail destinations along the corridor.
What about the high-rise and office building?
Two more projects round out Pearl Square's Phase I pipeline.
N8, a 22-story high-rise, has begun site and foundation work and is expected to be delivered in late 2028 or early 2029. N10, located catty-corner to the Publix site on Beaver Street, will be a residential and retail building with a construction start anticipated for late 2027. Unit counts and retail square footage are still being finalized for that project.
What else is going on with downtown Jacksonville?
Moll said he believes downtown is at a tipping point.
"I don't want to say we're past the tipping point, but I think with those last buildings coming online, we're right there," he said. "I think the next year or two is going to be full of exciting things in downtown Jacksonville. When these buildings and parks and everything starts to come online and open is when you start seeing the proof."
He pointed to a wave of projects beyond Pearl Square that are converging in the next one to two years: the University of Florida welcoming graduate students to its Jacksonville campus this fall, the Everbank Stadium renovation beginning next year, the Riverfront Plaza parks, the Four Seasons hotel expected to open in 2027 and Whole Foods having recently opened at One Riverside.
"These projects don't take one or two years — oftentimes they take four years from permitting to building," Moll said. "I think when you see everything that is coming in the next couple of years, all of this is part of that tipping point."
Moll said his goal is for Pearl Square's Phase I to be substantially complete — residential, retail, hotel, parks and grocery — by the end of 2028.
"When we think of the project in totality, the most significant part of it will be done by the end of 2028," he said. "That is when the full energy of all of Pearl Square will be done and felt."Florida Times Union
