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'Renderings into reality:' A pair of projects in the heart of Jacksonville celebrate milestones

November 08, 2024

If and when the decades-long effort to revitalize the core of Jacksonville reaches fruition, a pair of events 25 hours apart in October 2024 will represent mileposts on the road to rebirth. 

At 10 a.m. Oct. 29, government and community leaders gathered for the groundbreaking for Gateway Jax, the proposed $2 billion-plus mixed-use development in Downtown’s NorthCore district near City Hall.

The next day, many of those same individuals turned out for an 11 a.m. ribbon-cutting for the proposed $37.9 million Phoenix Arts & Innovation District in North Springfield.

Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan said the two developments were among numerous public and private projects that were changing the face of Downtown and its immediate surroundings, including Springfield and the Eastside neighborhood near EverBank Stadium.

“When I was a little girl, Downtown was all that,” she told reporters after the Gateway Jax event. 

“We used to come down here and shop and eat and do all the things. So that’s always been my hope and my vision for Downtown is that we see it once again become a place where people want to gather.”

She said the back-to-back celebrations marked progress toward re-establishing the urban core “as the place to live, work and play in Northeast Florida and beyond.”

Developers inspire confidence

In many ways, Gateway Jax and the Phoenix district are markedly different. 

Gateway, at least in its initial phase, is mostly new construction, while the Phoenix revolves around adaptive reuse of warehouse and industrial buildings. 

Gateway, if fully built-out, comprises 28 acres across 24 city blocks. The Phoenix footprint is a fraction of that size, at 8.3 acres.

One shared element is that each is led by an outside developer who had successes elsewhere and has created public-private partnerships in Jacksonville. 

Gateway Jax principal Bryan Moll led the Water Street Tampa downtown redevelopment and the Amazon HQ2 National Landing site in the Washington, D.C., area.

Read the full story here.

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