CROP Creative Media will relocate from the Baymeadows area to Kings Avenue, joining the San Marco-area corridor that has sprouted other building renovations near the Downtown Southbank of the St. Johns River.
“On that street, everything is coming back so nicely,” said CROP majority owner and President Jennifer Adams.
Jacksonville-based CROP Creative Media will move by Sept. 30 from its 7807 Baymeadows Road E. offices into the former Southside Blueprint site at 1024 Kings Ave. Contractor Allen Stevens bought the building in January for $375,000 and is renovating it to CROP Creative Media’s specifications at an estimated $500,000.
Southside Blueprint moved nearby to 1889 Southampton Road.
Adams and the CROP Creative Media team hadn’t expected to move. She and co-owner and business partner Bill Scheerer, vice president, started the company in February 2012 and they intended to grow slowly. The four-person team moved into the Baymeadows offices of a former architect on a three-year lease.
Yet, several events changed those plans, specifically that the Baymeadows building was sold and the buyer is allowing CROP Creative Media to stay until Sept. 30.
In addition, the firm has grown to a team of nine, meaning that space became a challenge.
CROP Creative Media leases about 2,700 square feet now and looked for 5,000 square feet at several locations. None quite worked.
When Stevens bought the roughly 7,700-square-foot Southside Blueprint building from Southside Blueprint Service Inc., the plans fell into place.
CROP Creative Media will almost double in space by moving into 5,000 square feet and will still have another 1,150 square feet for a large studio and 1,550 square feet for storage and expansion. It has a five-year lease with three-year extension options.
“The best part is him allowing us to design the space,” Adams said of Stevens. “It will look and feel like our property.”
Group 4 Design Inc. is designing the space, which will include two main edit suites that accommodate clients to participate; two graphics suites; a sound design suite and an audio-recording booth; offices; a conference room; a reception area; a café/kitchen; and the 1,150-square-foot studio.
There also are bay doors and a small courtyard. The structure, built in 1959, was a gas station years ago, Adams said.
“The goal is to make it exciting for the clients,” she said. “We’re not a widget company. It’s art.”
Stevens is president of Dav-Lin Interior Contractors Inc., which is handling the renovations.
The company will reuse its existing furniture and supplement as needed.
Scheerer said the move takes the company closer to some of its clients. A perk is that it also is near San Marco restaurants.
The address also is near the Kings Avenue parking garage, a Skyway station and the Southbank Riverwalk and, when it starts again, the water taxi service.
CROP Creative Media is a full-service video production and post-production company that works with advertising agencies, businesses, and nonprofit organizations. It specializes in TV commercials, corporate media, web content and documentaries.
Adams said team members have worked together on projects and in other firms for years before coming together as CROP Creative Media, making the firm seem older than it is.
Adams has more than two decades of experience as a writer, director and video producer. Scheerer is a video editor with more than two decades of industry experience.
“I never dreamed in 2½ years we would be in this position,” Adams said.
The Downtown Development Review Board of the Office of Economic Development is scheduled to consider some design upgrades Thursday.
Learning Experience being built in Flagler Center
The city approved the construction permit for Auld & White Constructors LLC to build The Learning Experience child-development center in Flagler Center in South Jacksonville.
The 10,000-square-foot center is being built on about an acre at 12550 Flagler Center Blvd. at a project cost of $975,000.
The Boca Raton-based Learning Experience indicated previously it wants to open at least seven centers in Jacksonville.
It has five centers open, enrolling or coming soon at 8411 Southside Blvd.,11945 San Jose Blvd., Oakleaf Village Parkway, River City Marketplace and 14770 Old St. Augustine Road. The Flagler Center location is the sixth.
Dollar Tree preparing University site
Riverstone Construction LLC landed a permit to take down the old ABC Fine Wine & Spirits store at 1631 University Blvd. S. to prepare the site for construction of a Dollar Tree.
Riverstone will demolish the 6,922-square-foot building, along with another 7,528 square feet of unenclosed space, at a project cost of $18,000.
Dollar Tree Stores Inc. paid $1 million for the 1.66-acre site, where the Chesapeake, Va.-based chain intends to build a store.
ABC Properties Ltd. sold the property May 14 to Dollar Tree, which intends to demolish the 44-year-old building and develop a 9,973-square-foot store.
Dollar Tree has more than 30 stores in the five-county area, including more than 20 in Duval County.
Port Jax expanding
Developer Bill Spinner is expanding the Port Jax Trade Center with what he says is the first speculative industrial building of any significance since 2009.
As a speculative building, no tenants are lined up, although Spinner said he has interest.
The city approved a permit for Spinner Construction to build the 70,512-square-foot Building 300 at 2629 Port Industrial Drive at a project cost of $1 million. Spinner is building the shell structure. Tenant improvements will be made separately.
Spinner is president of Spinner Construction LLC and managing director for Jax Green Industrial.
Spinner said in January that he expected to start construction on one 29,005-square-foot industrial building the first quarter at the Port Jax Trade Center in North Jacksonville and start the next phase, a 23,448-square-foot building, soon after that.
Spinner said this week he decided to build the larger Building 300 first.
Port Jax is about a mile from Dames Point and Blount Island and the port terminals there. Port Jax Trade Center is under development on 35 acres zoned industrial heavy and designated as a Foreign Trade Zone.
Port Jax eventually will be a nine-building, 600,000-square-foot development.
Spinner said its main tenants include the corporate headquarters for W&O, a global supplier of pipe, valves, fittings and other systems for the marine and oil and gas industries; the Americas headquarters for Hoegh Autoliners Inc.; the Jacksonville Division offices for the LewisGoetz hose, sealing and belting products company; and a warehouse for Venus Swimwear.
Auld & White announce succession plan
Jacksonville-based Auld & White Constructors Inc. announced Tuesday it has appointed a CEO and COO to lead the company in 2017 after a three-year succession transition.
Nathan Marty, with the company for more than 10 years in the public and commercial sectors, will be CEO and Tim Conlan, with the company for 22 years in the commercial and health care sector, will be COO.
They will succeed founders Steve Auld and Ed White, who will remain part owners and serve as advisers and mentors. White is president and Auld is senior vice president.
Auld & White, a commercial building firm, was founded in 1986. Its projects include work for Mayo Clinic Florida, the city of Jacksonville, the Duval County Public Schools, Gate Petroleum Co., Community First Credit Union, Wells Fargo, Vistakon and Baptist Hospital.
It recently completed Moxie Kitchen + Cocktails in The Markets at Town Center, a major renovation of the JAX Chamber headquarters and the Bartram Lakes Assisted Living Facility for Brooks Rehabilitation.
Auld & White will remain privately owned and based in Jacksonville. The company name will remain the same.
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