VyStar Credit Union is building a seven-story parking garage at 28 W. Forsyth St., between Main and Laura streets, a block from the campus.
At the garage’s groundbreaking in August 2021, 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.
The garage includes more than 12,000 square feet of ground-floor retail space.
“There are some people who we know in this room that are talking about bringing a CVS or a Walgreens in,” panelist Laura Phillips Edgecombe said at a discussion after the Feb. 11 Jacksonville Women’s Network tour.
Edgecombe, director of development for the Build Up Downtown advocacy group, was seated next to VyStar Commercial Property Manager Rosalyna Avila.
“Yes, we’re trying,” Avila responded.
Avila said after the discussion that VyStar is trying to bring retail uses to the garage space. She said there was a prospect for the space facing Main Street.
She said the 7,000-square-foot space facing Laura Street could be a drug store but that there was no confirmed prospect.
Avila followed up the afternoon of Feb. 11 with an email:
“The Main Street side is projected to have 5,487 square feet of space and the Laura Street side is expected to be approximately 7,385 square feet of retail space. As mentioned, we have one prospect for the Main Street side but are still on the hunt for retail vendors for the Laura Street side,” she wrote.
“It would be wonderful to partner with retail organizations that can serve the community and the upcoming Laura Street Trio project.”
The site is across the street from the proposed Laura Street Trio commercial, hotel, restaurant and apartment project.
She said she could not share information about the tenant for the Main Street space.
The panel discussion on the 22nd floor at the VyStar Tower featured Avila; Edgecombe; Briehn Wildman, RS&H senior interior designer; and Carmen Mantay, vice president of brokerage and international director with the NAI Hallmark real estate firm.
Jacksonville-based RS&H is an architecture, engineering and consulting firm.
