First Coast Energy L.L.P. is planning a two-story, mixed-use Daily’s project in LaVilla that will feature a rooftop bar, restaurant, neighborhood market and 16 fuel pumps.
Renderings for the Daily’s concept released Jan. 5 by the city Downtown Development Review Board also show logo signage for the Jacksonville-based craft beer company Bold City Brewing.
A spokesperson for First Coast Energy says the Bold City branding is to promote the local beers sold on-site and does not signify a formal agreement with the Jacksonville-based craft brewery.
The review board is scheduled to review preliminary designs for the project Jan. 12.
Plans in the board meeting packet say the second-floor Daily’s Dash Restaurant at the LaVilla site will be 4,139 square feet including stairwell access, storage and restrooms. The 4,125-square-foot rooftop bar/restaurant will include outdoor covered seating and a game area, the plan shows.
The LaVilla location will be the first two-story Daily's concept, according to the company.
The Bold City Brewery logo is shown as an exterior sign in the rendering submitted to the DDRB.
First Coast Energy, which owns and develops the Daily’s gas station and convenience store brand, paid almost $3.3 million in August 2020 for the 1.4-acre block bounded by Forsyth, Jefferson, Bay and Broad streets.
The company paid nearly $2.4 million for five parcels that include the site of a closed bank drive-thru and $900,000 for the land where the now-demolished Kartouche nightclub once stood.
First Coast Energy bought the 0.23-acre nightclub site from Law Building LLC.
It bought the bank site and four vacant parcels, totaling 1.17 acres, from lawyer Mark L. Rosenberg.
Bold City and Daily's have collaborated in the past in the release of the brewery's "Duval Light" beer.
"With regards to the Bold City Brewery sign, we plan to feature Bold City Beers at the store," said Max Glober, director of marketing for Petro Services Inc., the management company for First Coast Energy.
"We have no formal arrangement set in stone with Bold City Brewery, but we collaborated with them to release the 'Duval Light' beer a couple years ago. We are big supporters of their products and love to celebrate and feature local businesses," he said in an email Jan. 5.
Bold City co-owner Brian Miller said Jan. 5 that the brewery's Downtown taproom and testing space at 109 E. Bay St. that opened in April 2017 is healthy and there are no plans to relocate. He confirmed Bold City has not immediate plans involving the LaVilla Daily's.
The Jacksonville brewer’s offerings include craft beers including Killer Whale and Duke’s Brown Ale. Miller said Bold City first released Duval Light in April 2021.
When it meets Jan. 12, the design review board will have to decide whether to advance the project despite possible conflicts with the Downtown design code.
According to the board staff report, the mix of fueling stations, a minimum 5,000 square feet of restaurant space as well as at least one other permitted use like office or retail is allowed by exception in LaVilla’s commercial central business district zoning category.
The Downtown development design standards updated in 2019 discourages new surface parking lots.
The staff is recommending the site plan be changed to move parking to an interior structure or request a deviation.
The report says the Daily’s also may not meet the requirement that 50% of a newly constructed building’s ground-level walls be transparent.
The plans show a solid wall without windows facing Forsyth Street that will be for back-of-house operations. A mural shown on that wall does not reach pedestrian level, the report says.
“As such, a large expanse of solid wall is present at the ground level. This large expanse of solid wall appears to exceed 20 feet in width, which is inconsistent with the transparency requirements of the Downtown Overlay,” the report says.
The staff report says the Daily’s site plan also may not meet the code requirement that new buildings be pulled forward to the edge of the sidewalks/pedestrian zones.
In its report, the board’s staff recommended approval of the conceptual design with conditions to either correct the code discrepancies or submit requests to the board for deviations.
The DDRB operates through the city Downtown Investment Authority.
Glober said First Coast Energy will release more details about the concept at the Jan. 12 meeting.
Law firm Driver, McAfee, Hawthorne & Diebenow is listed on the DDRB filings as the project applicant representing First Coast Energy.
Jacksonville-based R. Wulbern Architect is the project designer.
England-Thims & Miller Inc. is the project engineer and landscape architect.
The contractor is C&R Contractors.
