A transformational Downtown development is being explored along Union Street with apartments, retail and other uses that would provide a new gateway vista into Jacksonville’s core.
“In my banking days, we thought about that as pioneering, but that is where the best opportunities are,” said Steve Kelley, Downtown Investment Authority director of Downtown Real Estate and Development.
“You create the market,” Kelley said May 12.
“That’s what we see happening here. It’s very aspirational.”
Called “super preliminary” by Kelley, the five blocks north of the North Core, including the prominent lighthouse parking garage at Union and Pearl streets, would be reshaped, renewed or redeveloped.
There is no guarantee a project will take place, and if one does, it likely would take years, if not decades, to complete.
Kelley did not provide details, but public records outline the potential scope.
At least 6 acres are envisioned for at least 1,260 apartments, retail and event space, parking and a 40,000-square-foot grocery store.
The site encompassing most of the four blocks bordered by Union, Julia, Ashley and Clay streets appears to be the heart of the project.
It also includes the block at Church, Pearl, Ashley and Julia streets where the Porter House Mansion sits.
Buyers operating through limited liability companies have been assembling the property primarily over the past year.
Kelley has almost 30 years in the banking industry, starting with Barnett Bank in 1991 and continuing through TIAA Bank in 2020, according to the DIA.
His role is to work with developers to structure capital to stimulate investment within the DIA boundary.
Complex assemblage
Prospects of the potential development surfaced as the properties were sold the past several months and then civil engineer England-Thims & Miller Inc. filed service availability requests with city utility JEA in April.
The requests seek to determine the water, sewer and electric connections as developers lay the conceptual groundwork to determine a project’s viability.
The development group is not fully identified, although Jacksonville-based JWB Real Estate Capital is involved as a seller and a buyer.
JWB could not be reached to comment.
Conceptual plans indicate a preliminary look at what might take place if the properties are fully assembled. The sites comprise at least 18 parcels.
Because the property is Downtown, the DIA would need to approve any investment assistance and redevelopment plans.
“We’re in the very early stage right now,” Kelley said.
He said the project is not expected to be presented to the authority until at least July.
Two of the pieces of property originally were owned by First Baptist Church of Jacksonville, Florida Inc. – the lighthouse garage at 721 N. Pearl St. and a 22,000-square-foot warehouse at 331 W. Ashley St.
The lighthouse element would be renewed, too.
Developers would “embrace, restore and rebrand” it.
Such property assemblage can be complex, with numerous buyers and sellers that might not be easily identified during the process.
The entities that have been buying the parcels, primarily over the past year, include limited liability companies represented by Contega Business Services LLC, which is housed at the Jacksonville-based Driver, McAfee, Hawthorne & Diebenow law firm that has represented developers that assemble Jacksonville properties for development.
Contega.com says it provides entity formation services and entity maintenance services, including registered agent services and fictitious name registration.
Contega is listed as the manager of the LLCs.
Underscoring the complicated nature of such deals, several groups have been selling the properties, but not all appear to have completed sales.
JWB has been on both sides of the sales in the five-block area.
Through LLCs, JWB leaders sold some of the property to the Contega-managed companies.
One of the deeds shows the buyer operates at JWB’s address.
Among the most visible properties, JWB bought the lighthouse garage and an Ashley Street warehouse from First Baptist Church in 2021.
Records show the Ashley Street warehouse has been sold to a Contega-managed LLC.
Building blocks
No overall name has been attached to the conceptual project.
For now, the five blocks are referred to as Block N-4, Block N-5, Block N-8, Block N-9 and Block-11.
Block N-9 is about half of a block and involves the one-story warehouse at 331 W. Ashley St.
The Residences at City Place at 311 W. Ashley St. comprises the other half of that block and does not appear to be part of the plans.
Contega Business Services LLC is the manager of five LLCs that are purchasing properties:
606 Pearl St LLC was formed Aug. 8, 2022.
Jax Porter LLC was formed Aug. 8, 2022.
Ocean Broad Ventures LLC was formed Aug. 15, 2022.
Osprey River LLC was formed Sept. 15, 2022. (A deed from one of the sales to Osprey River LLC gives the LLC’s address as that of JWB Real Estate Capital.)
Beaver Branch LLC was formed Sept. 23, 2022.
The conceptual plans
Block N-4: Consisting of at least five parcels, the 1.5-acre block comprises a 2,244-square-foot office structure built in 1953, and owned by lawyer Kevin Sanders since 2016, and vacant commercial uses at Union, Pearl, Beaver and Clay streets. Records indicate Sanders has not sold his property. Conceptual drawings illustrate a 12-story building with more than 50,000 square feet of retail, including a 40,901-square-foot grocery store, an almost 5,000-square-foot retail space and a lobby on the ground floor. The second floor is parking for 140 vehicles. The top 10 levels are for 393 apartments.
Block N-5: The 1.5-acre parcel is the lighthouse parking garage at 721 N. Pearl St., comprising five levels of parking among 228,000 square feet of space. It was built in 1998. Records show JWB still owns the property. Drawings indicate it will remain a garage with additional uses of 6,000 square feet of office space and 7,500 square feet of retail space, as well as the rebranded lighthouse.
Block N-8: Comprising at least nine parcels, the 1.5-acre block includes a parking lot and vacant commercial space at Beaver, Pearl, Ashley and Clay streets. Drawings indicate 575 apartments. The 22-story building includes 35,000 square feet of retail space, a 20,000-square-foot fitness center and 450,000 square feet of residential space. The building wraps around an amenity deck.
Block N-9: The 0.58-acre parcel is part of the block at 331 W. Ashley St., where a one-story, 22,000-square-foot storage building was built in 1997. Drawings show a 12-story building with a lobby, restaurant and retail space on the first floor, event space on the second and 10 residential floors for 100 apartments. One floor in the tower is shown as hospitality. There also is a reference to 23,830 square feet of office use.
Block N-11: An almost 1-acre parcel of the block at Church and Pearl streets is where the Porter House Mansion sits at 510 Julia St. The vacant property west of Porter House would be developed with basement parking topped by ground-floor retail space and a lobby and six levels of residential use above it. Conceptual plans show 192 apartments and 19,665 square feet of retail use. JWB paid $2.6 million in August 2020 for the site of the three-story historic structure at 510 N. Julia St. Through 510 N Julia LLC, JWB deeded parking lot property on the site to Jax Porter LLC on Aug. 18.
North Core and First Baptist Church
The five blocks are immediately north of the North Core, where JWB Real Estate Capital, Corner Lot, Augustine Development Group, Jim and Ellen Wiss and other developers have bought and are redeveloping many of the old vacant and deteriorating buildings.
The North Core generally is bounded by Beaver, Hogan, Duval and Clay streets.
If developed, the five blocks appear to tie into the renewal underway in the North Core.
The assembled blocks also are in or near the First Baptist Church footprint Downtown.
Jacksonville’s First Baptist Church has been selling its property rather than redeveloping it as it originally envisioned.
The church intended to sell a majority of its campus and consolidate to one block, but the pandemic ended that vision.
First Baptist Senior Pastor Heath Lambert said in January 2020 that six to eight “large buyers” were interested in the 11.29-acre property, but he announced Aug. 2, 2020, that the church would not pursue that plan.
He said those buyers ended communication after the onset of the pandemic in March 2020.
The church has been selling parts of the property since then.
One prominent sale was when, through subsidiaries, Jacksonville-based Corner Lot and JWB bought the First Baptist Auditorium on June 24, 2022, and prepared it for the interactive traveling “Beyond Van Gogh” art exhibit that opened Sept. 16.
They renamed the facility, at 119 W. Beaver St. and 712 N. Hogan St., the NoCo Center.
“Beyond King Tut: The Immersive Experience” opens there June 9.