The Jacksonville City Council Land Use and Zoning Committee voted unanimously April 2 to recommend legislation to rezone property to build Blue Angel Road in East Arlington.
The development will be a main access point in and out of the Amazon warehouse under development at Jacksonville Executive at Craig Airport at Atlantic Boulevard and St. Johns Bluff Road.
The Council is scheduled to hear the bill, Ordinance 2024-0153, at its April 9 meeting.
The 80-acre site was rezoned as a Planned Unit Development in 2022 so the 181,000-square-foot warehouse could be built. The legislation, introduced Feb. 27, rezones the property as a PUD, but makes necessary changes to allow for Blue Angel Road to be developed.
The new access point will provide one east-bound left-turn lane into the Duval Acura property, one west-bound deceleration and U-turn lane within the Atlantic Boulevard median for travel back to the east, the installation of two additional traffic signals and the unchanged location of the Sutton Road-Atlantic Boulevard traffic signal serving the Duval Acura property.
Council member Mike Gay, who is not on LUZ but joined the meeting, said he has received complaints about the rezoning from constituents who are confused about its purpose.
The Greater Arlington/Beaches Citizens Planning Advisory Committee notified Council, the Land Use and Zoning Committee and the Jacksonville Planning Commission on March 20 that it voted to recommend denial of the rezoning application.
At a Council public hearing March 26, four residents opposed the rezoning, citing traffic concerns.
“I’ve received several emails and communications in opposition to this. My question to Planning or whoever can answer this is, why are we even having to come back and revisit this when in 2022 this PUD was already in place,” Gay said.
“My understanding is all we’re doing is a road. It seems we’re approving the Amazon warehouse and it’s almost completed.”
Erin Abney, the city’s chief of current planning, said Blue Angel Road was originally identified as a potential secondary access point to General Doolittle Drive. Changing it to the main access point necessitated a PUD to PUD modification.
“It’s kind of a miscommunication of what’s happening here,” Gay said. “In the future we might address it a bit better.”
The Jacksonville Aviation Authority board unanimously voted to approve a ground lease agreement with Amazon Services LLC in July 2023 to build the warehouse.
JAA CEO Mark VanLoh told the JAA board March 25 it was “moving along rapidly.”
Occupancy is expected at the beginning of October.