Feeding Northeast Florida plans to open its new warehouse and office in Northwest Jacksonville in four to six weeks.
There is no set date yet for the opening of the $25 million, 110,000-square-foot facility, Susan King, Feeding Northeast Florida president and CEO, said April 17 during a pre-opening tour.
It is at 5245 Old Kings Road near Interstates 10, 95 and 295.
The two-story building, a former window plant built in 1956 with a new structure developed in 1970, is on 8.5 acres.
It received a full makeover with a new exterior and interior that combined separate buildings into one.
The Jacksonville-based food bank serves Baker, Bradford, Clay, Duval, Flagler, Nassau, Putnam and St. Johns counties.
For the first time, Feeding Northeast Florida will have all of its operations in one building. Until last year, it had staff and foodstuff in two separate facilities.
It sold its cold-storage warehouse at 1814 Industrial Blvd. in 2021 for $3.2 million.
The headquarters will allow the nonprofit to have offices on the second floor. King said she is the only one with an office, an 8-by-8-foot former guard shack, at its current 1166 Edgewood Ave. location.
Feeding Northeast Florida can now house 30 volunteers for food-packing events. The new facility will be able to accommodate 200 volunteers. The food bank hopes that more church and civic groups will want to get involved with the increased capacity.
There are separate cold and dry storage areas. Trucks can back into the warehouse to be packed and unpacked.
“We are not in the business of warehousing food,” King said. “We want to bring it in and move it out.”
She likened Feeding Northeast Florida to a trucking and logistics company.
Feeding Northeast Florida bought the Old Kings Road property for $3.47 million in 2021.
It is raising money to finish the renovation project and is $4.5 million short of the $25 million goal, King said.
There is a community aspect to the new headquarters. It will have a working professional kitchen that can prepare 3,000 to 3,500 meals a day. It will also be used as a teaching facility to train people how to cook.
A side yard has been prepared to be a vegetable garden. Not so much to feed people, but to educate where food comes from and what it looks like before harvest.
King said she would like the community to see the headquarters as a place for meetings and events. Space is set aside for that purpose.
The headquarters was built for growth. Before the coronavirus pandemic, Feeding Northeast Florida handled 17 million pounds of food annually. That grew to 30 million pounds during the pandemic and 35 million pounds in 2023.
“When speaking of food access, our goal is not to shorten the lines, but to end the lines,” King said.
