What do you do with an 88-year-old Downtown building with small floor plates but with views of the urban core from all sides of most of its 12 floors?
You renovate it so that prospective tenants appreciate it.
Downtown’s Greenleaf Tower, built in 1927 and longtime home to Jacobs Jewelers and Visit Jacksonville, will soon open to what owners hope is more business.
It’s a distinguished, well-recognized structure at 208 N. Laura St., across the street from the Laura Street Trio and the Barnett Bank Building and next to the former Snyder Memorial church.
“With the recent community efforts focusing on Downtown revitalization, I think the building is really well positioned to benefit from the new business growth and to help tenants by providing fun, creative space,” said asset manager Christopher Reibling.
The building comprises two floors of about 7,700 to 8,000 square feet each topped by 10 floors of about 4,400 square feet each, comprising almost 57,000 squre feet of usable space. It’s a few blocks from the Bryan Simpson U.S. Courthouse and the Duval County Courthouse.
It formerly housed law offices, evident by the bookshelves, a former law library and large corner offices throughout the building’s vacant floors. The Foley & Lardner firm occupied nine floors before relocating in 2004 to the Wells Fargo Center.
The Greenleaf Tower is just over 50 percent occupied, including software developer Feature , Shelly, Middlebrooks & O’Leary insurance agents and the Albertelli law firm. Albertelli owns its floor, having bought it when owners wanted to turn the building into office-condominiums before the 2007-09 recession, Reibling said.
However, owners have found that some tenants in the market need larger floor plates, so they head to other Downtown office buildings. Others want very small spaces, so they look to office-suites and other options.
To market the smaller floor plates, owner Taurus Investment Group is dividing and renovating the seventh floor into three office suites to lease to professional services firms who need 1,000 to 1,500 square feet.
The suites comprise three or four offices each, with a reception area and some amenities.
“I’ve had 1,500-square-foot tenants knocking on my door for years,” Reibling said.
Without a way to serve them, he loses those prospects to other buildings.
He said at least six prospects are interested in the three suites, which are available for 3-5 year terms.
“It wouldn’t surprise me that we would subdivide another floor in another three or four months,” he said.
Reibling has another project there, too. He is starting work on the “atrium office,” which is 14,000 square feet of space for a single user among the third, fourth and fifth floors, enclosed within an atrium area and connected by a spiral staircase as well as the elevators.
He is preparing to gut and renovate the third floor into a more open floor plan that can be used for community and social events while being marketed to tenants looking for an unusual but distinctive
space.
The atrium is inside the glass with an outdoor rooftop patio area. Reibling intends to upgrade the patio on the third floor so users can take advantage of the view of North Laura Street and Hemming Park from the second-floor rooftop.
There have been two prospects for the space — a professional services firm and a school. He wouldn’t disclose their identities.
The tenant leasing the atrium space would have signage rights on the building.
Reibling estimates a $230,000 investment in the third- and seventh-floor renovations.
He is a member of the family that established Taurus, a global real estate private equity company that was founded in Germany in 1976. Taurus US was founded in 1984 in South Florida.
Taurus bought The Greenleaf Tower in 2006, just before the real estate market collapsed and the recession set in. Reibling said five floors were under verbal agreement to close as office-condos within the first month of owning the property.
Then Florida investor Cameron Kuhn came to town and announced he would convert the SunTrust Tower into condominiums. Greenleaf prospects, and other office-condo buyers, put their plans on hold, and Greenleaf ended up with one floor sold.
Reibling took over as asset manager in 2009, marketing the building for lease.
Visit Jacksonville moved in during 2009. He said Jacobs Jewelers has been a tenant for several generations.
Also known as the Greenleaf-Crosby Building, the structure was built in 1927 and renovated in 1985 and 1999. Its roots stretch from Damon Greenleaf, who arrived in Jacksonville from New York two years after the Civil War ended. He opened a jewelry store along Bay Street.
In 1880, J.H. Crosby joined the company, which became known as the Greenleaf & Crosby Co.
After the Great Fire of 1901 destroyed the store, Greenleaf and Crosby moved two blocks down Bay Street and 25 years later, they needed more space.
They first decided to build a six-story building at 208 N. Laura St. They then chose to build 12 stories on the south end of the building and to later build to 12 stories on the north end, but that has remained a two-story space.
Taurus also owns significant suburban projects, including the Meridian Business Park, which is fully occupied by Deutsche Bank; Greystone Business Park; Central Park and Central Park East, both along Philips Highway; and the One Deerwood office building in the Deerwood South office park.
Diocese renovating Holy Family parish, considering St. John Paul II
The Diocese of St. Augustine is renovating and rebuilding at Holy Family Catholic Church in Southside and applying for preliminary approvals for the St. John Paul II mission church in Nocatee.
Diocesan spokeswoman Kathleen Bagg said a two-story building planned at Holy Family, at 9800 Baymeadows Road, will serve as a parish hall, offices and meeting space. She said it is a $4 million project.
Erik Kasper of Kasper Architecture of Jacksonville is the architect of the 23,000-square-foot building. Bids are going out this month and ground could be broken in mid-February.
Bagg said demolition on the existing office and rectory was completed over the Christmas holiday while students at Holy Family Catholic School were on break.
Meanwhile, the diocese applied to the St. Johns River Water Management District for St. John Paul II on 25.82 acres in northern Nocatee, which is in southeast Duval County.
Bagg said St. John Paul II would begin as a mission church of Our Lady Star of the Sea parish. It will be established as a parish when there are enough parishioners to financially support the church.
In the meantime, the Water Management District application from the Diocese indicates the eventual potential for a sanctuary, hall/office building, school campus and associated infrastructure developed among three phases and possibly a fourth.
It would be accessed by a road off of Valley Ridge Boulevard between Wingstone Drive and Joelyn Court.
Kimley-Horn and Associates Inc. is the engineering consultant. Environmental Services Inc. is the environmental consultant.
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