The Shipyards is the center of what is being called the “Billion Dollar Mile” and you’ll soon start seeing construction. When the entire project is completed, and that may be 20-plus years from now, it will extend from Berkman Plaza near the courthouse to the Kids Kampus adjacent to
Ch. 7.
The project is being developed by the TriLegacy Group of Jacksonville in partnership with national developer Henry Lambert. Daily Record editorial director Fred Seely sat down this week with two of the key men on the project, TriLegacy’s Jeff Spence and attorney Ham Traylor, for some questions and answers.
Question: When will we see something going up?
Traylor: The first thing will be the public park area. Right now, it’s the big pile of dirt that you see. In the next few weeks, building materials will be coming in so the place will look ugly for a while. But, you’ll quickly see progress.
Q: What’s the
first living space?
Spence: A six-story condominium named One Shipyard Place is the first to be built. It has three buildings and sits directly opposite the Ch. 12 property. There will be 100 units.
Q: When will
you start on the condos?
Traylor: We’re getting close. We’re to the point where we can give contractors specifics on what we want, so they can get with their subcontractors and develop a price for us. We have a good feel for the cost, maybe within a point or two with what they’ll bid.
Q: And the current estimate on One Shipyard Place?
Traylor: Well, the actual construction will be around $46 million. That’s only for the construction. Add the architect fees, bank fees . . . everything else that goes into a major project, and the cost will be $55-56 million.
Q: For 100 units?
Traylor: For 100 units.
Q: A lot.
Traylor: Take the landscaping alone. It’s being done by Sasaki Associates, who might be the best in the nation. That’s $1.6 million. And, these are buildings faced with brick. We could have gone cheaper, like with stucco, but we want to make a statement about our quality.
Q: The prices run from what…a half million to way over a million?
Can you get that here?
Spence: (laughing) We better! (Editor’s note: according to the published price list, there will be units as low as $450,000. The high is $1,185,000, which buys a 3-bedroom penthouse on either corner of the top floor of the central building.)
Q: So, who’s going to buy. Locals, out of towners?
Spence: A mix. But the critical mass will have to be local.
Q: How are
you marketing it?
Traylor: We’re advertising in high-end publications around here. We’re in the regional edition of the Wall Street Journal and the Atlanta newspaper. We’ll probably do something in a slick South Florida magazine. The realtors feel the Atlanta-Charlotte market is where we’ll get interest.
Q: What’s going
to be the appeal?
Traylor: For one thing, there hasn’t been a condo project on the river since . . . well, maybe since the Ortega Yacht Club in the early 1970s. Condos went out of fashion for a while, plus it’s more expensive to deal with banks when you’re building condos. That’s why you see apartments; easier financing.
Spence: We think people will want to live downtown. They can go to the beach and pay the same, but they can get a better place for the value here, and they’re downtown. Downtown really has an appeal.
Q: Why the appeal now,
and not in the past?
Spence: The Chamber’s Downtown Council had what they called a ”Hard Hat Tour” on Saturday. Last year, they did it and got 50 people. This year, they had over a thousand, maybe 1,500.
Q: Why more?
Spence: People from Jacksonville have to be shown. Last year, there was nothing but talk. This year, Berkman Plaza is out of the ground, the Cathedral project is underway and Vestcor’s activity [Lynch Building, old Roosevelt Hotel] is evident. You can SEE stuff. It’s real. Downtown housing is a reality. I was one of those in the stadium (in 1979) when we had the “Colt Fever” night, when (Baltimore Colts owner Robert) Irsay flew in and was talking about moving his team. We wanted to believe. And it got us excited that someday it might happen, that we could get an NFL team.
Q: So what’s the appeal for One Shipyard Place?
Traylor: Downtown living an a secure, yet open, environment. It will be first class. Look at that kitchen [in the sales center.] That’s a $40,000 kitchen. That’s what we’ll have. You can’t get much better than that. There’s the appeal of the water — you can have your boat within a few feet. And we keep coming back to the downtown factor. If things are active, and they will be, it’s going to be a great place to live.
Spence: People from other cities have seen it happen there. Atlanta, Charlotte. We haven’t seen it, so maybe we don’t believe it. But they’ve seen it elsewhere. When a prospect comes from Atlanta, he can visualize the future here.
Traylor: Look at the way the building sits and its set-up. Remember, the project is open to the public — the Northbank Riverwalk runs through it. But, even though you’ll feel that One Shipyard Place is part of the park, it’s secure. The building is on top of the parking garage. If we’re standing on the patio, looking out into the river and right over the Riverwalk, we’re 10 feet above anyone walking there and we’re separated by a wall. The building will be secure, and there are elevators from each part of the building.
Q: Talk about the marina.
Traylor: There are 70 slips and we think that will be more than enough. Our research on similar projects, such as in South Florida, indicate that 25 percent of the residents will have a boat.
Spence: I think it will be higher here because boat people in Jacksonville don’t have a place like this, a place with the marina being part of the project and so close.
Traylor: The early interest seems to indicate 50-50. If there are slips left, we’ll consider leasing them to non-residents.
Q: How’s the view?
Spence: See this piece of the park [pointing at the model to a strip of land extending from One Shipyard Place to the river]? That’s over 100 yards long. More than a football field. So, you’re looking at a lot of grass as well as the river.
Q: Why not a
gated community?
Traylor: Let me answer that because it’s the Spence family’s money. These people want to do things correctly. They could have walled everything off, but that wouldn’t have benefited the community. They could have made money off every square inch. Just things for sale. But, they’ve put in 17 acres of public parks. The Spences have been part of Jacksonville for generations and they aren’t going to spoil things. I know that sounds like p.r., but it’s true.
Q: And what next?
Spence: The park is underway. The 100-unit project (One Shipyard Place) starts in the late summer. We had hoped to have it going by now, but Sept. 11 turned out to be a big factor. We think that’s now behind us. After we finish One Shipyard Place, we’ll see where we go next. Probably to one of the residential towers to the east [toward Ch. 7.] This is a long term project, like we’ve said from the start.