by Bailey White
Staff Writer
The developers of the St. John’s Center, a mixed-use Southbank development that includes a high-rise apartment tower, The Strand, have announced plans for the second phase of the project.
American Land Ventures plans to build The Peninsula, a 30-plus story condominium tower that is slated to offer between 200 and 250 units.
One, two and three-bedroom layouts will be available and prices will range from the $200,000s to more than $1 million for the penthouses.
The decision to offer sale properties, in addition to rental units, was a recent one.
“We always knew that there would be two residential towers,” said Granvil Tracy, president of the Miami-based company. “But we thought originally that they would both be rental properties. Now that we’ve had more and more interest from the public, we saw that there was a real demand for sale property.”
The company recently installed a colorful wall along the site of the project, which advertises The Peninsula. According to Tracy, they’ve already received a fair amount of interest in the property.
“Generally, we’ve been hearing from people who work in and around downtown and who currently own houses and are downsizing,” he said. “And we’ve heard from people who are downsizing and looking into having a condo at the beach and a pied-a-terre downtown, a place they can spend the week.”
The response has been similar to what the company received on a Ft. Lauderdale project that in many ways resembles the St. John’s Center development.
“It’s also a project that is on the river, downtown, on the Southbank and it’s near an area called Rio Vista, a neighborhood that has a similar demographic to San Marco,” said Tracy. “We predicted we’d get a fair amount of people who worked in downtown, and it surprised us a little bit that we also got a somewhat older demographic of people who were interested in downsizing. We also saw a lot of who we termed reverse commuters — people who lived in Ft. Lauderdale and worked in Miami.”
Tracy has also noticed that the growth of Jacksonville’s downtown seems to be following the progress taking shape in Ft. Lauderdale’s downtown.
“We first conceived of the Ft. Lauderdale project in 1990, many years before there was interest in financing downtown housing projects,” he said. “The first phase was finished in 1997 or 1998, and what’s happened is that probably 3,000 more units have come downtown. From when we first started in Ft. Lauderdale, the change has been amazing. Every week I’m stunned; the streets are full of people and the retail venues are doing very well.”
Construction on the initial phase of the St. John’s Center, The Strand, is set to begin within 60 days.
The Strand will be a 30-story tower with 295 rental apartments. A variety of layouts include studios and one, two and three-bedroom units. Prices will likely fall between $900 and $2,000 a month, with some select units priced slightly higher. A 450-car parking garage is also included in the first phase.
Tracy said the demographic of people looking to The Strand won’t differ much from those interested in The Peninsula.
“They are people who have means to buy a home or condo, but choose to rent for a variety of reasons,” he said. “They want to get a sense of living in an urban environment, but want freedom and flexibility that goes along with renting.”
The third phase of the St. John’s Center will add office and retail space to the development, providing public space that Tracy said is an important component of the project.
“We encourage the use of public space in our projects,” he said. “The public space will be in the middle of the towers and, in a perfect world, it would become the artery people take to get to the Riverwalk. Having people in downtown and in and around the project is a good thing. You don’t want to wall yourself off.”
Tracy said he feels encouraged by the growth he’s already seen on the Southbank.
“We like the Southbank and the fact that you can already see a logical connection between San Marco and the river, which is Hendricks Avenue,” he said. “I’ve been back and forth between Miami and Jacksonville for about three years now, and the whole corridor is redeveloping. Businesses are rehabilitating old buildings and new businesses are starting. Momentum is building quickly.”