Imeson International Industrial Park developer Dan Webb doesn’t have a timeline for it, but his company filed site plans with the city for a potential 720,000-square-foot distribution center in the North Jacksonville business center.
“We are getting ready for an improving economy and we wanted a state-of-the-art building out there,” said Webb, president of Webb International Inc.
“You have to be ready to respond to a customer that wants that type of building,” he said.
Site plans show the building could be developed in two phases, starting with 230,400 square feet of space, on 38.86 acres at Malnove and Cold Storage drives.
Its address is 10501 Cold Storage Road, Webb said. The site is east of Busch Drive, North Main Street and Interstate 95.
The plans filed with the city show 169 loading dock bays, 201 trailer parking spaces and 192 automobile parking spaces for the entire building.
The building is referred to as cross-dock, meaning it is designed for suppliers to bring their goods to the location and transfer them quickly to trucks that deliver them to the customer or retail chain. There typically are inbound and outbound truck docks.
Webb said there were no other cross-dock buildings available at Imeson International Industrial Park.
Webb said the company’s most recent speculative building was a 280,000-square-foot warehouse nearby at 780 Whittaker Road. He said it was built in 2007 and leased in 2011. Kaman Aerospace leases about 100,000 square feet of it, leaving 180,000 square feet available.
Webb said the company was considering developing the first phase of the new building on a speculative basis, but not until that 180,000 square feet was leased.
He also would launch development if a prospect wanted to lease the first phase or the entire new building.
Webb said he didn’t have a tenant in mind for the available space.
“We do feel there is some activity in the marketplace,” he said. “We have a number of people looking.”
Webb said his group would seek a larger tenant, “but if we ended up with one around 250,000 square feet, that would be great and they would have expansion room.”
If a tenant committed, he said the structure could be built in eight to 12 months. He said the site also could be served by CSX rail, which would need to be extended there, and that it is close to the Blount Island marine terminal as well as Interstates 95, 10 and 295.
Webb is based in Orlando. Imeson International Industrial Park Inc., of which Webb is president, is listed as the owner and developer. EnVision Design & Engineering LLC is the civil engineer.
Webb said other Florida cities, including Orlando and Miami, have strengthened in their absorption of manufacturing and distribution space.
“Jacksonville is returning as well and we also believe that when you look at the Jacksonville market, there are a limited number of state-of-the-art facilities,” he said.
“We also believe there may be some pent-up demand because of the lack of construction” since 2007, he said.
He did not commit to a timeline or disclose the investment cost.
Peter Anderson, president of the NAIOP Northeast Florida Commercial Real Estate Development Association, said Monday the Orlando and Atlanta industrial markets have rebounded and started growing, which indicates the Southeast could be returning to a growth mode.
Anderson is vice president of Pattillo Industrial Real Estate, which recently launched development of a $6 million speculative 237,000-square-foot building in Westside Industrial Park.
Anderson said the market is improving, but there is “hangover space,” like the 180,000 square feet in the Imeson Park and in buildings among several other parks in north and west Jacksonville.
“All of these buildings were constructed in 2007-2008 and have yet to find a long-term tenant,” he said. Still, he said the second-generation space, or space re-leased to a second tenant, has been leased, driving vacancy in the Jacksonville industrial market down to 8-9 percent.
That’s why Pattillo began a spec building and Webb is considering one, Anderson said.
Signs point to IberiaBank’s return
While the merger acquisition has not been completed, the signs are on the way to swap out Florida Bank for IberiaBank.
Lafayette, La.-based IberiaBank Corp. announced in October it would merge with Florida Bank Group Inc., which has area offices Downtown, in Ortega and in Ponte Vedra Beach.
IberiaBank spokeswoman Beth Ardoin said Monday the deal has not yet closed, although it is expected to be completed by the end of March.
However, property owners are preparing for the changeover. In Jacksonville, Hertz Jacksonville One LLC took out a permit for a wall sign for IberiaBank at 135 W. Bay St., while Florida Bank did the same at 4211 San Juan Ave. Each is $5,000.
The Ponte Vedra Beach office is at 250 Florida A1A N. in St. Johns County.
Ardoin said the company will change the signs at conversion.
Tampa-based Florida Bank Group Bank has 13 branches, comprising eight in the Tampa Bay area, the three in Northeast Florida and one each in Sarasota and Tallahassee.
IberiaBank first came to Jacksonville in 2009 when it acquired the failed CapitalSouth Bank, an Alabama-based bank that had three Northeast Florida branches. However, Iberiabank was more interested in CapitalSouth’s Alabama operations, and it closed down the Jacksonville branches three years later.
Third floor at Greenleaf Tower being renovated
The owner of The Greenleaf Tower Downtown is taking steps to renovate the third floor of the 12-story Downtown building into an open office and conference room that possibly could be used for community and social events.
A building-permit application is in city review for Tenant Contractors to renovate about 4,000 square feet of the third floor into speculative space at a project cost of $104,897.
That move follows the decision several weeks ago to turn the seventh floor into three office suites to lease to professional services firms who need smaller spaces.
Together, permits for the two floors total $216,025.
Taurus Southern Investments LLC owns The Greenleaf Tower, which was built in 1927.
Asset manager Christopher Reibling said in January he was 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 third, fourth and fifth floors comprise an atrium area with a spiral staircase.
The building comprises almost 57,000 square feet of usable space.
Reibling said in January The Greenleaf Tower was just over 50 percent occupied.
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