St. Johns Town Center could be joined over the next several years with a neighboring 45 acres of stores, offices, a hotel, recreation areas and apartments and condominiums.
And more traffic.
The traffic would join the already bumper-to-bumper vehicles that crowd Gate Parkway and Town Center Parkway, and even crawl along Butler Boulevard, at the busiest times to reach the popular shopping center and its many exclusive stores in Jacksonville.
Preferred Growth Properties of Birmingham, Ala., wants to buy at least 61 acres for the mixed-use development.
It also proposes to pay for traffic improvements that will add turn lanes, access points and a trail for pedestrians, runners, bicycles and others.
“The improvements sound reasonable,” said district City Council member Don Redman on Monday. “I am hoping they will help enough even with the existing problems we have now.”
St. Johns Town Center, which continues to be developed, is at northeast Butler Boulevard and Gate Parkway, west of the Interstate 295 East Beltway.
Rogers Towers lawyer T.R. Hainline, representing the property owners, filed a rezoning application with the city late Friday for the Preferred Growth Properties site. The company is a subsidiary of Books-A-Million.
Hainline referred questions about the timeframe of construction to Books-A-Million Real Estate Vice President Jay Turner, who did not return calls.
Hainline said the property sale could be completed this year. The developer and owner would be PGP Jacksonville TC LLC. The planner and engineer is ETM Inc.
Preferred Growth Properties has a contract to buy the property from the Skinner family, which also sold the land for development of the 240-acre St. Johns Town Center that opened a decade ago this month.
The Town Center/Gate Parkway Planned Unit Development summary filed Friday outlines 61.35 acres for the project, comprising 45.02 acres of uplands that can be developed and 16.33 acres of the lakes that border the development.
The Town Center/Gate Parkway project, which doesn’t have a formal name, is large.
According to a summary, the densities permitted include up to:
• 500,000 square feet of enclosed retail and commercial space
• 100,000 square feet of office space
• 400 hotel rooms
• 500 multifamily residential units
Access to the property will be at Gate Parkway and Town Center Parkway and/or Gate Parkway and Skinner Lake Drive, said the summary.
The Cantrell & Morgan Inc. real estate firm, which has been working with Preferred Growth Properties, had posted a map on its website that showed the developable property among three parcels: 15.7-acre and 20.58-acre sites along Town Center Parkway and bordering the lake, and a 9.29-acre site along Gate Parkway, bordering another lake.
According to Hainline and a project summary from the Dalton Agency, improvements will be constructed at the intersection of Gate and Town Center parkways and to Town Center Parkway to ease traffic.
Hainline said a lane will be added from Gate Parkway right onto Town Center Parkway, creating dual continuous right-turn lanes.
Also, dual left-turn lanes from Gate Parkway onto Town Center Parkway will be configured that don’t conflict with the dual right turn lanes, he said.
The developer will add access lanes at Gate and Town Center parkways into the now undeveloped land at that intersection.
There also will be several cuts for right-turns in and out in the area.
“We have done a traffic study that resulted in these lanes being added,” Hainline said.
Redman, an avid bicyclist who has biked along Town Center Parkway, said the work is greatly needed.
“That intersection there is terrible as it is. It is probably the worst intersection in my district,” he said.
While the transportation changes will improve it, “it needs more help than that, but I don’t know how we’re going to get it.”
Redman also said that more Skinner family property along Town Center Parkway could be sold for development and he expects eventual construction through to St. Johns Bluff Road and I-295.
The transportation improvements would be completed before building permits were issued for vertical construction, Hainline said.
Redman particularly welcomed the new cycling improvements, described as a minimum 10-foot-wide path from Skinner Lake Drive through one of the Preferred Growth property tracts, connecting along Town Center Parkway to the end of the project boundaries. It also could go along Gate Parkway into one of the tracts, too.
Hainline said the rezoning application will be reviewed by the Jacksonville Planning Department staff and the Office of General Counsel.
Once the application fee is calculated and paid, legislation will be drafted and introduced to council.
Hainline said legislation could be introduced in April or May and the hearings would take place in May-June, if the process continues on track.
Spokeswoman Misty Skipper with the Dalton Agency said previously there were no details about building sizes, potential retailers or whether the multifamily units would be apartments or condominiums.
Hainline said Preferred Growth Properties would develop the land and then lease or sell parcels to the users, although none are yet identified. He said Preferred Growth likely would sell the multifamily property to a developer.
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