Property owner trustee Chris Ware expects to sell the 400 block of Park Street in Brooklyn, a site best known for housing the popular Two Doors Down restaurant, to Jacksonville-based Gate Petroleum Co. within four or five months.
That opens the gate to Brooklyn, Riverside and Downtown for the company, which operates and supplies fuel for almost 200 locations in Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas.
“We do have an agreement with Gate and we expect to continue the next phase of due diligence next week,” Ware said Thursday by email.
The site is a little less than 2 acres and should be vacant by the end of December.
Gate confirmed Ware’s information but said it hasn’t begun its due diligence, which would include the details of the site layout and the architecture.
The property is within the Brooklyn/Riverside Downtown Overlay District and subject to Downtown Development Review Board approvals.
A Gate spokesperson said the company has negotiated a contract on the property but has not executed it. It expects to close the deal in the coming weeks.
The spokesperson said the company is new to the redeveloping area. Its nearest convenience store is about a mile away along Stockton Street.
Norm Abraham, a partner in Two Doors Down, said Monday he would close the restaurant Nov. 25, the day before Thanksgiving. Abraham learned this summer his lease would end Dec. 29.
Unable to find a workable site nearby with adequate parking, the 74-year-old Abraham has decided to retire. He has operated Two Doors Down at 436 Park St. since 2009, the latest venture in his 40-year career.
Printing & Promotional Partners next door at 444 Park St. also will move. Owner Jennifer Miller said Monday she was narrowing down sites.
Ware’s business, Johnstone Supply, also has an operation on the block but is consolidating that by the end of December to the 500 block.
He is trustee of Ware Family Realty LLC, which owns the 400 block of Park Street.
It’s a convenient location, just off Interstate 95, for contractors around Northeast Florida coming to Johnstone Supply. Gate also would be able to draw traffic off of the interstate as well as serve local customers.
Riverplace Tower preparing Ameris space
Riverplace Tower’s 26th floor will soon be cleared out for remodeling into Ameris Bank’s executive officers.
The city is reviewing a permit application for Adams Interior Contractors to demolish the interior of almost 14,600 square feet of office space that will be renovated for Ameris.
Ameris Bank will hang its name at the top of the 28-story Riverplace Tower at 1301 Riverplace Blvd. on the Downtown Southbank.
The bank will move about 40 employees by Jan. 1 into the tower. Its total space eventually will reach 35,000 square feet, starting with the 26th floor and about 4,000 square feet for a branch on the first floor.
The Moultrie, Ga.-based bank also will consolidate its area back-office operations into the Center Building in Baymeadows.
The city is reviewing a permit application to renovate 22,000 square feet of space there in an estimated $600,000 build-out. The bank previously said 70 employees will move initially to the new operations site, comprising the call center, IT, training and a loan operation.
Riverplace Tower also is reviewing a permit for interior demolition of more than 16,000 square feet of space on the fifth floor for Macquarie Group, an Australia-based bank that will open a 123-employee service center there. Brasfield & Gorrie LLC is the contractor.
Family Dollar plans Emerson Street store
The city is reviewing site plans for a 9,200-square-foot Family Dollar on 2.13 acres at 4105 Emerson St.
Blue Current Development LLC is the developer.
Dollar Tree Inc. bought Family Dollar Stores Inc. in July. Dollar Tree now operates more than 13,600 stores in 48 states and Canada under the brands of Dollar Tree, Dollar Tree Canada, Deals and Family Dollar.
Family Dollar operates 50 stores and Dollar Tree has at least 36 in Northeast Florida.
Dunkin’ Donuts taking over bank space
Dunkin’ Donuts is remodeling a former Jacksonville Bank building at 12740 Atlantic Blvd., near Girvin Road.
A proposed $298,000 renovation is under city review for the almost 2,400-square-buildilng to turn the former bank into a 32-seat Dunkin’ Donuts and drive-thru. The property is in the Landmark Station shopping center.
More Baptist Health expansion at Metro Square office park
Baptist Health continues expanding its operations center at Metro Square office park in Southside at Philips Highway and Emerson Street.
The city is reviewing a permit application for Baptist Health to add about 22,000 square feet of space there, boosting it to about 120,000 square feet. The project carries a job cost of more than $640,000.
It recently expanded there by almost 18,000 square feet.
Spokeswoman Cindy Hamilton said the launch and anticipated growth of the Baptist MD Anderson Cancer Center and other clinical services necessitated the expansion of the call center capabilities.
Hamilton said the most recent expansion accommodated its Information Services team and its deployment of business-user hardware. New technologies and equipment is brought in to be configured before delivered to sites for deployment.
Baptist Health and The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center are building the Baptist MD Anderson Cancer Center at San Marco Boulevard, Children’s Way, Gary Street and Palm Avenue, across the street from the Baptist Outpatient Center. The more than 200,000-square-foot center should open in 2018.
In anticipation of that, Baptist will launch the joint cancer program with MD Anderson in October in the Baptist Outpatient Center. That will serve as the initial home of Baptist MD Anderson.
The MD Anderson center also is leading to other relocations.
The open MRI in the outpatient center will move early next year to the nearby duPont Center office buildings that Baptist Health bought this year. Those structures are less than a mile from the main Southbank campus.
Those buildings were 89 percent leased to other tenants upon the acquisition. Baptist Health is moving functions to the unleased space and evaluating the remaining available offices.
Hamilton said Baptist Health was looking at its needs for administrative and clinical space near the main Jacksonville campus and expects to have a plan for that this year.
Marketplace site sold for other development
The site where GFS Marketplace landed approval to build its first Jacksonville store in Southside near Beach and Hodges boulevards will become restaurants.
A permit was approved in July 2014 for an almost $16 million GFS Marketplace, part of Gordon Food Service, a Grand Rapids, Mich.-based restaurant supplier that operates marketplace stores.
The store wasn’t built and the developer sold the property to AD Development LLC.
Mark DeBiase, manager of AD Development, wants to develop two buildings on the roughly 2-acre site at 13423 Beach Blvd. Edwards Engineering is the civil engineer.
The city is reviewing site plans for two 7,120-square-foot structures on the site and those plans refer to restaurants.
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