The facility will house the Jaguars' team offices.
The site is northwest of TIAA Bank Field.
Pedestrian areas near the football performance center.
The facility includes concessions and a pro shop.
The facility will be made of a translucent material.
The west elevation of the football performance center
The 127,087-square-foot football performance center comprises an indoor practice field; two outdoor natural-grass fields with about 2,300 bleacher seats; a team store; and concession facilities.
The facility includes garden areas.
The facility has two fields.
The center will be illuminated at night.
The football performance center area.
The Four Season hotel and adjacent Class A office building marina and support building.
Jacksonville Jaguars owner Shad Khan’s $441 million development ambitions in the Downtown Sports and Entertainment District continue to advance.
The Downtown Development Review Board voted unanimously Oct. 14 to grant final approval for the Jaguars proposed $120 million football performance center next to the stadium and conceptual approval for the $321 million Four Seasons-anchored project.
Board members praised the architectural designs of the projects.
“It’s great to see a project of this magnitude come forward and come to fruition,” said J. Brent Allen.
“It gives me some comfort that, I think, maybe the Jaguars will stay in town,” said Brenna Durden.
Sports Performance Center
The DDRB voted 6-0 to approve the training facility’s final design. Members Christian Harden and Joseph Loretta left the three-hour meeting before the vote.
The 127,087-square-foot football performance center comprises an indoor practice field; two outdoor natural-grass fields with about 2,300 bleacher seats; a team store; and concession facilities.
The city would own it and the team would lease it. The city and the Jaguars are splitting the construction cost.
The site plan and facility design by the Detroit-based architecture, interior and planning firm Rossetti shows a two-level interior facility that has locker, meeting, training and weight rooms.
The plan has equipment and dining areas for players, as well as coaches and football administration offices.
One of the firm’s specialties is sports entertainment facilities design, including work with teams on the Daytona International Speedway and Arthur Ashe Stadium for the U.S. Open in Queens, New York.
The Jaguars added seat walls, a sculpture garden and a terraced retaining wall with landscaping, the report and renderings show.
DDRB staff called the addition “a modern, sleek space that is active and welcomes pedestrians.”
That is a change from the staff’s critique of the conceptual review that said the design looked like an airport hangar “that needed more architectural interest.”
Jaguars attorney Cyndy Trimmer said team leadership is working with the Cultural Council of Greater Jacksonville to issue a “call to artists” to create and display public artwork on the exterior of the training facility.
She said the structure will be built with a polycarbonate material, which is considered highly impact resistant.
Trimmer is a partner at Driver, McAfee, Hawthorne & Diebenow.
The report says the Jaguars are looking for an “innovative public art solution” to allow natural light to filter into the facility and interior practice field spaces.
The artist call will procure public art to be added to the rooftop solar panels to be illuminated at night.
“The art piece can be made of a variety of 3D or 2D art media providing a translucent aesthetic,” the report says.
“This will add to the urban character of the area and help to engage the pedestrian.”
Board members said they appreciated the Jaguars’ addressing their concerns with the initial design.
“I think it looks great now,” Matt Brockelman said.
“In between this and the Shipyards (Four Seasons), we’re moving in the right direction. I think we’re only a few wins and one pesky parking lot away from having a really vibrant Sports and Entertainment District.”
The latest renderings show more detail of a proposed Jaguars Pro Shop under the bleacher seats in the practice field viewing area.
The report says future work at the adjacent Greater Jacksonville Agricultural Fair will address issues with widening Franklin Street pedestrian walkways and narrowing the travel lanes.
The Jaguars are negotiating with the fair board to purchase the land after it relocates to West Jacksonville.
City Council voted 17-0 in August to borrow $60 million to pay for the city’s portion of the project and amend the Jaguars stadium lease, which expires in 2030.
Khan, Jaguars President Mark Lamping and head coach Urban Meyer pitched a city-owned practice facility concept June 3 during a media event about Khan’s plan for a Four Seasons hotel-anchored development on the Downtown riverfront.
The Jaguars agreed to a 30-year lease for the performance center with two 10-year extension options. Lamping said removing the training rooms and team offices from the stadium will make it easier to remodel TIAA Bank Field.
Four Seasons
The DDRB voted 7-0 to grant conceptual approval to the Four Seasons-anchored project. Loretta was absent.
Site plans submitted to the DDRB for the Four Seasons show space for a 3,400-square-foot river club specialty restaurant, a 4,443-square-foot all-day dining area, a 5,400-square-foot ballroom, a lobby bar, meetings rooms and a conference center.
The 176-room hotel and 25 for-sale luxury condominiums have separate entrances in the 10-story building. It also has a full-service spa; a 157,027-square-foot, six-story, Class A office building; and a marina support building.
The plans shows two top-floor duplexes, one at 1,760 square feet and the other at 3,001 square feet.
The renderings show the hotel and office buildings with similar architecture of broad roof overhangs, curved lines and glazing, which the staff report calls a contemporary design.
Dallas-based international firm HKS Architects Inc. will design the hotel, office and marina support buildings.
Firm Vice President Hilari Jones told the board the architecture “speaks to the water.”
“The project being on the water is everything for the property,” she said.
“The design is essentially evocative of a ship’s bow. We have extended balconies that increase the drama of the form.”
Jones said the stand-alone river club building’s design also is meant to allude to waves, and the top of the ballroom will have a “green roof.”
The total project, including a second phase, will be on 14.4 acres on part of the former Kids Kampus park at the city-owned Shipyards land.
Durden said she likes that the open plaza space off the Riverwalk adds “protection to the waterfront.”
She and other board members recommended widening the pedestrian path leading from Gator Bowl Boulevard to the Riverwalk from 8 feet to 12 feet, which Bill Schilling said would be “well used.”
The site plans shows a large urban open space on Gator Bowl Boulevard that acts as the entryway to the hotel and the vertical construction is set back 50 feet from the St. Johns River bulkhead.
Trimmer said Khan’s development company Iguana Investments Florida LLC is working with the Jacksonville Transportation Authority to design a right-of-way in front of the hotel for its future automated vehicle track, the Ultimate Urban Circulator.
City Council approved a $114 million incentives package for the project Oct. 12 which included a design deviation for the Four Seasons site. The design is at odds with the city Downtown Zoning Overlay standards for river view corridors.
The overlay says a development parcel on the river cannot be wider than 250 linear feet. Iguana wants the hotel parcel to be 384 linear feet on the riverfront, otherwise, the required view corridor would split the parcel.
