The University of Florida no longer plans to launch classes this year in the former Interline Brands Inc. building that is part of its new Downtown graduate campus, a UF official said Aug. 1.
Kurt Dudas, vice president of strategic initiatives at UF, said the university is now targeting a fall 2026 start for classes in the 801 W. Bay St. building.
Dudas shared the plans during a presentation to the JAX Chamber Downtown Council.
Afterward, Dudas said UF officials initially planned to house its Master of Architecture program in the building at the beginning of August while launching renovations on the structure to accommodate other programs.
After discussions with academic administrators, designers, architects and others, he said, officials determined it would be more effective to renovate the entire building at once without a portion of it being occupied.
He said doing a complete renovation would support the university’s time line for moving other programs into the building.
UF will continue to offer architecture classes this fall at 25 N. Market St.
The Interline Brands Inc. building is among six properties the city conveyed to UF for its LaVilla graduate campus under an agreement that the university would build the campus contingent on the city providing land for it.
In negotiating with the city for the properties, UF said it needed a redevelopment agreement in place by the end of June to facilitate its plans to start classes on the campus in 2025 in the Interline building. UF officials often characterized the plan as ambitious.
City Council member Ron Salem said Aug. 1 he was “very frustrated” to learn that UF would not start classes in the Interline Brands building in 2025.
He said Council scrambled to meet the June deadline, including holding a daytime Committee of the Whole meeting for which Council struggled to maintain a quorum because members had to sacrifice time away from their employment.
“I’ve always said I want the Council to have all the information available before we take a vote,” he said. “It’s my understanding that the mayor and the Downtown Investment Authority knew in June that the campus was not going to open in 2025. So it’s frustrating to me that all that we went through in order to accommodate that date was unnecessary.”
In a June 12 Council committee meeting, the university said it planned to launch seven programs in the fall of 2026, with a “possibility that one or more could move to the campus even before then.”
Dudas said the timeline was revised to characterize an earlier opening as aspirational.
Phil Perry, the city’s chief communications officer, said in an email that the mayor’s office was not aware until Aug. 1 that classes were not starting in 2025.
“Councilman Salem is lying,” Perry said in an email. “The Mayor’s Office did not know this.”
The DIA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
On June 10, Council approved legislation for the city to acquire the building from the Gateway Jax development partnership in exchange for a parcel on the former Jacksonville Landing site, now called Riverfront Plaza, and an option on an adjacent property to the east.
Under the city’s agreement with Gateway Jax, the developer committed to building a 17-story tower on the plaza with a hotel, condos, restaurants, retail and public spaces.
The exchange prompted disagreement between Deegan’s office and some Jacksonville City Council members, and also among Council members.
Saying the land swap favored Gateway Jax, Salem filed legislation directing the city to make an outright purchase of the Interline building. He later withdrew the proposal, saying he did not want to jeopardize Jacksonville’s opportunity to land the UF campus.