Downtown’s Northbank is preparing for the Hans G. Tanzler Jr. Marina.
The city is reviewing a building permit for the marina at a project cost of $12 million.
Pond & Co. is the architect on the civil design team with HDR Engineering Inc. for the project at 113 S. Market St. along the St. Johns River.
The permit is for a 2,000-square-foot harbormaster building, boat lift and a 39-slip marina.
Plans show the project will be built on the 4.48-acre site in three phases.
The city of Jacksonville owns the property.
The harbormaster building will include offices separated by a breezeway from restrooms, showers and laundry facilities. There is covered seating.
The site is east of the Hyatt Regency Jacksonville Riverfront hotel in an inlet bordered by Market and Liberty streets and the vacant site where the Duval County Courthouse was demolished in 2018.
Also, the city has been reviewing civil engineering plans that show the scope of work as construction of the harbormaster building, boat lift and docks, including grading and connecting utilities.
The plans show a walkway along the west side of the inlet with two sets of slips connected to it near the north and central sections of the inlet. The harbormaster house is at the northwest corner. Brian Burket, waterfront project manager for the city Parks, Recreation and Community Services Department, told the Downtown Development Review Board in May 2025 that the city would spend about $34 million to fully build the marina.
The city 2024-25 Capital Improvement Plan included $12 million for the first phase of construction, called the Liberty Street Marina.
Conceptual plans submitted to the DDRB show the single-story harbormaster house clad with metallic screens that could be illuminated with multicolored lighting. The building includes a roof-mounted, mast-like pole that could be lighted.
Burket said project organizers hoped to finish permitting and design of the initial phase this year, with a goal of doing the bulk of construction in 2027.
He said the marina’s first phase would create two sets of floating docks and the harbormaster house.
The second and third phases would include creating a floating dock on the south side that would also serve as a breakwater.
Tanzler served as Jacksonville mayor from 1967 to 1979. He helped lead efforts to clean up the river through the installation of sewer lines and elimination of outfalls of raw sewage into the channel.
Managing Editor Ric Anderson contributed to this report.