The Downtown Investment Authority Retail Enhancement and Property Disposition Committee will consider a land swap agreement with Vestcor Inc. at its July 10 meeting.
The meeting will begin at 10 a.m. in the Multipurpose Room at the Main Library Downtown.
The land swap proposal is the final element of the city’s agreement with the University of Florida board of trustees to make way for development of the UF Graduate Campus in the LaVilla area of Downtown, centered at the existing Prime F. Osborn III Convention Center.
On June 24, 2025, the Jacksonville City Council approved legislation enabling the Gainesville-based university to establish a multibuilding campus for graduate studies on multiple city-owned parcels in the LaVilla District of the Combined Downtown Northbank Community Redevelopment Area.
The legislation includes a redevelopment agreement with UF authorizing the conveyance of the city-owned land, providing an option for UF to acquire the convention center and train station parcels, and providing funding commitments from the city totaling $105 million to be used for acquisition and development activities relating to the UF Graduate Campus.
A separate parcel owned by VC Cathedral LLC, a Vestcor Inc. entity, is surrounded on three sides by the convention center and train station parcels. The acquisition and conveyance of the Vestcor parcel is a condition to UF’s obligations under the UF redevelopment agreement as it is necessary to fulfill the plans for the campus that will eventually be concentrated on the combined convention center parcels.
According to documents filed with the land swap proposal, DIA staff initiated negotiations with Vestcor to acquire the parcel.
Vestcor expressed preference for a property exchange as opposed to selling the property for cash or other consideration.
DIA staff identified city-owned property at 200 N. Lee St., four blocks north of the Vestcor parcel and near Interstate 95, as a potential candidate for a property exchange.
Negotiations began with Vestcor to address their position that the configuration and location of the parcel was inferior, and the site has the added detriment of being improved by a light manufacturing building that is of no use to Vestcor given its business model as a developer and operator of mixed-income, student and senior housing properties.
Those negotiations led to the proposal being considered for Vestcor to provide fee simple interest in its 2.04-acre parcel to the city in exchange for the westernmost 2.4 acres of the 3.63-acre city-owned parcel at 200 N. Lee St.
As a condition of the exchange, Vestcor agrees to demolish the building currently on the site that is used for light-manufacturing/printing operations.
The owner and operator of the building, Apex Business Forms, is on the site under a ground lease with the city with about two years remaining and subject to a 30-year extension at terms determined by the DIA staff and board to be detrimental to the city and the Downtown Northbank CRA, the staff report states.
The DIA board approved a buyout of that option in May 2025 that will return fee-simple ownership of the parcel, along with the improvements, to the city under control of the DIA.
The staff report states the exchange with Vestcor is considered to be made at fair value given the close proximity of the two sites, the similar size of the properties being exchanged, the consistent respective appraised values and the responsibility of Vestcor to take on demolition of the existing building at its own expense and liability.
Each of the negotiated dispositions will require approval by the full DIA board and the Jacksonville City Council as governing body of the Downtown Northbank Community Redevelopment Area.