Downtown’s Gateway Jax Pearl Square development will include short-term rentals on Block N8 to attract tenants in town for area business, including education and health care.
The city is reviewing a permit application for PCL Construction LLC to build the estimated $145.21 million project to include those units as well as apartments, retail and restaurant space, a gym, parking and more.
Block N8 is at 440 W. Beaver St., bounded clockwise from the north by Beaver, Pearl, Ashley and Clay streets.
Plans specify a 22-story building connected with what appears to be a 13-story building and a three-story structure, totaling 198,181 square feet of space.
The 537 rentals comprise 394 apartments and the 143 short-term units.
“They are short-term rental units, not a hotel as you’d typically think of one,” said Gateway Jax CEO Bryan Moll by email May 5.
Moll said Gateway Jax is working with a third-party operator to manage the 143 units, which he said will be furnished and have full kitchens and baths like usual apartment units, but have shorter-term stays, typically less than 30-days.
“If available, a person could book for one or more nights, just like a hotel, but they will be integrated into the N-8 building,” Moll said.
“We expect most of the stays to be focused on longer-term relationships/partnerships, including businesses, educational institutions, major health-care institutions, etc.”
Block N8 is about eight blocks north of the proposed University of Florida graduate campus, which intends to offer master’s degrees in science and management, engineering management, computer science and architecture. Other master’s programs will provide a law degree aimed at nonattorneys who work in fields that interact extensively with the law, such as compliance and human resources, use of artificial intelligence in biomedical and health sciences.
The university also will offer professional one- and two-year master’s of business administration degrees.
Block N8 also is two blocks south of the Florida State College at Jacksonville Downtown Campus and about a 1 mile from the UF Health Jacksonville academic health care center in the Springfield neighborhood.
Moll said the short-term rental operator, which he did not identify, “has an award-winning hospitality focus, and will likely operate the full building’s ‘customer facing’ components, including the front desk and amenity services,” such as towel and food-and-beverage service on the pool-amenity deck, the gym and related functions.
Block N8 will include the amenity pool deck on the fourth level of the lowest building.
Ground-floor retail
Plans show four ground-floor retail spaces along with a fitness center and lobby, along with a reception center for the rental units.
One retail space is at the building corner at Clay and Beaver streets and the other three are at Pearl, Ashley and Clay streets. The fitness center is at Beaver and Pearl streets.
There will be two levels of parking.
Along with the construction permit, the city also is reviewing one for horizontal development for Block N8.
Gateway Jax proposed a minimum 21-story building with at least 508 residential units and about 30,000 square feet of ground-floor leasable retail space along with 167 parking spaces on the second and third levels.
The construction permit clarified the project as a 22-floor building with 537 rental units.
Through 606 Pearl Street LLC, Gateway Jax owns the property. Site clearing is for 2.4 acres.
England-Thims & Miller Inc. of Jacksonville is the civil engineer.
Horizontal work includes removing concrete, asphalt, sidewalks, bollards, brick and retaining walls and other elements.
Pearl Square
Block N8 is immediately south of Block N4 at 441 W. Beaver St., bounded by Union, Pearl Beaver and Clay streets.
The city has been reviewing a permit to start horizontal development on Block N4, designed as a seven-story building with at least 281 residential units and about 19,000 square feet of leasable retail and commercial space. It also has a parking garage.
The permit reviews follow Gateway Jax’s groundbreaking Oct. 29 for Block N11, the first phase of its Downtown development.
The Gateway Jax development is a partnership between lead developer Moll, DLP Capital LLC and JWB Real Estate Capital. They have been working toward the $400 million-plus first phase of Pearl Square.
The partners said previously the full project could grow to 22 acres and more than 20 blocks with a more than $2 billion investment over the next decade, and the Gateway Jax district has since extended further.
Moll said in February that plans for the initial Pearl Square project had grown from five blocks to 10.
He said then that partners plan to start construction of the next building in April, followed by another start in the summer of 2025.
In August 2024, the Jacksonville City Council approved a $98.58 million incentive package for the Pearl Square district, which at the time comprised:
• Block N4: A $14.1 million Recapture Enhanced Value Grant and $6.84 million completion grant.
The city is reviewing an application for the horizontal development of the 1.92-acre Block N4 site at a project cost of $1,500.
• Block N5: A $2.57 million REV grant and $1.9 million completion grant for redesign and redevelopment of the 800-space former First Baptist Church lighthouse garage at 721 N. Pearl St., bounded by Union, Julia, Beaver and Pearl streets.
The city is reviewing a permit application for Avant Construction Group of Jacksonville to work on retail shell space on the ground floor of the five-story parking garage at an estimated project cost of $10.52 million.
The property is bounded clockwise by Union, Julia, Beaver and Pearl streets. The project in review consists of an adaptive reuse to add shell space for future commercial uses, such as restaurant and retail space.
Plans show 15,277 square feet of commercial space on the ground floor facing Beaver Street to the south.
The existing parking garage function will remain in the other areas.
• Block N8: A $33.88 million REV grant and $25.55 million completion grant for the 22-story building with 537 rental units and about 30,000 square feet of ground floor leasable retail space.
The block is bounded by Beaver, Pearl, Ashley and Clay streets. The horizontal and construction permits are the latest in review.
• Block N11: A $9.06 million REV grant and $4.63 million completion grant. The block is bounded by Ashley, Pearl and Church streets and the Porter Mansion property.
The city issued a construction permit Oct. 15 for Block N11, which includes a seven-story building comprising 205 apartment units and 24,086 square feet of retail, commercial and storage space.
Completion of the $45 million building at 515 N. Pearl St. is expected in mid-2026.
• Block N9: Moll announced Feb. 26 that Gateway Jax is designing a five-story “boutique” office and retail building on the site of a warehouse.
He said Gateway Jax was planning 60,000 square feet of office space over 15,000 square feet of ground-floor retail at 331 W. Ashley St., across Ashley Street from Block N11.
He said the building could include a corner restaurant at Ashley and Pearl streets that would include rooftop dining.
It was not among the projects on four blocks of the district for which the city approved incentives in August 2024.
Ambassador Hotel
Gateway Jax announced March 18 it is partnering with The Indigo Road Hospitality Group to redevelop the Ambassador Hotel at 420 N. Julia St.
Gateway Jax bought the hotel in February for $17 million. It is adjacent to its $419 million Pearl Square project. The purchase included nearby land where a 487-space parking garage is planned.
The hotel opened in 1924 and was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.
Plans are to remodel the structure to have a minimum of 100 guest rooms. It will have a high-end restaurant and bar, conference space and other amenities.
Gateway Jax: Pearl Square
GatewayJax.com promotes Pearl Square as arriving in 2026.
It describes Pearl Square as a seven-block development in Downtown Jacksonville’s NorthCore neighborhood.
“Pearl Square includes 1.5 million square feet of mixed-use development and will feature a careful curation of world-class architecture, inviting greenspaces, and a lively collection of neighborhood amenities, including up-market grocery offerings, a full-service gym, and signature restaurants,” the site says.
“The development will feature more than 1,250 new residential units, designed by world-class architects Morris Adjmi, SK+I, and Elkus Manfredi; a boutique hotel; approximately 200,000 square feet of retail space; and more than an acre of vibrant new public spaces, including parks, widened sidewalks, and a signature curbless festival street,” it says.
It says the project reflects a $750 million capital investment in Downtown Jacksonville.
Gateway Jax says its overall proposed more than $2 billion development pipeline “spans 25 city blocks of high quality, mixed-use development in the Urban Core of Downtown Jacksonville and includes over 5,000 multifamily units and 500,000 square feet of commercial and retail space.”