Jacksonville City Council granted final approval Sept. 9 to a development of up to 650 single-family homes, townhomes and paired villas along Interstate 95 near Jacksonville International Airport.
Council voted unanimously on dual legislation for the development, a partnership between Bacardi Bottling Corp. and Tampa-based Pecan Enterprises LLC.
Ordinance 2025-0484, which received a 16-0 vote with Council members Chris Miller away on a work assignment and Reggie Gaffney Jr. and Randy White away from the dais, rezones the nearly 345-acre property where the homes are planned from Agriculture to Planned Unit Development, a special zoning district that allows for a mix of uses within a single district.
The site is on three parcels west of I-95 and about three-fourths of a mile north of Pecan Park Road. The land is owned by Bacardi Bottling Corp.
Ordinance 2025-0483, which passed 15-0 without the votes of Miller, Gaffney, White and Raul Arias, amends the land use from Agriculture to Low Density Residential and Conservation.
Conservation zoning consists of areas with valuable environmental resources, such as sensitive vegetation, high-value habitat, wetlands, high aquifer recharge potential, carbon sinks and unique coastal areas.
The land-use amendment changed 312.87 acres to the LDR designation, while 31.73 became CSV.
As part of the proposal, the developer agreed to donate about 23 acres of the property to the city Parks, Recreation and Community Services Department to allow for an expansion project in the center of Seaton Creek Historic Preserve.
Ross Puzzitiello, president of Pecan Enterprises, and his team drew praise from the Council Land Use and Zoning Committee during its Sept. 3 meeting for working with owners of single-family homes south and southwest of the property to address concerns about traffic congestion and other issues related to the development.
T.R. Hainline, an attorney representing Puzzitiello, told LUZ members that the developers engaged with neighbors early in the process and adapted plans for the development project before the requests for rezoning and land-use came to Council.
On a night when other proposed developments near established neighborhoods brought criticism from dozens of neighbors, the Bacardi-Pecan project elicited no public comment during the LUZ meeting.
“This is an anticlimactic end, and it’s the way it should work given Mr. Puzzitiello’s efforts to contact those people early on and get it done,” Hainline said.
“It was probably a really good experience for (the developers) to see how it can go in here when 50 people show up” for other projects, LUZ Chair Joe Carlucci said. “It’s a testament to you all doing a lot of hard work.”
The property is across I-95 from the 1,000-acre site where Benderson Development Co. LLC of University Park, near Sarasota, is planning a commercial, industrial and residential development on property it purchased from Bacardi in 2007. In February 2025, the Jacksonville City Council approved legislation for rezoning and a land-use amendment of that property.
Puzzitiello said at an Aug. 22 Planning Commission hearing that the residential development west of I-95 was not related to the Benderson project.
According to an analysis attached to the legislation, the residential development would generate 4,680 daily automobile trips, which would not put nearby Interstate 95 and Pecan Park Road over capacity.