A mixed-use development that includes self-storage on the Downtown Southbank is in permitting review, more than a year after receiving design and rezoning approvals over opposition from residents.
The 10-story Lofts at Southbank is planned at southwest Prudential Drive and Hendricks Avenue on the footprint of what is now a defunct restaurant.
The cost of the project was listed at $38.8 million in September 2024 when the Downtown Development Review Board signed off on the final design of the project, the last approval needed before the project could enter the permitting process.
Jacksonville-based multifamily developer Vestcor is the developer. Eisman & Russo Consulting Engineers of Jacksonville is the civil engineer that prepared the plans.
The project was the subject of numerous public meetings over two years, drawing dozens of critical comments from neighbors and hundreds of emails asking city decision-makers to reject it.
In April 2024, City Council gave final approval to a rezoning request and a $6 million interest-only loan to develop affordable housing as part of the development. Both approvals came on split votes: 11-8 on the rezoning to Planned Unit Development and 16-3 on the loan.
City documents listed the developer as Jacksonville-based Vestcor through Lofts at Southbank Ltd. Summit Contracting Group was identified as the contractor.
Owners were listed as G.I.S. Holdings of Atlanta, A. Walter Hirshberg Family Trust and Karen Hirshberg.
As approved by the city, the self-storage portion of the project would be a CubeSmart facility.
The project drew opposition from Southbank and San Marco residents, who complained that its size and scale would be out of character with the area and that self-storage was not permitted in the zoning overlay that covers the Southbank and extends throughout Downtown.
The project emerged in 2022. Its first iteration stalled when Council withdrew a bill that would have amended the Downtown zoning overlay to permit self-storage facilities on the Northbank and Southbank.
G.I.S. Holdings of Atlanta came back with a mixed-use project that included residential and retail space but not affordable housing. After DDRB staff recommended denying the project and the body voted against it, Council voted 9-9 on a rezoning request for the development in June 2023.
City staff advised that the tie vote amounted to a denial. That opinion prompted the development team to pursue mediation, which resulted in an opportunity to propose what became the third version of the project.
The project sparked disagreements among Council members, with some describing it as undermining the zoning overlay and others characterizing it as a compromise between the developer and the neighborhood.
In approving the rezoning, Council adopted several amendments recommended by the DDRB, including requirements for the self-storage hours of operation to be limited to 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., and for 8,500 square feet of the ground-floor retail space to be dedicated to retail use unrelated to the self-storage or residential leasing operations.