Port Jax Trade Center’s developer is preparing for the 11th and 12th speculative warehouses in the North Jacksonville business center, which completes the park until the developer buys more land nearby.
Port Jax Trade Center is east of Alta Drive and west of Interstate 295, north of Zoo Parkway, which also is Heckscher Drive.
The structures are at 10350 Alta Road, across the street from Port Jax Trade Center but part of the industrial park.
The two buildings total 82,000 square feet designed to serve smaller businesses, said developer Bill Spinner, who leads Spinner Construction LLC and Jax Green Industrial, a full-service real estate development company.
“We should break ground in November depending on permits,” he said by email July 8. He expects completion in June 2027.
Building 1100 is designed at 50,000 square feet and Building 1200 is 32,000 square feet.
Spinner said Building 1100 could accommodate up to 11 tenants and Building 1200 could accommodate seven.
That works out to about 4,500 square feet in each unit, although Spinner said the market will dictate whether tenants will lease one or several bays.
He estimates an investment of $12 million for the two buildings.
Jacksonville-based Zinn Architecture + Interiors Inc. is the architect.
“Industrial buildings are becoming better looking all the time, and these are some of my favorites,” Spinner said.
Spinner cited the higher corner wall elevations, curved steel canopies at the entries and differing heights of the tilt-wall panels.
He said the project also has a large truck court and parking as well as electrical services to attract manufacturing companies.
The 43-acre Port Jax park is inside and south of the Interstate-295 beltway between two access points onto the interstate from Alta Drive and New Berlin Road. It is a mile from the Jacksonville Port Authority Blount Island Marine Terminal.
Port Jax Trade Center comprises 10 completed buildings of about 570,000 square feet. Spinner said they are 100% leased.
Tenants include Lockheed Martin, W&O Supply, Belfor USA Group, Assa Abloy, Motion Industries and Austin Hose.
Building 1100 was planned at 102,000 square feet, but Spinner said the market changed and big-box facilities “had a lot of vacancy so we went back to our roots and built this project on the same land for smaller businesses.”
Spinner said the market has millions of industrial square feet of space to absorb in the next three to four years.
A tenant needing 50,000 square feet of space may have more than 30 property choices, he said. “It is a large-tenant market right now.”
Buildings 1100 and 1200 will complete Port Jax’s 650,000 square feet of buildings on about 45 acres. Spinner estimates an $85 million total investment in Port Jax.
Spinner said he started the project in 2009 with site development and a spec building.
“It was rough going economically for a few years after the start until lower interest rates spurred growth again,” he said.
Since 1992, Jax Green Industrial has developed more than $480 million in properties comprising about 3.15 million square feet of office, flex industrial and heavy industrial commercial buildings.
Spinner said July 8 his group is buying more land near Port Jax but did not elaborate.
“We are in negotiations. We are going to develop and build more of the same industrial type buildings,” he said.