Responding to concerns that a 15,000-seat soccer stadium would overshadow a nearby neighborhood, Jacksonville-based soccer club Sporting Club Jacksonville published a preliminary site map showing how it has divided up its plans for 150 acres of development.
Published on centrejax.com, plans show six “districts” across about 375 acres of land, each with specified uses. The map shows one space as undeveloped wetlands, with five others that include the stadium of Sporting JAX, as the club is better known. Other spaces are for entertainment, hospitality, healthcare, residential and retail.
The development would sit near the St. Johns Town Center, off Interstate 295 and Town Center Parkway.
The website describes Centre JAX as a walkable, year-round destination built around a multipurpose stadium that would host Sporting JAX’s men’s and women’s professional soccer along with football, lacrosse, rugby, concerts and community events.
Plans for the site call for a 15,000-seat stadium in the development that would meet the requirements for Sporting JAX’s men’s team to compete in the upcoming United Soccer League Premier, the highest level of competition the United Soccer League will offer. That stadium could expand its capacity in the future, McNaughton said.
The men’s side competes in the United Soccer League Championship, which serves as the USL’s highest competition until the planned debut of the USL Premier in 2028.
Sporting JAX’s women’s team plays in the Gainbridge Super League, the highest level of women’s competition offered by the USL.
The area’s largest development section, noted as District A, would include the Sporting JAX stadium, retail and residential space on 44.72 acres. The adjacent 22.3-acre District D would include entertainment, hospitality and healthcare space with frontage along I-295.
District C, a 27.69-acre space also with I-295 frontage, would include retail space. Next to it, the 9.63-acre District B would include multifamily and student housing. The development is sited across I-295 from the University of North Florida.
The final developed district, set apart from the other parcels, would include 55 acres of residential space adjacent to existing single-family homes.
In April, the Daily Record reported the St. Johns River Water Management District was reviewing an application related to the project. The application is for construction or operation of new works, activities and/or a stormwater management system on the property.
On a list of activities proposed in relation to the project, the applicants selected “activities within wetlands or surface waters, or within 25 feet of a wetland or surface water”; and “construction or alteration of a stormwater management system serving residential, commercial, transportation, industrial, agricultural, or other land uses, or a solid waste facility.”
Kimley-Horn and Associates, a Jacksonville-based civil engineering firm, is the registered professional consultant, and Oneida Environmental LLC is listed as an environmental consultant.
An amended purchase and sale agreement for the property lists the buyer as Jax Real Estate Holdings LLC, whose registered agent is Sporting JAX majority owner Ricky Caplin. The seller is City National Bank of Florida, as trustee of Liquidating Land Trust No. 5196-5.
Sporting JAX said it hopes to begin play at the new stadium in 2028. Both teams currently play at UNF’s Hodges Stadium.