Jacksonville City Council clears way for planned industrial park on LNG Eagle land

Business

A proposed industrial park on North Jacksonville property previously planned as a liquefied natural gas facility moved closer to development on March 24 with approvals by Jacksonville City Council of requests for rezoning and a land use change.

Council voted 16-0, with Council members Joe Carlucci, Jimmy Peluso and Randy White away from the dais, in favor of rezoning the property from Industrial Water to Light Industrial via Ordinance 2026-0084, and 17-0, without Carlucci and White, to approve a land use amendment from Water Dependent-Water Related to Light Industrial via Ordinance 2026-0083.

The site is at 1632 Zoo Parkway is 2 miles east of the Jacksonville Zoo and Botanical Gardens and 6 miles west of JaxPort’s Blount Island Marine Terminal.

Eagle LNG planned to build a liquefied natural gas export facility in North Jacksonville along Zoo Parkway about 2 miles east of the Jacksonville Zoo and Gardens.

Cincinnati-based Merus and Eagle LNG agreed Nov. 26, 2025, to a purchase and sale agreement for 67.56 acres. Merus plans to turn a 42.58-acre portion of the property into an industrial park.

The master plan by Merus and its Merus Architects in Nashville, Tennessee, shows a three-phase project comprising a 421,120-square-foot Building 1 as Phase 1 and a 277,760-square-foot Building 2 as Phase 2. A Phase 3 is shown without a building designation. The rest of the site is labeled as detention and flood plain areas.

The requests say the proposal is not a final site layout.

“We have the potential to add additional loading bays should it be required by future tenants,” it says.

The CBRE real estate company has listed the site as a 227-acre property for sale, calling it industrial waterfront development land. CBRE says the land is zoned for industrial use, offers CSX rail access and deep water with a 40-foot depth on the St. Johns River.

Zoo Parkway Industrial Park at 1632 Zoo Parkway in North Jacksonville is south of the Imeson Park South industrial park. The property was planned for Eagle LNG Partners LLC’s liquefied natural gas site along the St. Johns River.

Eagle LNG wanted to ship gas from the site to Puerto Rico and other Caribbean Islands, provide it for fuel for marine customers globally and use it for U.S. domestic energy consumption. However, the coronavirus pandemic, inflation, construction costs and supply-chain challenges appear to have sidetracked the proposed $542 million project.

Eagle LNG paid $26 million in May 2022 for 194.18 acres from the Bostwick family. It separately paid $12.2 million to CEFL Inc., affiliated with North Jacksonville land owners William Webb Jr. and Dan Webb, for an adjacent 33.05 acres.