After nearly six years of planning and two trips back to the drawing board, The Related Group of Miami held a ceremonial groundbreaking May 20 for its high-rise project on the Downtown Southbank of Jacksonville.
“These are simple words we’ve been waiting a few years to say, but here we are,” said Ron Melendez, executive vice president for Related, kicking off an event attended by the company’s founding executive chairman, Jorge M. Perez, Mayor Donna Deegan, Jacksonville City Council members Ken Amaro, Joe Carlucci, Jimmy Peluso and Ron Salem, and others.
Related’s proposed Southbank Residences is a 25-story tower and eight-story building with an attached parking garage at 835 Museum Circle, the site of the demolished River City Brewing Co.
According to Related, the project involves a $202.7 million private investment and is the first new luxury high-rise on the Jacksonville riverfront in more than a decade.
Designs call for 395 apartments across the two buildings, along with an outdoor pool, top-floor sky lounge and bar, ground-level restaurant, marina office, kayak area, small movie theater with seating for 15 viewers, sports lounge and other amenities.
“We threw everything at this, including kitchen sinks,” said Related President and CEO Steve Patterson.
“This has it all.”
The project’s progression
The project emerged in 2020 as a $92 million, eight-story apartment community. In June 2021, Jacksonville City Council unanimously approved a redevelopment agreement and $18.27 million in taxpayer incentives for that version.
In April 2023, Related dropped those plans in favor of a project that added a 24-story tower to the mid-rise apartment building, along with other new elements.
That proposal stalled when projected construction costs came in $30 million higher than Related originally calculated.
In 2024, Council approved $58.79 million in public funding for an early iteration of the current version of the project. The estimated cost was listed at $202.75 million.
The incentives comprise a $39 million completion grant and a $19.79 million Recapture Enhanced Value Grant.
A REV Grant is a refund on ad valorem tax revenue generated by a new development. The grant for Related is based on 75% of the increased real and personal property taxes generated at the project site over 15 years.
‘Jacksonville will not settle’
Related is among the largest developers in the Southeast, having built more than 100,000 units and 17 million square feet of living space since its founding in 1979.
The contractor for the Southbank project, Coastal Construction Group of South Florida, is one of Florida’s largest general contractors, having completed more than 50 million square feet of vertical construction.
Speakers said that attracting a developer the caliber of Related was a signal of progress in Downtown’s redevelopment, with Deegan saying there was “nobody I’ve been more excited to bring into this city than George Perez and the Related Group.”
Carlucci, whose Council District 5 includes the Southbank Residences site, said the project created doubts in the community about whether it was feasible, which intensified as years passed.
“Jacksonville has been promised things before, and we’ve learned to hedge our hope. But there’s good news: The conversation in this city will no longer be, ‘Will anything ever happen Downtown?’ That question is done,” he said.
“The new question, and the only question that matters going forward, is this: Is your project good enough for Jacksonville? Because Jacksonville will not settle. We’re not going to be a city that just takes anything that comes our way. We’re going to become a city that expects excellence and follow-through.”
Amaro said the city’s investment in the Related project would help the entire community by helping attract more residents, business operators and visitors to Downtown.
“When your Downtown is booming, your suburbs will be OK,” he said.
Perez hinted that Related’s interests in Jacksonville and Downtown weren’t limited to the Southbank project.
“We never just do one project,” he said. “We want to really invest and get involved.”
Permitting in review
In January 2026, the Daily Record reported that The Related Group project was in city permitting review at an estimated project cost of $150 million. In permitting, the construction estimate does not include all of the costs involved and such estimates typically are adjusted as reviews progress.
Plans showed the unit mix as 16 studios; 208 one-bedrooms; 127 two-bedrooms; and 43 three-bedrooms. Units were labeled either as Icon or Manor units, which are Related’s brands of luxury apartments.
Plans also refer to the project as Icon South Bank.
It would be the second project for The Related Group in Northeast Florida, following the Azure Oceanfront Residences in Jacksonville Beach. That condominium project was completed in 2024 and is sold out.
Property’s history
Related Group, through River City Brewery LLC, paid $10 million for the property in August 2021 when it bought the River City Brewery’s leasehold from the city.
The brewery’s co-owners closed the restaurant in July 2021 after operating it for 27 years. It was demolished in 2022.
The property had been home to restaurants for decades, including Lobster House, Diamondhead and Someplace Else disco club. The Lobster House was the backdrop for some scenes in the 1954 film “Creature from the Black Lagoon.”
RD River City Brewery LLC of Miami is the owner and developer. GAI Consultants of Jacksonville is the civil engineer. MSA Architects Inc. of Miami is the architect and Universal Engineering Sciences is the private plan review provider.