Jacksonville Jaguars owner Shad Khan’s plans for a Four Seasons hotel-anchored development near TIAA Bank Field Downtown.
The project area south of near TIAA Bank Field.
Renderings submitted to the Downtown Development Review Board show the hotel and office buildings.
The project includes a marina.
The view between the buildings.
The east elevation of the hotel
The plan for the area
The south elevation of the hotel
The west elevation of the hotel
The Four Seasons is shown on the documents with the renderings.
Jacksonville Jaguars owner Shad Khan’s plans for a Four Seasons hotel-anchored development near TIAA Bank Field Downtown faces two votes this week to advance the project’s proposed city incentives and design plans.
The Downtown Development Review Board is scheduled to vote Oct. 14 whether to award conceptual approval to designs for the estimated $321 million riverfront project.
The DDRB meets two days after City Council is expected to vote on a $114 million city incentives package to help finance the project for Khan’s development group Iguana Investments Florida LLC.
The latest renderings released by the city Oct. 7 show the Four Seasons hotel flag logo, which indicates the five-star chain is involved in the project.
Jaguars President Mark Lamping told the Downtown Investment Authority board in June that Iguana expects “a longer-term agreement” from the Four Seasons in Jacksonville.
Lamping said Four Seasons likely would expect the same from Khan, but Iguana and the Jaguars have not discussed the negotiations publicly since then.
Khan owns a Four Seasons hotel in Toronto.
The DDRB staff documents show Dallas-based international firm HKS Architects Inc. will design the hotel, office and marina support buildings.
In its report, DDRB staff recommends that the board vote in favor of the conceptual design.
The deal approved by the DIA board showed the total project including a second phase on 14.4 acres on part of the former Kids Kampus park at the city-owned Shipyards land.
The DDRB report includes the entire 24.7-acre park area. Iguana has pledged $200,000 annually for 20 years to fund Metropolitan Park maintenance.
Khan wants to build a 10-story, 176-room Four Seasons with 25 for-sale luxury condominiums; a full-service spa; a 157,027-square-foot, six-story, Class A office building; and a marina support building.
The site plans submitted to the DDRB show space for a 3,400-square-foot river club specialty restaurant, a 4,443-square-foot all-day dining area, a 5,400-square-foot ballroom, a lobby bar, meetings rooms and a conference center.
The plans shows two top-floor duplexes, one at 1,760 square feet and other at 3,001 square feet.
Along with the Metropolitan Park marina support building, Iguana will have the option to restore the marina slips, extend the Northbank riverwalk and create an events lawn.
The DDRB and Council votes next week will not include phase two, which is a 42,000-square-foot orthopedic sports medicine campus by Baptist Health, 15,000 square feet of street-level retail, a more than 200-space parking structure and possibly a residential component.
Iguana has not released complete plans for the second phase.
The renderings show the hotel and office buildings with similar architecture of broad roof overhangs, curved lines and glazing, which the staff report calls a contemporary design.
The site plans show a large urban open space on Gator Bowl Boulevard that acts as the entryway to the hotel, and the vertical construction is set back 50 feet from the St. Johns River bulkhead.
On Sept. 16, the DDRB recommended Council approve a design deviation for the Four Seasons site, which is at odds with the city Downtown Zoning Overlay standards for river view corridors.
The overlay says a development parcel on the river cannot be wider than 250 linear feet. Iguana wants the hotel parcel to be 384 linear feet on the riverfront, otherwise, the required view corridor would split the parcel.
Council could grant the deviation as part of the $114 million incentives bill expected for a final vote Oct. 12.
The code deviation for Iguana is one of the recent requests from DIA CEO Lori Boyer and the DIA board urging the DDRB to support longer distances between river view corridors on three dense waterfront development projects.
The board also could consider similar deviations for development of the former Duval County Courthouse site on Bay Street and for Fuqua Development’s plans at the former Florida Times-Union property, now called One Riverside.
Site plans show the Iguana development will have a combined 80 feet of mandatory of JEA utility easements to the east and west of the office and marina support buildings that will act as river view corridors as well as Metropolitan Park to the east.
A Sept. 16 DDRB staff report agreed with Iguana that the easements combined with the mandatory river view corridor are a constraint on the development but cautions to maintain as much river visibility for the public as possible.
“Staff understands that due to resiliency there will be elevation changes in the site,” the report says.
“Staff recommends that the developer continue to work with the DIA staff to ensure that the public’s view of the river provided by these corridors is preserved to the greatest extent possible.”
If advanced Oct. 14, Iguana will have to return to the review board for final approval before it can start construction.
Council meets at 5 p.m. Oct. 12 at City Hall. The DDRB meets at 2 p.m. Oct. 14 on the 8th floor of the Ed Ball Building.
