JWB Real Estate Capital President Alex Sifakis describes the inside of the abandoned, 96-year-old Florida Baptist Convention Building at 218 W. Church St. in downtown Jacksonville this way. It looks like Jumanji, he said. You’ve got skylights that are just holes in the roof and ferns growing in there. You can see from the outside the bricks are falling off. When you’re inside you can see the potential, but it also looks like a lot of work.”
The five-story building designed by famed architect Henry John Klutho is the polar opposite in many ways from the $450 million Lot J development pitched by Jaguars owner Shad Khan that went down to defeat last week in dramatic fashion at a City Council meeting.
Lot J project defeated at City Council - Jacksonville Business Journal bizjournals.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from bizjournals.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
The site of the former Jacksonville Landing could see more signs of redevelopment in 2021.
Credit BILL BORTZFIELD / WJCT NEWS
The Jacksonville Landing met the wrecking ball in 2020, leaving a wide-open lawn and lots of questions about the site s future. In the near term, the city has dubbed the space Riverfront Plaza.
Draft documents from the Downtown Investment Authority show the city plans to spend up to $300,000 to solicit designs to develop a park/plaza at the site of the former festival marketplace.
The Main Street Bridge ramp next to the former Landing site is also scheduled to be demolished in 2021.
COMMENTARY | No aspect of Jaguars owner Shad Khan s development plans near TIAA Bank Field better encapsulates his mysterious, urgent-until-it s-not timeline than his proposed Four Seasons on Metropolitan Park just across the street.
Team President Mark Lamping has told city officials in recent weeks Khan is ready to begin discussing incentives for that development and has already laid out a rough series of plans and a potential ask from taxpayers: Another $126 million or so, in addition to the $240 million (up to $390 million when interest is included) taxpayers will shell out for his plans on Lot J, a parking lot next to the stadium.