06:25 PM EST Share The for-sale residential project was meant to complement the city’s plans to build Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing Park in the historic Downtown neighborhood.
The Vestcor Companies Inc. has abandoned plans to build town houses in LaVilla, but the project could gain a familiar new developer.
Documents released March 5 by the Downtown Investment Authority state Vestcor will not proceed with the 88 for-sale town houses it planned for the Downtown community, but a partnership of JWB Real Estate Capital and Corner Lot Development is interested in the site.
The city narrowly selected Vestcor for the project over JWB and Corner Lot in 2019.
Managing Director and CEO, JEA
Jay Stowe, the new CEO of Jacksonville’s municipal water and electric utility since Nov. 30, inherited an organization cooperating in a federal grand jury probe and preparing a five-year, $2.5 billion capital investment plan.
His hiring ended a 1½-year period that saw an attempt to sell JEA to a private company, resulting in U.S. Department of Justice and City Council investigations and the firing of former CEO Aaron Zahn and his senior leadership team.
Stowe plans to repair trust within JEA while moving on plans to invest $1.6 million to modernize its its water and wastewater system.
Kelco Management and Development still has design work to do before Downtown regulators will allow it to break ground on a proposed Home2 Suites by Hilton in Brooklyn.
The Downtown Development Review Board voted 7-0 on Dec. 10 to award conceptual approval to the project at 600 Park St.
The board expects the extended-stay hotel to have higher quality architectural finishes when it returns for final review.
Several DDRB members said the construction materials presented in the plans and renderings look like a “suburban” product and not something found in the Downtown design overlay.
“This looks like the Home2 budget hotel,” board member Craig Davisson said. “It looks like it’s not up to the standard on what I’ve seen of other Home2 hotels.”