City spokesman James Croft said May 11 that the sodded Jacksonvlle Landing site Downtown will be available for events before it is redeveloped.
“The site will be a public greenspace for a period, like the Ford on Bay site following the old City Hall demolition, and can be reserved and permitted for special events by the City,” Croft said in an email.
Croft is the city assistant director of public affairs. Ford on Bay is the sodded site of the former Duval County Courthouse and City Hall on the waterfront along East Bay Street. A deal is pending with Spandrel Development Partners LLC of New York city to redevelop the site with apartments and retail space.
Croft said that after sodding is completed, the Downtown Investment Authority will focus on the design of the Landing space at 2 Independent Drive on the Downtown Northbank.
He said the DIA then will “issue notices of disposition for private development of the two development parcels abutting the Water Street/Independent Drive that frame the public space.”
The site is expected to feature private development on two pads with green and hardscape public space at the center and pedestrian access at the St. Johns riverbank with views of the water.
Croft said the final design of the public space will determine the size of the available development parcels, although “there are minimum functional building/garage sizes that will be taken into consideration in the design of the public space.”
The former Jacksonville Landing riverfront marketplace occupied a 6-acre site for 32 years before it was closed and demolished. Site work began in August.
The site is being graded for sodding with grass.
Croft said May 8 that contractor D.H. Griffin Wrecking Co. Inc. and subcontractor Crossbow Cattle Inc. are grading the riverfront site Downtown and are scheduled to start sodding late this week.
Sodding will take a week and the site will remain fenced for the grass to take root.
D.H. Griffin’s contract to demolish the Landing totaled $1,074,002, including grading and sodding.