Fuqua Development announced April 29 that Whole Foods Market will lease the grocery space at its One Riverside Jacksonville center in the Brooklyn neighborhood Downtown.
Atlanta-based Fuqua is developing One Riverside at the former Florida Times-Union campus it bought at 1 Riverside Ave.
The grocer will lease about 43,000 square feet of space. There also will be 11,000 square feet of retail space for lease in the first phase.
It will be the third Whole Foods in Jacksonville, with the first operating in Mandarin and the second in Jacksonville Beach.
Apartments also will be built on the 18.8-acre Northbank riverfront site next to the Acosta Bridge.
The Times-Union buildings are being demolished. Construction of the Whole Foods Market could start in late summer.
The release said that located on a major commuter corridor and directly adjacent to the future Brooklyn Skyway monorail station, “1 Riverside Ave. will offer convenient access to organic groceries, fresh restaurant concepts, boutiques and services and a new avenue of connection to the St. Johns River and McCoy’s Creek.”
Principal and partner Jeff Fuqua could not comment beyond the release.
Fuqua and the city are working to uncover and realign McCoy’s Creek, which currently flows through the development.
The release said the creek’s new location will be next to land that will be developed concurrently by the city as a public park, connecting the project to the 30-mile Emerald trail and linear park system connecting 14 urban core neighborhoods.
Fuqua’s release said current plans for the first phase of the $250 million One Riverside project include Whole Foods Market, 270 multifamily units, a riverfront restaurant, retail and structured parking.
The second phase will include an additional 115 multifamily units, at least two riverfront or creekfront restaurants, 15,000 square feet of retail space and potentially a marina.
Vertical construction on the first phase is expected to start in late summer 2022.
Colliers Senior Vice President Matthew Clark and associates Sam Middlekauff and Olivia Steinemann are leading the retail leasing efforts for Fuqua.
Clark previously posted on LinkedIn that Colliers’ Urban Division is the exclusive leasing team for the retail part of the riverfront project.
“Located in Jacksonville’s ever-evolving Brooklyn neighborhood, the newly reimagined mixed-use One Riverside project will bring riverfront modern retail and dining options coupled with a 43,000 SF lifestyle grocer and 270 residential units,” says the post.
Fuqua Development is a Southeast U.S. developer of urban and suburban mixed-use projects.
Fuqua says it develops nonprototypical shopping centers and “live, work, stay” communities to combine retail and urban and suburban lifestyles.
Jeff Fuqua and partner Heather Correa have developed more than 300 retail and mixed-use projects totaling more than 20 million square feet with an estimated value in excess of $15 billion.
Whole Foods Market opened its 40,000-square-foot Jacksonville Beach store in October 2020 at 2050 S. Third St. in the Pablo Plaza shopping center.
It opened its first Jacksonville store in the Mandarin Landing shopping center at 10601 San Jose Blvd. in 2008. It is larger at 51,000 square feet.
The natural and organic foods market is based in Austin, Texas.
Fuqua is familiar with the grocery market in the area.
He was president of Sembler Company when it developed the Riverside Publix, which opened in 2002 at 2033 Riverside Ave., about 2 miles west of One Riverside at 1 Riverside Ave.
He also partnered with Jacksonville-based Regency Centers Corp. to develop the Brooklyn Station on Riverside center anchored by The Fresh Market, across the street from the One Riverside property.
Fuqua Development paid $25 million on Feb. 4 for the 18.84-acre former Times-Union site. It sold some of the property to TriBridge Residential for apartment development and 4.95 acres to the city for park space and restoration of McCoys Creek.
City Council approved a $31.59 million incentives package Nov. 23 for the redevelopment.
1 Riverside Property LLC, owned by the Morris family of Augusta, Georgia, sold the property to Fuqua Development.
The Times-Union campus was built in 1967. The Morris family bought the property and the newspaper in 1982. It sold the paper in 2017. The paper moved to Wells Fargo Center in April 2019.
