The Downtown Investment Authority wrapped up its business for 2016 on Wednesday by approving incentives to bring a satellite campus of Jacksonville University to the urban core, expand the scope of an apartment project slated for Brooklyn and support two businesses in The Elbow entertainment district.
In a fast-paced three-hour meeting, the board of directors also approved improving a parking lot near the Sports Complex to promote retail activity in the area and issuing a request for proposals for redevelopment of the Shipyards property and Metropolitan Park.
The authority will loan JU $274,000 for costs associated with tenant improvements and capital expenditures to establish a 15,000-square-foot campus on the 18th floor of SunTrust Tower.
Thirty faculty and staff members will provide undergraduate and post-graduate courses to about 100 students, who will take day and evening classes.
Tim Cost, president of JU, said the students will be in programs offered by the Brooks Rehabilitation College of Healthcare Sciences and the Davis College of Business.
The loan will be forgiven at the rate of 3.45 percent per month over the course of the initial 29-month term of the lease. Cost said the intention is for the urban campus to be permanent.
“The idea of coming Downtown has been on our schedule for two years,” he said.
“JU is part of the DNA of this city. I want Downtown to be part of the DNA of JU,” said board Chair Jim Bailey, publisher of the Daily Record.
The 200 Riverside project along Riverside Avenue in Brooklyn that was approved in February by the Downtown Development Review Board will be expanded by three floors — to 10 stories — and by 50 units for a total of 311 one- and two-bedroom apartments.
The board approved modifying the original development rights agreement to add the units and to reduce the retail space from 18,000 square feet to 14,000.
A $79,000 retail enhancement grant was approved for LIVE Bakery & Bar at 327 and 331 E. Bay St.
The owners plan to invest nearly $331,000 for the bakery and restaurant that will serve lunch and dinner.
The project will, under the terms of the grant that is forgivable over five years, create 15 full-time and eight part-time jobs.
The owners of Spliff’s Gastropub and 1904 Music Hall along Ocean Street were approved for a $15,000 retail enhancement grant toward the $54,000 cost to consolidate the bar and restaurant operations and construct a beer garden in the alley behind the businesses.
Parking Lot X, a vacant lot at the southwest corner of A. Philip Randolph Boulevard and East Bay Street, will be paved, striped and lit with funds remaining in the Bay Street Town Center project.
The $376,000 appropriation includes $36,000 to build a pedestrian walkway between the lot and an existing dock on the St. Johns River that will likely become a new water taxi stop.
Authority CEO Aundra Wallace said the lot will be exclusively for short-term parking and will be patrolled by parking enforcement staff who will issue citations to vehicles left in the lot for more than two hours.
The board also terminated the suspended negotiations with Jacksonville Jaguars owner Shad Khan’s development firm that was selected in 2015 to redevelop the Shipyards property.
The authority, through the city Procurement Department, will issue a new notice of disposition for the riverfront property the city owns between Catherine Street and the WJCT Public Broadcasting offices and studios.
The offering includes the Shipyards property and Metropolitan Park.
The request for proposals will be issued Jan. 4 with plans due by March 6.
After a committee evaluates the candidates and the board approves the top-scoring submission, authority staff will have up to 18 months to bring a draft redevelopment agreement to the board.
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