A 188-unit townhouse project called Sawyer’s Place is proposed on almost 19 acres at Corporate Square near Atlantic and Southside boulevards.
The city calculated a mobility fee of $224,913 to mitigate the project’s traffic impact.
Curtis Hart of Hart Resources is the agent and is developing the project with Jacksonville-based JWB Real Estate Capital.
Hill, Boring & Associates Inc. is the civil engineer.
M and K Properties of Jacksonville LLC owns the vacant land.
Plans show 27 buildings, comprising 17 buildings of eight units; six of six units; and four of four units.
“Pricing is in the affordable range,” Hart said.
JWB President Alex Sifakis said his group is deciding whether to build on the lots or sell them to another builder.
However, he said the completed units would be priced at $180,000 to $200,000 and range from 1,300 to 1,600 square feet in size. Most would be three-bedroom units.
Sifakis said the land is under contract.
He said his group hopes to close on the purchase and start horizontal construction by year-end, completing it by the summer of 2021. Building construction would start soon after.
JWB buys, develops, rents, sells and manages properties for its portfolio and for investors.
The company focuses on buying and building on infill properties, especially single lots scattered among developed and urban areas. Sifakis said JWB owns close to 900 infill lots.
“It’s getting harder and harder to find those individual lots, so we have been moving more toward land development,” he said.
He considers the Corporate Square land, at southwest Southside and Atlantic boulevards, an infill property and said there is built-in demand because of the development around it.
“They are more complicated to redevelop, but that is what we like to do,” he said.
Complications arise from previous site development. “For Corporate Square, there are multiple sewer lines and easements running through the property that have to be rerouted or dealt with,” he said.
JWB considers infill redevelopment “a good way to build affordable housing,” which it frames as up to $200,000.
Sawyer’s Place also is a special project for Sifakis. It’s named after his toddler son.