The city is reviewing a permit application for interior demolition of the historic Independent Life Building Downtown.
Permitting review is underway after the Downtown Investment Authority board voted unanimously June 17 to approve a term sheet with Augustine Development Group subsidiary PEP10 LLC that includes a $3 million city Historic Preservation and Revitalization Trust Fund grant for the project.
Augustine Development Group President Bryan Greiner and investment partner DLP Capital LLC purchased the 19-story office building at 233 W. Duval St. on Sept. 30 through PEP10 LLC for $3.7 million.
The proposed $30 million renovation includes space for a 21,000-square-foot grocery store, 140 market-rate apartments, a parking garage and a 10,000-square-foot top-floor restaurant and “executive sky lounge,” Greiner said Feb. 20.
Ronin Contractors LLC is the contractor for the $1 million interior demolition project.
It includes the demolition of nonload-bearing walls and lead and asbestos removal and environmental abatement. Two elevators also would be removed.
The building comprises 170,611 square feet of space, plans show. Dasher Hurst Architects of Jacksonville is the architect.
The terms and grant approved by the DIA will be incorporated into a redevelopment agreement that will go to City Council, which approved the developer’s request April 28 to designate the Independent Life Building, built in 1955, a local landmark.
Driver, McAfee, Hawthorne & Diebenow attorney Steve Diebenow represents Augustine Development Group.
Diebenow said the developer is waiting for approval from the National Park Service to include a rooftop pool and a curtain wall of windows on one exterior facade.
The National Park Service reviews renovation designs for federally recognized landmarks like the Independent Life Building. Downtown Jacksonville’s 2016 National Register District nomination recognized the building as one of the city’s landmarks.
The Downtown Development Review Board also must approve the final design. The DDRB voted unanimously to issue preliminary design approval in November.
Diebenow told the board June 17 that he expects the redevelopment agreement to take 60 to 120 days through City Council.
Augustine Development Group agreed to a construction timeline in the term sheet, Diebenow said.
According to the DIA document, the developer has six months from Council approval to begin construction, with completion required 18 months later.
That would put project completion in the first or second quarter of 2022.
DIA board member Oliver Barakat, who is a real estate broker and senior vice president at CBRE Jacksonville, said the Independent Life renovation has contributed to “a fair amount of developers” looking for project opportunities nearby.
“This is such an important area of Downtown that’s been seeking an investment for some time. This would catalyze other projects. And in some respects, it already has.” Barakat said. “Hopefully, this will be a catalyst of more to come in the northern end of Downtown, which is probably, at this point, the weakest link in the Downtown area.”
Daily Record Editor Karen Brune Mathis contributed to this report.
