The Jacksonville City Council voted April 9 to rezone a strip of land in East Arlington to build Blue Angel Road.
Ordinance 2024-0153 was approved 18-1, with District 2 Council member Mike Gay voting no. He represents the road area.
Blue Angel Road is designed to connect Atlantic Boulevard to the Amazon.com last-mile distribution center under construction at JaxEx at Craig Airport. The Jacksonville Aviation Authority owns the land and is leasing it for the Amazon center, which is expected to open about October.
The road, between Duval Acura and Land Rover Jacksonville, will be the main access point in and out of the warehouse.
The address for the roadway improvements is 11221 Atlantic Blvd.
Project civil engineer Kimley-Horn and Associates said there will be two east-bound left-turn lanes from Atlantic Boulevard onto Blue Angel Road.
To leave Blue Angel Road to drive east, drivers would head west on Atlantic Boulevard and then make a U-turn.
Documents filed with the Council legislation explain that the new access point will provide one east-bound left-turn lane into the Duval Acura property, one west-bound deceleration and U-turn lane within the Atlantic Boulevard median for travel back to the east, the installation of two additional traffic signals and the unchanged location of the Sutton Road-Atlantic Boulevard traffic signal serving the Duval Acura property.
At the Council Land Use and Zoning Committee meeting April 2, Gay, who is not on LUZ but joined the meeting, said he has received complaints about the rezoning from constituents who are confused about its purpose.
The Greater Arlington/Beaches Citizens Planning Advisory Committee notified Council, the LUZ and the Jacksonville Planning Commission on March 20 that it voted to recommend denial of the rezoning application.
The 80-acre warehouse site was rezoned as a Planned Unit Development in 2022 so the 181,000-square-foot warehouse could be built. The legislation, introduced Feb. 27, rezones the property as a PUD, but makes necessary changes to allow for Blue Angel Road to be developed.
Erin Abney, the city’s chief of current planning, said Blue Angel Road was originally identified as a potential secondary access point to General Doolittle Drive. Changing it to the main access point necessitated a PUD to PUD modification.
Jacksonville Daily Record Editor At Large Karen Brune Mathis contributed to this report.