Plans to convert a 1960s-era service station into the brick-and-mortar home of the Eat Happy Jax food truck are in motion after action by the Jacksonville Planning Commission on Sept. 5.
By unanimous votes, the commission approved requests for a set of zoning code deviations and a waiver of a requirement to allow alcohol sales at the proposed restaurant at 4323 Herschel St., at northeast Herschel Street and San Juan Avenue.
In an unusual circumstance, the Planning Commission’s votes amounted to final approvals.
Normally, the commission’s vote on the request for the alcohol waiver would have preceded final consideration by the City Council.
In this case, the Planning Commission had been scheduled to vote on the waiver Aug. 22, but that vote was postponed due to an error in the published notice of the item.
On Aug. 27, the City Council took its final vote on legislation for the alcohol waiver, which eliminated a minimum distance requirement between an establishment serving alcohol and a church or school.
The Council Land Use and Zoning Committee had voted Aug. 20 to recommend passage of the waiver on the condition that at least 51% of the restaurant’s revenue come from sales of food and nonalcoholic beverages and that there would be no amplified live music played outside the establishment.
The zoning code deviations did not need City Council approval. They included reducing the minimum number of off-street parking spaces from 35 to seven, reducing the minimum number of loading spaces from one to none, eliminating a minimum setback for a trash container along the west side of the property and reducing a landscape buffer in the vehicle use area.
A seafood restaurant
Plans call for the long-vacant building to be repurposed as a seafood restaurant with both indoor and outdoor seating. Online menus for the food truck show such items as fish and shrimp baskets, shrimp po’boys, chicken sandwiches and wings.
Cyndy Trimmer, a representative for the property developer, told the LUZ committee that the restaurant operators had received “a lot of calls from people very excited to see something going into this site.”
The other corners of the intersection are home to a Watson Realty Corp. office, a Wells Fargo bank branch and an office building that recently was renovated to become an EverBank branch.
The property is bordered to the east by a parking lot owned by St. Johns Presbyterian Church. Trimmer said the church was supportive of the request to eliminate the minimum distance requirement, having given the restaurant approval to share 27 spaces in the parking lot.
A site plan provided with the application shows a one-way traffic-flow design in which cars will enter off of Herschel Street and exit onto San Juan Avenue. The plan shows seven diagonal parking spaces north of the existing structure, with an outdoor seating area between the spaces and the building. Building additions are shown on either end of the building and a new sidewalk along the street-facing boundary of the property.
The property is owned by San Juan Corner LLC, which is led by John and Margaret Williams.
More action
In other action, the Planning Commission approved a request for alcohol waivers for The Paddle Lands Pickleball Club, 8402 Merchants Way, and Scramblers restaurant, 9940 Old Baymeadows Road.
According to a staff report, Paddle Lands plans to sell beer and wine at its location in the Oakleaf Station Shopping Center. The waiver reduces the minimum distance from a church to 1,030 feet from 1,500. Elevate Life Church is southeast of the establishment along Merchants Way.
Scramblers is in the Deerwood Village shopping center, where it seeks to serve all alcoholic beverages. The waiver reduces the minimum distance from the Florida State College at Jacksonville’s Deerwood campus to 430 feet from 500 feet.