After two years, multiple public meetings, dozens of critical comments from neighbors and hundreds of emails asking city decision-makers to squash it, a Southbank mixed-use development that includes self-storage has received a final go-ahead.
On Sept. 12, the Downtown Development Review Board voted 6-2 to grant final design approval for the Lofts at Southbank project.
Members Matt Brockelman, Peter Deiuliis, Kevin Craig, Carl Dawson Jr., Joanna Berling and Joseph Loretta voted yes, while board Chair Linzee Ott and member Ennis Davis voted no. Member Frederick Jones was not present.
With the vote, the project cleared its last hurdle to move into the permitting process. The $38.8 million, 10-story development is planned for the southwest corner of Prudential Drive and Hendricks Avenue on the footprint of what is now a defunct restaurant.
“As an architect, I feel like it’s an exciting multiuse facility in a place that could definitely use increased density,” said Deiuliis, a new addition to the board. “I think it’s an attractive solution for this area.”
According to LinkedIn, Deiuliis is department manager - architecture for Michael Baker International.
In April, City Council gave final approval to a rezoning request and a $6 million interest-only loan to develop affordable housing as part of the development. Both approvals came on split votes: 11-8 on the rezoning to Planned Unit Development and 16-3 on the loan.
The DDRB holds final authority on design and the vote is not subject to review by Council or the Downtown Investment Authority board.
In July, the DDRB granted conceptual approval to the project but requested changes to the final design after board members and speakers called for improvements such as more and larger windows, fewer blank exterior wall spaces and balconies on residential floors.
The revised design features changes including ground-floor awnings and planters to make it more welcoming to pedestrians, replacement of some metal wall coverings with glass and reconfiguring some walls to break up flat spaces and create overhangs on the ground level.
Dawson commended the architect, Group Four Design Inc., for incorporating changes requested by neighbors and board members.
“The project has improved dramatically,” he said. “It’s a much better project than it started out.”
DDRB staff recommended approval of the final design for the project. The development includes ground-floor retail, office and restaurant space, self-storage units on the third through sixth floor and apartments on the top four floors.
City documents list the developer as Jacksonville-based Vestcor through Lofts at Southbank Ltd. The contractor is Summit Contracting Group.
Owners are listed as G.I.S. Holdings of Atlanta, A. Walter Hirshberg Family Trust and Karen Hirshberg.
The self-storage portion of the project would be a CubeSmart facility.
Heavy pushback
The project drew heavy opposition from Southbank and San Marco residents, who complained that its size and scale would be out of character with the area and that self-storage was not permitted in the zoning overlay that covers the Southbank and extend throughout Downtown.
At one meeting, a neighbor appeared in a funeral black dress and veil to say that approving the project would send the neighborhood’s integrity “from hospice to the funeral home.”
During the April meeting when Council gave its final approvals to the project, several Council members said they had received as many as 300 emails in opposition to it.
In their comments, neighbors commonly said they were not opposed to affordable housing but that self-storage was not needed at the location, as other options are available a short distance away in places outside the zoning overlay boundaries. Neighbors also raised concerns about traffic, noise and health and safety risks stemming from the potential storage of hazardous materials and contraband at the site.
A zoning overlay is a customized set of regulations for neighborhoods or districts. Overlays create exceptions to the citywide zoning codes, including on land usage, building heights and setbacks.
The Sept. 12 meeting drew only one speaker, Nancy Powell of Scenic Jacksonville, who called the final design an improvement but did not signal that the organization approved of the project.
Davis, in explaining his no vote, said he felt the design did not meet a Downtown standard for facade design. The design standard is to “create architectural interest at the street level, enhance the urban character, and involve the pedestrian on the street with the adjacent building.
Ott has consistently voted against the development. She said she was pleased about the addition of affordable and workforce housing.
Evolution of the development
The project emerged in 2022. Its first iteration stalled when the Council withdrew a bill that would have amended the Downtown zoning overlay to permit self-storage facilities on the Northbank and Southbank.
G.I.S. Holdings of Atlanta came back with a mixed-use project that included residential and retail space but not an affordable housing component. After DDRB staff recommended denying the project and the body voted against it, Council voted 9-9 on a rezoning request for the development in June 2023.
City staff advised that the tie vote amounted to a denial. That opinion prompted the development team to pursue a mediation process, which resulted in an opportunity to propose what became the third version of the project.
The DDRB staff recommended denying that version as well, but the DDRB board disagreed with the staff, voting 7-1 on April 9 in favor of recommending that the Council approve the rezoning.
The project also sparked pointed disagreements among Council members, with some describing it as undermining the zoning overlay and others characterizing it as a compromise between the developer and the neighborhood.
In approving the rezoning, Council adopted several amendments recommended by the DDRB, including requirements for the self-storage hours of operation to be limited to 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., and for 8,500 square feet of the ground-floor retail space to be dedicated to retail use unrelated to the self-storage or residential leasing operations.