The city’s potential purchase of a building that would house the first classrooms for the University of Florida graduate center campus in LaVilla remained on two parallel tracks April 1 as the property ownership team expressed a preference for a land swap while some Jacksonville City Council members signaled support of an outright purchase.
During a meeting of the Council Finance Committee, Chair Ron Salem said he would press forward on his proposal for the city to buy the Interline Brands Inc. building at 801 W. Bay St.
He said he was encouraged by calls he had received from numerous people, including former Downtown Investment Authority staff and board members, “who have told me the land swap is not a good deal for the city and to still continue to champion the purchases.”
On March 25, Council approved legislation introduced by Salem, Ordinance 2025-0135, to set aside up to $8 million from city operating reserves for the purchase. Salem said the funding would be replenished in the fall when JEA makes its annual contribution to the city. The city-owned utility is finalizing a plan to provide a record amount that includes a $40 million one-time injection into the 2025-26 city fiscal budget.
In the option to exchange for the Interline building, the city would provide a 1-acre development parcel it owns in Riverfront Plaza and an offer on an adjacent lot to the east.
Bryan Moll, who heads the Gateway Jax development partnership that owns the Interline building, told committee members that he and his partners believe the swap is the better option.
“We believe that the swap is still the best outcome for the city,” he said. “At the end of the day, we’re willing to sell the property if that’s what the Council would rather do.”
The committee meeting came on the heels of the Downtown Investment Authority receiving a new appraisal that valued the building at $6.75 million. That amount was in the middle of two appraisals previously obtained by the DIA and Gateway Jax.
A compilation of appraisals for the various properties, supplied by Council auditors, shows the values of the city-owned properties at a total of $5.02 million. The Riverfront Plaza development parcel is appraised at $3.41 million and the site east of the Main Street Bridge is $1.62 million.
In February, the DIA board voted 5-2 in favor of the land swap, for which Mayor Donna Deegan also has expressed support.
During the Finance Committee meeting, Council member Joe Carlucci noted that the DIA board’s vote was strictly on the land swap and didn’t involve the purchase proposal.
“The DIA more or less didn’t have two options,” he said. “They were given one option and they had to vote it up or down.”
Carlucci said that the outright purchase would net Gateway Jax a 68.75% return on its investment in the Interline building since the partners purchased it in October 2024 for $4 million. The seller was HD Supply Facilities Maintenance Ltd. of Atlanta.
Carlucci reasoned that since Gateway Jax supported the land swap, its return on its investment in that arrangement must be even higher.
During a March 31 interview, Moll said the exchange would be beneficial to the city for several reasons, including that it would immediately put the property back on the tax rolls in the hands of a private developer versus generating no tax revenue or the city spending additional public funding to integrate it into the park that is under construction on the western half of the plaza.
As part of the swap, Gateway committed to building a 17-story mixed-use property with a hotel, residences, retail, restaurants and public space on the Riverfront Plaza site.
Moll said the development would help revitalize Downtown and provide additional activities in the plaza that would draw visitors and local residents to the park.
Council member Matt Carlucci commended Salem for proposing the outright sale but said he wanted to consider it side-by-side with a development agreement involving the swap. DIA staff and Gateway are working on that agreement with a goal of producing legislation for Council in May.
He said he was concerned that an outright purchase would steer the matter out of the DIA’s hands.
“Nobody’s better, and nobody’s better equipped, to work on a development deal like this than the DIA,” he said.
Council member Will Lahnen said he preferred the purchase, citing a statement by Moll to the DIA board that the project would require $20 million in completion grants in addition to other incentives.
With Council auditors calling for deficits of up to $105 million in the city budget and with the city facing payments on other economic development incentives, Lahnen cautioned that the city could be left without enough room in its budget to pay for other large incentive packages.
Salem said he initially “felt like the Lone Ranger” in suggesting the outright purchase but had since heard from numerous people, not one of whom supported the swap.
He said planned to meet with Moll to negotiate a purchase price.
UF plans to start classes in the Interline building in the fall of 2025 ahead of the start of construction on new facilities for the campus on lots north and northeast of the Jacksonville Terminal rail station.
The university announced in December 2024 that it had selected LaVilla as the site for its graduate campus, contingent on UF being supplied with property.
City officials have been working to provide six parcels, including the Interline building, the historic terminal and the newer portions of the Prime F. Osborn III Convention Center. The train station would be kept intact and adapted as a mixed-use campus building, while the rest of the convention center would be razed to make way for new construction.
The final property targeted by the city is a 2.04-acre lot along West Bay Street near Interstate 95, directly north of the convention center parking lot. Among other options, the city is considering a land swap for that property, which is owned by multifamily developer Vestcor.