After being denied from transforming part of the Allstate Campus office park into a mixed-use development with retail spaces, town homes and condominiums, the property owner has received administrative approval from the city of Jacksonville to redevelop it with multifamily housing that includes affordable units.
The 29.77-acre site, called The Pondry by the developer, is near Butler Boulevard and San Pablo Road South.
On Dec. 17, seven days after City Council rejected Trevato Development Group’s plan, it submitted plans for an apartment development under Florida’s Live Local Act.
That legislation, enacted in 2023 and refined a year later, aims to increase mixed-income housing by allowing developers to build without zoning or land use changes, such as what the city used to halt Trevato’s previous plan.
Jacksonville Beach-based Trevato is pursuing the project through SP 1776 LLC. It bought the property at 4920 San Pablo Road S. in 2023 for $20 million.
The LLC is managed by Contega Business Services and represented by attorney Steve Diebenow of the Driver, McAfee, Hawthorne & Diebenow PLLC law firm.
A Jan. 15 letter from the city Planning and Development Department to Diebenow states that “Staff has reviewed the submitted application and project narrative and finds that it meets the Live Local Act provisions for Affordable Housing.”
According to the application, 188 of the apartments will be designated as affordable.
With that approval in hand, Diebenow applied on April 11 for a service availability determination for The Pondry Apartments.
VIKA South LLC of Jacksonville submitted the application. VIKA specializes in project planning, engineering and design.
The JEA application says the project will retain two existing office buildings, totaling 232,493 square feet of space, and construct up to 470 multifamily units.
The JEA service availability application comes four months after Council voted 17-2 to deny a rezoning request to redevelop the office park into residential, office and retail space.
That vote came amid heavy opposition from neighbors of the property, dozens of whom came to public hearings and emailed Council members with concerns that the development would create heavy traffic congestion and that the density of its residential component was incompatible with its surroundings, among other criticisms.
Many of the opponents are homeowners in the affluent Pablo Creek Reserve gated community adjacent to The Pondry.
During hearings before the Planning Commission and LUZ Committee on the rezoning ordinance, Diebenow said Trevato met with neighbors three times and made significant changes to its original site plan based on concerns aired in those meetings.
Among them, the developer removed a hotel and 10,000 square feet of retail space and replaced apartments with for-sale housing.
Building by right
Contacted April 14, Diebenow said the new plan for the property was developed based on input from residents at those meetings.
“The neighbors encouraged our client to build what he could by right, and that’s what he’s working on,” Diebenow said.
Plans show a four-story, 470-unit apartment building with a parking deck in the center. There are four courtyard areas, one showing a pool.
The apartment comprises 235 one-bedroom, 202 two-bedroom and 33 three-bedroom units.
There are 905 parking spaces, a 9,000-square-foot clubhouse and a leasing center.
Total parking for the office and apartment development is 1,605 spaces.
A letter dated Dec. 17 says that the developer, SP 1776 LLC, will complete a transportation study before being issued a building permit.
Live Local affordability
Under the Live Local Act, a municipality must authorize multifamily and mixed-use residential as allowable uses in any area zoned for commercial, industrial, or mixed-use if at least 40% of the residential units are rental units that, for at least 30 years, are affordable. That would be 188 units for The Pondry.
Affordability is determined by a household earning less than 120% of the area median income. According to the Florida Housing Finance Corp., in Duval County that is $123,000 for a family of four in 2025.
A “Live Local Project Narrative” with the application from Diebenow details how the project complies with the requirements.
They include the property zoning as commercial, the project’s mixed-use element, its residential density, project height and parking.
“As explained throughout this narrative, the Project complies with all the requirements under the Live Local Act. Accordingly, the City of Jacksonville must administratively approve the Project,” it concludes.
The previous proposal
An exhibit filed with Ordinance 2024-0828, which contained the rezoning request for the first plan, showed a total office area of 192,836 square feet; 250 residential units among 24 row houses, 36 town homes and 190 condos; 20,019 square feet of retail space; and surface parking along with parking on the ground floors of the residential and retail space.
Neighbors mobilized against the proposal. Council member Nick Howland said he had received 186 emails in opposition.
Among the criticisms was that the development was out of character in the area, where the lower-density Pablo Creek Reserve contains about 280 homes on 400 acres. Home values in the gated community are as much as $4 million to $5 million.
The rezoning request pitted two prominent Jacksonville land use attorneys, Diebenow and Paul Harden, against each other. Harden opposed the rezoning as a representative of neighboring property owners.
The Jacksonville Planning Commission voted unanimously to recommend approval of the rezoning. The Council Land Use and Zoning Committee rejected that recommendation, voting 7-0 against the rezoning ordinance.
Council members followed the LUZ recommendation, with the exception of members Jimmy Peluso and Tyrona Clark-Murray.
Peluso said Council was “ignoring the fact that we need more housing” in Jacksonville and believed that denying the rezoning was bad community planning.
He added, “We all know this is going to go to a lawsuit anyway.”