The city of Jacksonville is seeking to acquire the former Interline Brands Inc. building for use as the first classroom facility for the University of Florida’s graduate center campus in Jacksonville.
In a Feb. 3 presentation to a Jacksonville City Council committee, Downtown Investment Authority CEO Lori Boyer said negotiations were underway for the city to obtain the building at 801 W. Bay St.
Investors in the Gateway Jax project purchased the property in late October 2024 through 801 Bay St LLC. The Gateway team paid $4 million for the two-story, 38,136-square-foot Interline building.
About six weeks later, the UF Board of Trustees announced it had selected the area around the Prime F. Osborn III Convention Center as the site for its proposed campus. The city announced that long-range plans for the campus called for it to include the Florida Semiconductor Institute and offer degrees in numerous subjects.
UF says enrollment could reach 20,000 or more. Full development, which includes construction of several buildings at and near the convention center, could take up to 20 years.
Kurt Dudas, vice president for strategic initiatives for UF, told the Council Neighborhoods, Community Services, Public Health and Safety Committee that the city’s acquisition of the 801 W. Bay St. building would allow the university to begin offering an architecture master’s program on the campus as early as fall 2025. That program currently operates out of the Groover-Stewart Building, 25 N. Market St.
Dudas said plans also called for the Florida Semiconductor Institute to be located in the Interline building in the near term before being moved elsewhere on the campus.
Seeking land swap
Boyer told committee members that in negotiating for the building, the city administration was “hopeful to provide other city-owned land as a swap.”
The city’s Investdtjax.com website lists 29 city-owned parcels Downtown from 0.01 acre to the 21.7-acre site of the former City Hall at 220 E. Bay St. The 15-story building there was imploded in 2019.
Dudas said UF’s timeline called for a business program to begin in January 2026, with further programs starting in fall 2026.
“This is without a doubt one of the most exciting and important projects at UF today,” he said.
In addition to negotiating for the Interline building, Boyer said the DIA is preparing documentation for disposition of two city-owned parcels directly north of the Jacksonville Terminal train station, now part of the convention center, and an adjacent paved parking lot to the east, across Park Street.
Boyer said she intended to present term sheets to the DIA board for consideration at its Feb. 19 meeting.
Those parcels would be the sites of the first new construction for the campus.
In all, the city would provide five sets of parcels for the project, including 801 W. Bay. Also included would be the Jacksonville Terminal and the adjacent convention center property, which stretches west to Interstate 95.
Those parcels would be offered in four dispositions, Boyer said, with the two vacant properties being packaged in one.
The convention center parcel includes the portion of the facility that was built in the 1980s and is attached to the train station, which opened in 1919.
In response to questions from committee members, Boyer said UF planned to use the historic train station as a retail and dining hub that also would include a railway ticketing location.
In the fall of 2024, the Biden administration offered a $1.25 million grant to return passenger rail service to the station. One initiative under consideration is moving the Jacksonville Amtrak station from 3570 Clifford Lane in northwest Jacksonville to the terminal.
Committee members also questioned Boyer about how the project would affect the convention center’s exposition hall.
She said the demolition of the newer portion of the center could not take place for at least five years and UF would have to provide the city with two years’ notice of demolition work.
Future convention center
The Downtown master plan calls for a new convention center at the site of the Duval County jail at 500 E. Adams St.
Boyer said the plan also contains a contingency for a temporary exposition hall to be built on the former city hall site.
In June 2024, a special Council committee recommended replacing the jail with a new campus-style facility. Among potential sites for the new construction is the Montgomery Correctional Center in North Jacksonville, previously known as the City Prison Farm, or P-Farm.
In a related matter, the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office has moved a portion of its operations from the Police Memorial Building adjacent to the jail to the Florida Blue building in Brooklyn. Legislation introduced to Council, Ordinance 2025-0069, would allow JSO to lease an additional 283,000 square feet of office space in the 20-story building.
With the lease, the department would house nearly all of its operations in the Florida Blue building, leaving just a fueling station in the Police Memorial Building.
The Interline building was developed in 1998 at northwest Bay and Jefferson streets, according to a deed executed Oct. 31 and recorded with the Duval County Clerk of Court on Nov. 5.
St. Augustine-based DLP Lending Fund LLC, an investor in Gateway Jax, financed the West Bay Street purchase at $2.6 million, according to the mortgage recorded Nov. 5.
Gateway has acquired more than two dozen properties Downtown and in Springfield with plans for $2 billion-plus in new construction and adaptive reuse of existing buildings. It broke ground on its first construction, a seven-story building called Pearl Square, in October 2024.
Plans call for that building at 515 N. Pearl St. to comprise 205 apartment units and 24,086 square feet of retail, commercial and storage space. Gateway Jax has targeted completion of the $45 million building in mid-2026.