Gateway Jax is designing a five-story “boutique” office and retail building on the site of a warehouse immediately north of the development group’s first construction project, principal Bryan Moll announced Feb. 26.
Appearing at the Cuppa Jax speaker series at Riverplace Tower on the Downtown Southbank, Moll said Gateway Jax was planning 60,000 square feet of office space over 15,000 square feet of ground-floor retail at 331 W. Ashley St. across Ashley Street from the $45 million Block N11 mixed-use building at 515 N. Pearl St.
The warehouse property is identified as Block N9 on site plans for the first five blocks of Gateway Jax’s $419 million Pearl Square project. It was not among the projects on four blocks of the district for which the city of Jacksonville approved $98.58 million in incentives in August 2024.
Moll, whose previous development projects included the Water Street redevelopment district in downtown Tampa and the Amazon HQ2 National Landing site near Washington, D.C., said Gateway wasn’t looking to include a significant amount of office space in the 30 acres it is developing Downtown.
Saying “we’re not betting the house” on office leasing, he alluded to a soft commercial real estate market which has been brought on largely by office vacancies stemming from work-from-home policies left over from the coronavirus pandemic.
“We’re not building a lot of it, first and foremost,” he said. “But interestingly enough, some of the best-performing office space in Tampa was in the building we built right next to all the rest of what we did on Water Street. It’s almost fully leased up at lease rates that are about double what the rest of the market is getting.”
Moll said there is demand for office space that allows people to walk to work and to nearby restaurants and retail establishments. He said the office building also was designed to capitalize on the national “flight to quality” movement among employers seeking higher-grade offices with better lighting, amenities, materials and layouts than traditional office buildings.
“People like space that fits their business needs for these days and a lot of older buildings don’t necessarily do that due to deep floor plates and maybe dark spaces,” he said.
Moll said the Gateway Jax team, which includes JWB Real Estate Capital and DLP Capital, was planning for the building to include a corner restaurant at Ashley and Pearl streets that would include rooftop dining.
According to Duval County Property Appraiser records, there is a 22,035-square-foot warehouse at that site was built in 1997. The single-story structure is valued at $213,800, with the total property value plus land at $546,238.
Gateway Jax’s Block N11, which is under construction, includes a seven-story building comprising 205 apartment units and 24,086 square feet of retail, commercial and storage space.
Moll said plans for the Pearl Square project had grown from five blocks to 10.
He said the partners plan to start construction of their next building in April, following by another start in the summer of 2025.
The Pearl Square project will include repurposing the “lighthouse” parking garage at 721 N. Pearl St. to include ground-floor retail space. The developers submitted civil engineering plans for the project to the city in January 2025 after receiving design approval from the Downtown Development Review Board in November 2024.
The plans show five retail spaces totaling 15,300 square feet of space. No tenants are identified.
The garage, formerly owned by the First Baptist Church, features an ornamental lighthouse on its northwest corner. The lighthouse will remain part of the structure under the redevelopment.
In August 2023, Council approved a $98.58 million incentive package for four blocks of Pearl Square.
Regarding other Gateway Jax properties, Moll said the developers had signed a letter of intent with a grocery store chain he declined to identify as the anchor for a planned redevelopment of Downtown’s NoCo Center into a 16-story mixed-use property.
Moll said the project was under design, with plans to begin construction in 2026 and complete it in 2028.
The Downtown Investment Authority board endorsed a $2.1 million incentive package aimed at incorporating a grocery store into the Gateway Jax development.
The board voted 8-0 on Dec. 18 to recommend approval of the incentives, which are part of plans to redevelop Downtown’s NoCo Center into a 16-story mixed-use property. The DIA vote constituted final action on the resolution, which does not require City Council approval.
The NoCo Center is the former First Baptist Church main auditorium at 119 W. Beaver St. In recent years, it has been the venue for immersive experiences such as “Beyond Van Gogh” and “Beyond King Tut.”
According to a DIA resolution on the incentive package, Block N7 will include 250 multifamily units, a structured parking garage with about 400 spaces, and 38,000 square feet of retail space.