Builders FirstSource leased about 200,000 square feet of space at 8700 Jesse B. Smith Court in Westside Industrial Park to co-locate two existing West Jacksonville sites, said a company spokesperson Jan. 2.
Lori Conrad, senior director of corporate communications, said that the contractor supplies distributor will close locations at 8275 Forshee Drive in Westside Industrial Park and at 243 Lane Ave. N., also in West Jacksonville, to consolidate in the spring at Jesse B. Smith Court “to better serve our customers.”
It will be a distribution site for building materials including windows, doors and millwork.
Conrad said Jan. 3 that the two locations employ more than 100 people.
BFS Group LLC of Irving, Texas, near Dallas, applied to the city for a Certificate of Use for 190,402 square feet of space for warehousing and distribution use at the Jesse B. Smith Court address.
The city also is reviewing a building permit application for Haskew Co. & Associates Inc. of Jacksonville to renovate the space at an estimated project cost of almost $1.89 million.
The permit indicates a completion date of March 2025.
Anthony D. Jarzyna of Amelia Island is the architect. The owner is Atlanta-based Pattillo, through WS8700 LLC.
Westside Industrial Park, developed by Pattillo, is at northwest Pritchard Road and Interstate 295, north of I-10.
Pattillo developed the Jesse B. Smith Court building on about 12.1 acres in 1998-99. It previously was used by Tucker Rocky, which Pattillo Vice President Peter Anderson said closed at the end of 2023.
The two existing West Jacksonville Builders FirstSource locations total almost 180,000 square feet of space.
The Duval County Property Appraiser shows that the 75,370-square-foot warehouse at 8275 Forshee Drive was built in 1996. It is about 1.4 miles northeast of the Jesse B. Smith Court warehouse.
The Lane Avenue North facility is 102,736 square feet, built in 1962. It is about 6 miles southeast of the Jesse B. Smith Court center. It is owned by a Connecticut investment group.
Anderson said Dec. 27 that Pattillo Industrial Real Estate owns the largest portfolio, more than 8 million square feet, of industrial space in North Florida, “which benefits our tenants by allowing them to expand as they grow such as BFS has done.”
Builders FirstSource says it is the nation’s largest supplier of structural building products, value-added components and services to the professional market for single-family and multifamily construction, repair and remodeling.
It says it operates about 580 distribution and manufacturing locations in 43 states with at least 29,000 employees.
The company, traded on the New York Stock Exchange, says it was formed in 1998 and operates in 48 of the top 50 and 90 of the top 100 metropolitan statistical areas.
Its website says it has four Northeast Florida locations in West Jacksonville and Yulee.
Builders FirstSource at bldr.com lists the supply focus at 243 Lane Ave. N. as windows; 6550 Roosevelt Blvd. (the former Holmes Lumber Co.) and in Yulee as lumberyards; and 8275 Forshee Drive as doors and millwork.
“We service customers from strategically located distribution and manufacturing facilities (some of which are co-located) that produce value-added products such as roof and floor trusses, wall panels, stairs, vinyl windows, custom millwork, and pre-hung doors,” the company says.
Builders FirstSource says it also distributes dimensional lumber and lumber sheet goods, millwork, windows, interior and exterior doors, and other specialty building products.
It says its lumberyards sell prefabricated roof trusses, floor systems and wall panels; interior and exterior doors; treated and untreated hardwoods and softwoods lumber; windows; power tools and hand tools; insulation and weatherproofing products; and mouldings and millwork.