A Brentwood property that had been proposed as a drive-thru liquor store is being built-out for a city workforce development center.
The city issued a permit March 14 for Warden Contracting Corp. of Jacksonville to convert what is shown as a 2,630-square-foot building at 865 Golfair Blvd. at a project cost of $90,567 as an Office of Economic Development tenant improvement. JAA Architecture of Jacksonville is the architect.
Plans show the Jacksonville Small and Emerging Business Entrepreneurship & Workforce Development Center will occupy the building.
The JSEB program’s mission is “to maximize procurement opportunities with City of Jacksonville registered certified Jacksonville Small and Emerging Businesses (JSEBs) as suppliers, prime contractors, and subcontractors of superior products and services to the citizenry of Duval County,” says the JSEB.Jacksonville.gov site.
Mayor Donna Deegan said March 28, 2024, that the store would be repurposed as a small business support center in the wake of neighborhood opposition over plans to turn it into a drive-thru liquor store.
The property, across from the KIPP Voice Academy K-7 school, drew months of backlash in 2023 from neighbors who said it was an inappropriate location for a liquor store and that it was not needed in the area.
The property is a 0.38-acre lot with a 2,700-square-foot concrete building built in 1963.
In November 2023, the Jacksonville City Council voted to buy the property for $1.8 million with plans to repurpose it as a community or resource center to serve the neighborhood.
Seller SBPS #3 JI LLC of Saint Johns paid $150,000 for the property in 2019. At one time it was owned by Exxon Corp., which sold it in 1995. That deed acknowledged it had been used an an automobile service station.
One of the buyers from Exxon sold it to the LLC that then sold the property to the city Feb. 21, 2024.
In 2020, the Jacksonville Planning Commission approved a zoning exception for the site to allow for the sale of alcohol within 500 feet of a school. The city Planning Department staff had recommended denial.
Amid the neighborhood protests, Council received a third-party appraisal of the property from Moody Williams Appraisal Group, which valued it at $1.8 million. That appraisal included a projected estimate of the profits that would be generated through commercial use of the building.
During a JAXUSA Partnership Luncheon appearance, Deegan said the city would use the property as a resource center focusing on workforce development and entrepreneurship.