Building Up Jax: Three plans emerge for Shipyards property

This past week, the big story was the release of details about all three bids placed for the Shipyards property in downtown Jacksonville.

We’ll detail this and more in this week’s Building Up Jax!

Shipyards plans

The plans of the three development companies bidding on the long-vacant Shipyards property near the sports district – as well as Met Park – emerged this week.

Shad Khan’s Iguana Investments revealed its plan for the property at a Jaguars press conference. The plan includes residential, retail, and office space in addition to a hotel, entertainment center, and a new park to replace Met Park that would be known as Veterans Park. It also involves the removal of the Hart Bridge Expressway, a change that Mayor Lenny Curry has pushed for.

Texas-based Presidium Group, in collaboration with Killashee Investments, gave details about its plan the same day. The Presidium proposal includes an art museum, a new convention center, an aquarium, and a 1,000-foot tower.

Wess Holdings LLC and EMJ Corp. collaborated on the third proposal, which entails a “Jacksonville job factory” that would become a center for innovation and for entrepreneurs to incubate their ideas and projects.

Further details on all three plans will be released soon by the Downtown Investment Authority.

Noted projects

• The Happy Grilled Cheese will open a brick-and-mortar location soon in downtown Jax, taking over the former Folk Food location at 219 N. Hogan St., according to Modern Cities. As a result, its reported future Five Points location is unlikely to be realized.
• RadioShack is filing for bankruptcy (again), and is closing even more of their stores. This time, two Jax locations will be scrapped: one at 3655 University Blvd. W., and one at 4419 Roosevelt Blvd. The others will stay open… for now.
• MOD Pizza, a fast-casual pizza chain with 200 locations nationwide, announced its intention to expand into the Northern Florida market including Jacksonville. BBX Capital will be the chain’s franchisee in the area; they also own MOD franchises in central and south Florida.
• Village Bread Café will move from its current location along Philips Highway down the street to 4073 Philips Highway, according to Jax Daily Record.
• The downtown Hyatt Regency hotel is adding a pantry area in its lobby, via Jax Daily Record.
• La Nopalera is looking to open in the former Thomasville furniture store at 11035 Philips Highway.