The Jacksonville City Council on Tuesday is set to vote on whether or not to approve $36.5 million in incentives to go toward a new redevelopment plan for the historic Laura Street Trio, a project in the heart of downtown that has sat vacant for years.
According to News4JAX news partner Jacksonville Daily Record, the new incentives deal includes a $22 million city loan that would help guarantee a construction loan for the developer, SouthEast Development Group, led by Steve Atkins. It also includes a previously authorized $2 million forgivable loan from an earlier agreement, for a total public investment of about $60.5 million. No interest rate is stated in the legislation for the city loan.
In return for offering the loan to SouthEast, according to the Daily Record, the city would receive 12% of net cash flows from the project after its completion, as well as 5% of net proceeds from the sale or refinancing of the property, through the full term of the agreement.
In June, the DIA board voted to send a term sheet including $36.5 million in incentives to the city council without a recommendation for or against it. DIA staff reported at the time that SouthEast did not meet certain DIA criteria for incentives, including the return on public investment.
Council member Matt Carlucci, the legislation’s lead sponsor, said the $22 million loan was designed to be used if Steve Atkins and SouthEast failed to make their principal and interest payments on the construction loan over its first two years.
Carlucci, a longtime proponent of reviving the Trio, said the terms would likely need finetuning, but the investment would be worth the outlay. Not only would it restore several historically significant buildings built from 1902 through 1912, he said, but completing the project would rev up downtown redevelopment efforts.
Carlucci said that if SouthEast defaults on the construction loan, the city could end up owning the property.
Atkins bought the Trio at Laura, Forsyth and Adams streets in 2013.
The proposal would provide funding to resurrect and rehabilitate the Florida National Bank Building, Bisbee Building and Florida Life Insurance Building that make up the Trio and to construct two 11-story buildings on land adjacent to those structures on Laura and Forsyth streets.
The buildings would make up a $178.8 million mixed-use development that would comprise an eight-floor, four-star Marriott Autograph Collection hotel, a restaurant and rooftop bar open to hotel patrons and the public, and 149 apartments with market-rate and workforce housing units.
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