During its heyday, LaVilla’s Jacksonville Terminal was the largest passenger railroad station in the South. It served as an official gateway to Florida for worldwide travelers, handling as many as 200 trains each day, including all trains going to or coming from South Florida. Millions of railroad passengers passed through the station’s concourse or platforms each year, including the Duke and Duchess of Windsor in 1941 and every president between Warren G. Harding and Richard Nixon. Traffic peaked in 1944 when nearly 40,000 trains passed through the terminal, carrying nearly 10 million passengers.

To support operations of such a large facility, the Jacksonville Terminal Company employed more than 2,000 two thousand people, making it the second-largest employer in the city at the time. In the 1930s, porters from the Jacksonville Terminal formed the Jacksonville Red Caps, an all-Black baseball team named after the red hats the porters wore. The Red Caps went on to play in the Negro Major Leagues, making them the first major league sports team in Florida history.

With the decline of rail travel, Jacksonville abandoned its large, aging downtown station in 1974. Now the Prime Osborn Convention Center, advocates believe the return of the passenger rail station would be a major economic boost to the revitalization of LaVilla and downtown.

The Jacksonville Terminal passenger railroad station and the former James Weldon and J. Rosamond Johnson residence in LaVilla in 1924. | National Archives

By undertaking this planning process with the Build America Bureau, the City of Jacksonville and private sector partners will be eligible for federally backed loans that finance future projects in the area with low interest rates and flexible payment terms. Jacksonville is one of 45 communities to receive Innovative Finance and Asset Concession Grant Program funds, which were made available by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law that was championed by President Joe Biden and Vice President Harris and remains a lynchpin of their Investing in America agenda.

“We’ve been working with the Build America Bureau for many months to take this idea from concept to the planning stage,” said Mayor Donna Deegan. “This is an exciting opportunity to restore the Prime Osborn to its glory as Jacksonville’s central rail station and create more passenger rail options for our citizens and visitors alike. The LaVilla Transit Innovation and Equity Project will transform our downtown and create new economic development opportunities.”

In a national announcement about the program, U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said, “Through the bipartisan infrastructure package, the Biden-Harris Administration is helping cities, states and transit agencies develop projects on underused properties—including tens of thousands of housing units over the next decade.”

Build America Bureau Executive Director Morteza Farajian also noted that “the goal of this innovative program is to facilitate partnerships between private and public entities to deliver community benefits in a more efficient and cost-effective manner. The selected recipients represent a wide range of projects that are good candidates for public-private partnerships.”

This project will conduct asset scans and pre-development activities under a Technical Assistance Cooperative Agreement to prepare for future enhancements. The project focuses on integrating various transportation modes, enhancing intermodal connectivity, and improving community accessibility. The strategic goal is to enhance the existing infrastructure to support economic development, reduce carbon emissions and provide equitable transit solutions, leveraging the area’s rich historical context and strategic geographic location.