Redevelopment dreams deferred

The Bisbee Building and Florida National Bank building during the early 20th century. | Library of Congress

SouthEast’s plans for the Laura Street Trio buildings were always ambitious, with the three historic buildings being worked into a larger complex of new construction that included hotel rooms, retail space and restaurants. Since 2017, DIA and City Council have authorized generous incentives packages to make them work.

In 2017, City Council approved $5.8 million in grants for the Trio (in addition to the Barnett incentives), which totaled about 13% of the project’s estimated cost of $44.6 million. Work had not begun when the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020 and severely disrupted construction and supply chains across the world. In 2021, SouthEast made a new proposal requesting $26.7 million in incentives, which made up nearly 38% of the new estimated $70.5 million total. Owing to the buildings’ importance to Jacksonville, City Council approved this plan as well.

However, SouthEast Development Group was still unable to move the project forward. In June 2023, they came back yet again with a proposal that more than doubled the amount of incentives requested to $63.6 million on a project whose costs had risen to $176.3 million.

City officials wisely balked at this huge price tag, as well as the comparatively small amount of equity being put in by the developers and the decade-long lack of progress. Despite the incentives previously approved by the city, the buildings have been poorly maintained and are frequent targets of vandals and graffiti taggers. By August 2024, the properties had wracked up $800,000 in code violations. Meanwhile, SouthEast returned with further proposals in which the requests for taxpayer money shot up even farther – to $87 million.

The city rightly didn’t accept this proposal, and with no workable deal in sight and the buildings continuing to deteriorate, Jacksonville’s General Counsel filed a suit to foreclose on the $800,000 liens. The city subsequently suspended this suit and reopened negotiations when the developers agreed in principle to a 10-point set of terms. But SouthEast’s response was to submit a request that not only deviated from these terms, it further ballooned the incentives request to $96.8 million. Earlier this month, the city permanently ended negotiations with SouthEast and refiled the foreclosure suit.

Time for new ownership

*Inside the Marble Bank Building. *

Negotiations over the Laura Street Trio have now spanned over four mayoral administrations, three DIA heads, and five City Council terms, and as should be expected of a project this important, incentives offered have been more than generous. There’s one consistent feature in each of the failed plans, false starts and continued deterioration of the Trio over the years: the developers in charge.

It’s unfortunate that SouthEast hasn’t presented a workable deal after so many years, and equally unfortunate that it deferred maintenance to the point that the city had to foreclose on the liens. While the Laura Street Trio deal is complex and ambitious, it’s certainly not impossible. In fact, the city has had recent success incentivizing major projects. Just this August, the city approved an even bigger incentive for an even bigger project when it finalized a $98.6 million package for the $418 million Pearl Street District. The first phase of the even larger Gateway Project, the Pearl Street District broke ground in October and construction is currently underway.

It’s long past time for Steve Atkins and SouthEast Development Group to read the writing on the wall and sell the buildings – and barring that, the foreclosure should proceed. If they had been sold to a developer who could execute a plan after one of the previous missed marks, construction might be well on the way by now, if not completed. It’s well past time the Laura Street Trio was in the hands of someone who can close a fiscally responsible that allows these historic buildings to take their rightful place as a cornerstone to Downtown’s revival.