What is an Edge City?

The term, Edge City, was popularized in the 1991 book Edge City: Life on the New Frontier by Joel Garreau, who established its current meaning while working as a reporter for the Washington Post. Garreau argues that the edge city has become the standard form of urban growth worldwide, representing a 20th-century urban form unlike that of the 19th-century central downtown.

Edge Cities typically consist of mid-rise office towers surrounded by massive surface parking lots and manicured lawns. Instead of a traditional street grid, their infrastructure networks consist of winding parkways (often lacking sidewalks) that feed into arterial roads and freeway ramps. They develop at or near freeway intersections and airports and they rarely include heavy industry. They are large geographically because they are built at automobile scale.

Edge Cities are impossible without the automobile. In Jacksonville, the J. T. Butler Boulevard corridor, represents the city’s first true example of an Edge City. Because it stands as the region’s only emerging Edge City, we have decided to highlight the continued densification of the corridor on a quarterly basis.

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edge_city

Summer 2019 Construction Update

1. Liberty Center Retail Outparcels

5117 Butler Boulevard

Jacksonville-based Hakimian Holdings LLC is in the process of adding two retail outparcel buildings at Southpoint’s Liberty Center. 5101 Bulter Boulevard will become a 100-seat, 5,625 square foot restaurant. 5117 Bulter Boulevard will become a 5,600 square foot urgent care center.

5101 Butler Boulevard

For more information: https://www.jaxdailyrecord.com/article/the-mathis-report-hakimian-to-build-office-restaurant-at-liberty-center

2. Bentley Jacksonville

Miami-based Brickell Motors is in the process of building a new Bentley dealership on Bonneval Road, just west of the I-95/Butler Boulevard interchange. The 25,000 square foot dealership will become Florida’s seventh Bentley location.

For more information: https://news.wjct.org/post/jacksonville-bentley-dealership-rolls-closer-also-sell-maserati-alfa-romeo

3. The Palms at Gate Parkway

Construction is underway on a four-story, 120,936-square-foot Atlantic Self Storage building at Gate Parkway and Village Crossing Drive. The project is the first at The Palms at Gate Parkway. Being developed by Ash Properties at the intersection of Gate Parkway and Burnt Mill Road, the project will feature 119,362-square-feet of retail, office, restaurant and self-storage space when complete.

For more information: https://www.jaxdailyrecord.com/article/ash-properties-developing-gate-parkway-center

4. 9722 Touchton Road

Touchton Building LLC. is in the process of developing a 12,015 commercial shell building at 9722 Touchton Road for $961,000.

For more information: https://www.jaxdailyrecord.com/article/development-today-1116

5. Baers Furniture Company

An 80,000 square foot Baers Furniture Company store is now under construction on 4.12 acres across the street from IKEA Jacksonville. Baers will anchor an adjacent 8.12 acre development called Gate Point Meadows that will include a Wawa convenience store and gas station, a self storage facility and additional restaurant outparcels.

For more infomation: https://www.jaxdailyrecord.com/article/the-mathis-report-baers-furniture-plans-store-near-ikea

6. Cambria Hotels & Suites

Ash Properties properties has started construction on a five-story, 128-room Cambria Hotel near the intersection of Gate Parkway and Baymeadows Road. The Choice Hotels brand is considered to be an upscale hotel designed for the modern traveler, offering local prepared food and craft beer. Located at 7862 Ozark Drive, the hotel will become the first Cambria location in Jacksonville and fourth in Florida.

https://www.bizjournals.com/jacksonville/news/2018/11/28/upscale-hotel-planned-near-st-johns-town-center.html

7. Bowling Entertainment Center

A bowling entertainment center is proposed at 7720 Baymeadows Road East at property owned by Ozark Investment Group, LLC.

8. Fusion Apartments

Construction continues on the 348-unit Fusion Apartments by Fort Family Investments. Located on an 8.63-acre parcel at 8283 Baymeadows Road East, the $55 million project also will include a five-story, 158,443-square-foot parking garage. Construction continues on Fusion Rental Community, a 384-unit multifamily project by Fort Family Investments in the Southside.

For more information: https://www.jaxdailyrecord.com/article/high-end-apartment-construction-continues-on-the-southside