Issue No. 3 — A 6–0 yes, a $59 million ask, and UF comes downtown

The tower got its yes. Then, this morning, the bill arrived.

The Lead

Six to nothing — and $59.4 million.

On Thursday, the Downtown Development Review Board voted 6–0 to grant conceptual approval to Gateway Jax's Riverfront Plaza Hotel & Residences — the 20-story tower planned for the old Jacksonville Landing site. Board chair Linzee Ott called the project "a fantastic opportunity for activation and visitation to our riverfront." The conditions from staff stand: fix the blank podium walls, give the sidewalk something alive to touch. Final design approval comes later. (Jacksonville Daily Record)

Then came Monday's paper. The incentive request isn't the $20 million we reported two weeks ago — it's $59.4 million: a $39.4 million REV grant (repaying 75% of the project's incremental county tax increases over 20 years) plus the $20 million completion grant, paid from city operating funds, against a total development cost of $271.5 million. The Downtown Investment Authority board votes Wednesday, September 16 at the Main Library, and then it's City Council's turn. One number hangs over all of it: Council has approved exactly zero completion grants in 2026, and members have said the quiet part about budget concerns out loud. (JDR)

Readers of Issue No. 1 know how this movie can go: the DIA said no to EverBank's $9.8 million this spring, and the bank stayed anyway. The difference this time — nobody builds a $271 million tower that doesn't pencil. Wednesday's vote is the first honest signal of how much more downtown the city is willing to buy.

Downtown & the Riverfront

UF's campus stops being a rendering. At the same Thursday meeting, the board approved preliminary designs (7–0, per Jacksonville Today) for Building 1A of the University of Florida's downtown graduate campus: a 185,000-square-foot, six-to-eight-story academic building on 2.34 acres in LaVilla, the first piece of an estimated $345 million campus and semiconductor institute planned over 15–20 years. UF hopes to break ground in December. The friction to watch: the 137-foot building wants to rise in a neighborhood with a 75-foot height limit and a historic fabric its neighbors intend to defend — the board sent UF back to LaVilla's community leaders to "mitigate, address and incorporate" their concerns before final approval. (Jacksonville Today)

Worth Watching

Wednesday, September 16 — the DIA board takes up the $59.4 million Riverfront Plaza incentive package at the Main Library. Whatever it decides, the real fight is the completion grant at Council, where 2026's scoreboard reads zero. We'll have it Monday.

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Moving Jacksonville Forward is an independent publication from bizooma. Sources: Jacksonville Daily Record, Jacksonville Today, and public City of Jacksonville records.

From last week: our Issue No. 2 email said the DDRB would meet Wednesday; the board met Thursday, September 10. The article was corrected.