By Michele Leivas
The Downtown Investment Authority (DIA) has temporarily tapped the breaks on moving forward with any formal negotiations regarding a plan for a new skyscraper on the downtown riverfront.
Cross Regions Group wants to build what would be known as Ergisi Tower on the site of a former Jacksonville Landing parking lot. At 720 feet tall, the high-rise mixed-used development would be the tallest building between Atlanta and Miami and would feature 320 condos and 35,000 square feet of restaurant and retail space.
At an Aug. 26 Downtown Investment Authority (DIA) board workshop, however, board members expressed hesitation at beginning the formal negotiated disposition process with Cross Regions, in part because the parcel in question has numerous subsurface variables, including a regular sanitary sewer line that would have to be relocated.
Sheldon Gibbs, the city’s chief of engineering and construction management, recommended further subsurface investigations on the site. The sewage line in question conveys 4.5 million gallons of wastewater daily through downtown and as such, is a “critical line” in the JEA system, explained JEA Director of Administrative Services Jordan Pope. Relocating that sewage line, Pope said, would not be easy.
“We think the work is complicated, complex, probably not impossible,” Pope said. “But a lot of that will depend on how much money somebody wants to spend.”
At the conclusion of the Aug. 26 workshop, the DIA board opted to hold off on entering into any formal negotiations with Cross Regions, with Board Chair Patrick Krechowski voicing the board’s hesitation to move forward.
“I do think what I’m hearing is that negotiated disposition is not preferred, but an RFP is not something we can put together right now,” Krechowski said. “There’s just too many holes in the information bucket.”
The board tasked DIA CEO Lori Boyer with summarizing a term sheet Cross Regions submitted last month and doing further research on costs and timelines for subsurface investigations and title work before next month’s Retail Enhancement and Property Disposition committee meeting.
Landmark or park?
For Cross Regions Group President and CEO David Ergisi, the tower embodies an opportunity to spur new Downtown growth and development.
“This is a project that’s going to improve the skyline of Jacksonville,” Ergisi said. “It’s going to attract the caliber of families and folks that we want to move into downtown and it’s going to spur the development path for other developments like this to follow and get Jacksonville to the next level.”
But not all residents and community activists feel the prime riverfront parcel is the appropriate place for a building that tall.
“This is just another example of Jacksonville having its aesthetic principles backward,” said Dr. Wayne Wood, historian and author of Jacksonville’s Architectural Heritage. “High-rise buildings have no trouble seeing the river if they’re set back blocks from the river, so that’s where they should be, and let the riverfront be unimpeded.”
Natalie Rosenberg, chair of the Riverfront Parks Now Steering Committee, agreed.
“Riverfront Parks Now has long advocated that any large buildings should be sufficiently set back from the river to allow for a green resilient buffer and a wide riverwalk with double rows of trees and multiple paths,” Rosenberg said. “It seems that towers of this scale are best placed across the street from the river, or better yet, farther inland where there are ample infill opportunities that would still provide lovely views of the river.”
But Ergisi said the building’s angled shape and slender design wouldn’t remove too much visibility from buildings behind it and said a project of this caliber on the riverfront is necessary to drive future development.
“If you don’t have a project like this to attract interest and motivation for other developers to come in,” he said, “you’re never going to have the buildings in the back to worry about the view.”
While the meeting may not have gone the way Cross Regions had hoped, Ergisi said he remains committed to Downtown.
“We had hoped to enter a negotiated disposition with the city at this point, but we respect the decision of the DIA and look forward to further discussion,” he said. “We care deeply about Jacksonville and remain committed to future growth in Downtown.”
