Balanky seeks anchor tenant for Kings Avenue Station

[Steve]

https://www.jaxdailyrecord.com/article/balanky-seeks-anchor-tenant-for-proposed-up-to-1-million-square-foot-kings-avenue-station

Developer Mike Balanky is seeking a user or anchor tenant for an up to 1 million-square-foot office building that could be built on the Downtown Southbank of the St. Johns River.

It's the site he had proposed for the JEA headquarters. JEA chose to lease a building proposed on the Northbank near the Duval County Courthouse.

[Steve]

This is interesting in some ways, but in other ways not news. So basically, they spent time designing an office buildings for a tenant that never came and now would love to build that building for anyone. Not exactly a reach.

[Captain Zissou]

Wasn't the building they designed about 200k sqft?  Are they just going straight up to accommodate a larger sized tenant? 

[thelakelander]

Cushman & Wakefield also said more than 1,000 apartments are expected to open in the area by the end of 2020, "adding high-quality, convenient housing options for a user's employee base.

How do they get to 1000 new units complete by the end of 2020? Where? Maybe a little over 500 if we're counting the stuff down on Philips Highway.

Wasn't the building they designed about 200k sqft?  Are they just going straight up to accommodate a larger sized tenant? 

According to Lenny's twitter page, we're going vertical baby!

[Kerry]

If he gets a tenant that will essentially be the death penalty for Lot J and the Jags in Jax.

[thelakelander]

I'm still wondering what will be the financial ask for Lot J? Back during the JEA headquarters competition, they claimed they were ready to go and Ryan still had to go through the RFP process to buy the Adams Street lot.

[vicupstate]

A million SF is like the Wells Fargo building in size, right? With the smaller footprint that would be about 60 stories?

Heights Unknown would be ecstatic! 

[Steve]

A million SF is like the Wells Fargo building in size, right? With the smaller footprint that would be about 60 stories?

Heights Unknown would be ecstatic! 

I believe the largest single office building in Jax is the TIAA Bank Building at close to 1 million SqFt. This would likely eclipse that IF it's built at that height. My guess is the way the structure was designed for the RFP, they could structurally add floors to the build as needed up to a certain amount.

The question the article doesn't ask is how large of an "anchor" do they want? 150k SqFt? 250k SqFt? Then what's the ratio they would build if the anchor was okay not being the only tenant? If they anchor is 200k SqFt do they then build 600k SqFt?

Past 200k, those size of companies don't move very often.

[acme54321]

This thing would tower over the Southbank at 1M Sq Ft

[JaGoaT]

I'd rather have 4 to 5 towers than 1 very large tower smh

[MusicMan]

Would it make sense to partner with Rummell and build this square footage at The District, and sell or let go of his lease?

[Steve]

The more I think about this, the more it doesn't make sense as written in the article.

During the JEA HQ process, he had a site plan that indicated potential for two additional buildings plus vacant land for another building of some sort. Between the 4 pads for buildings, getting to 1M SqFt isn't a stretch. On the other hand, stacking 5 of what he proposed on top of each other seems a bit hard to believe.

I don't know if all 4 pads on the property are development ready, but assuming they are I'd think 4 mid-rises would be cheaper than what could rival the tallest buildings in the city. Not that I'm opposed to vertical construction.

[Captain Zissou]

Based on a conversation I had with someone at Chase Properties, 1,000,000 is the max allowable on that site, but not necessarily what they're planning to do.  They likely threw out the huge number so that they didn't miss out on Deutsche Bank, who despite financial troubles, wants to move 2,000 employees downtown.

I think the size will be no larger than 300k sqft, which would still be very impressive and look quite imposing from I-95.

[Steve]

They likely threw out the huge number so that they didn't miss out on Deutsche Bank, who despite financial troubles, wants to move 2,000 employees downtown.

Really? While that would certainly be a good number for downtown, are we sure they're going to be in business in 4 years?

[thelakelander]

My guess is if they really want to move that many employees downtown, you'll have more than a few proposals originate out of thin air to facilitate their needs