Iguana requests changes to proposed Shipyards project

[heights unknown]

What the he** now?

[Jax_Developer]

Who'd have thought balconies on an office building would cause such a ruckus.

Check the restaurant space too. Not really best practices to ask for more $$ based on a certain plan to then VE it a few months later. That's a several million dollar VE I would bet.

What do you mean? What about the restaurant space?

It is now a shiny box. Not that it matters a ton, but that curved piece was clearly a custom piece and certainly came in higher than they were expecting it to cost. So now we have a box with storefront lol. I swear.. if I could obtain the land, I'd go DT.. the incentives are a racket.

[simms3]

Lots of VE on that office building.  Looks pretty blase now, with no effort to address the street front along Bay St and no effort to conceal the mechanical on the roof (won't look good from the Four Seasons).

With taxpayers footing a lot of the bill, I don't think VE of this level should be allowed.

From these renderings I can't tell that the mechanical screening has been eliminated, so please share the architectural drawings that you used to make that determination.

Page 186 of the DDRB packet shows "Street view to hotel and residential arrival", but prominently features the office building.  It's essentially Bay St looking towards Downtown.  Maybe the former rendering simply didn't render rooftop mechanical "enough" and they are correcting that with the latest rendering, but it appears to have gone from minimal (can hardly see it from ground level) to massive.

The near elimination of the design elements along the fenestration don't help.

[Ken_FSU]

Sounds like some of the changes to the hotel were at the request of Four Seasons.

https://www.jaxdailyrecord.com/news/2023/may/16/attorney-for-iguana-says-four-seasons-is-signed-up-for-jacksonville-hotel-project/

[jaxlongtimer]

A real vote of confidence in demand for this hotel project which I am told is already on the smaller end for a Four Seasons:

There also appears to be a slight drop in the number of hotel rooms and for-sale residences.

Trimmer said the hotel would have 170 rooms with 24 residences. Iguana said in January it expected 176 hotel rooms with 25 luxury condominiums.

[Captain Zissou]

A real vote of confidence in demand for this hotel project which I am told is already on the smaller end for a Four Seasons:

There also appears to be a slight drop in the number of hotel rooms and for-sale residences.

Trimmer said the hotel would have 170 rooms with 24 residences. Iguana said in January it expected 176 hotel rooms with 25 luxury condominiums.

It's because there are more suites than the previous iteration.  Same square footage taken up by fewer, larger rooms.

[Steve]

I'll say this - their attorney on the record said Four Seasons is on board. That's something, as she wouldn't say that in that setting if they weren't.

I don't think a net -6 in hotels and -1 in residences is worth caring about. Those things happen all the time.

And look - Four Seasons hotels aren't like 1,000 room Big Box convention hotels. They tend to be smaller. Atlanta has 244, Nashville has 235, Minneapolis has 222, St. Louis has 200, and Santa Fe has 65 (not a typo)

Source: https://press.fourseasons.com/hotel-press-kits/

I mean of course it's going to be smaller. We're a mid-sized city with comparatively no downtown tourism and a smaller corporate base.

I'm honestly shocked they're doing this at all., but hey, good for them and us. Just wish the site plan was better.

[thelakelander]

At this point, I'm fine with this project. Let's get the show on the road and move on to getting additional projects off the ground.

[simms3]

At this point, I'm fine with this project. Let's get the show on the road and move on to getting additional projects off the ground.

Agreed, too late to nitpick.  Just want to see something.  I hope the final product looks like what the latest renderings show and we don't go through any VE , but at this point I'd take something over nothing.