In this week's Jax Biz Journal:
QuoteJACKSONVILLE â€" Bank-owned vacant land along Riverside Avenue in Brooklyn was sold Nov. 30, sparking expectations that a major development is on tap for a location that has been vacant since prior development plans collapsed in the recession.
Pope & Land Enterprises Inc., an Atlanta real estate company that specializes in mixed-use developments in the Southeast, paid $2 million to buy 3.25 acres from BBVA Compass and is pursuing a nonperforming note held by Bank of America Corp. for the remainder of the land.
“We’re planning to develop a mixed-use development,†said Tom Barranco, vice president of Pope & Land.
http://www.bizjournals.com/jacksonville/print-edition/2011/12/09/atlanta-developer-buys-riverside-land.html
This is the old Miles Development property boxed by Riverside Avenue, Jackson, Park, and Leila Streets. Evidently, the property is attractive to retailers looking to tap into Riverside's success. If you don't have a biz journal account, you can't access the rest of the article. However, the info posted above pretty much covers the entire story.
Wow, could be really good news.
Lake, the article says 3.25 acres, but the area bounded by those streets is more like 20 acres. Is that a misprint or is it something more complicated with the transaction? $2M for 3.25 acres seems rather steep :o
love to see that connector from Riverside to Downtown become vibrant.
Quote from: JeffreyS on December 09, 2011, 01:22:36 PM
love to see that connector from Riverside to Downtown become vibrant.
With a couple of streetcar stops along the way.
This is the land across from Haskell, St. Joe, etc?
That stretch is just begging for vibrancy - The streetscape is already in place, etc.; sounds really exciting.
This sounds awesome. This area could really do well with such close proximity to the Fidelity, BCBS, and LPS offices.
Very excting news.
Sounds great. This is one of those areas absolutely ripe for development. It's good to see some movement.
I belive there will be some news on the 200 Riverside site in the coming weeks/months as well
Another Atlanta developer proposing something big for Jacksonville. It will probably never happen.
Especially after spending over $2 million on the land.
While many never materialize some of the proposals get done. So lets be happy lots of developers try to get things started.
Quote from: acme54321 on December 09, 2011, 01:19:50 PM
Wow, could be really good news.
Lake, the article says 3.25 acres, but the area bounded by those streets is more like 20 acres. Is that a misprint or is it something more complicated with the transaction? $2M for 3.25 acres seems rather steep :o
That's $23/land foot my friend. I bet Pope & Land thought it super cheap, considering prime parcels in Miami and Atlanta go for $300-400++ (especially in Miami)/land foot.
Pope & Land is about as real as it gets. Whether that translates into immediate development or not remains to be seen, but since Hines never actually got a tower out of the ground there, no other downtown developer approaches the reputation of Pope & Land. This is a developer with better access to debt and equity than anyone else in the city right now. They have developed millions of square feet of suburban office campuses/towers, infill mixed-use towers, A & B apartments, and they sit on a lot of land. They are not known for core/CBD properties, but that market is competitive to penetrate where they operate (Atlanta). In Jacksonville they will be about the only game in town if they are serious, and so I wouldn't know whether to expect something that would go in a more vibrant city center or something that's a cross between urban and suburban (like 3630 in Buckhead, a tower in which they partnered with Novare and Duke Realty).
AJ Land is an alum of both Georgia Tech and Emory and was this year's recipient of the coveted ULI Atlanta Frank Carter award for community achievement. His namesake firm is one of the city's most prestigious development firms, right along with Ben Carter Properties, Carter USA, Seven Oaks, Legacy, Cousins, Novare, Post, Gables, Kim King & Associates, Dewberry Capital, Ackerman & Co, Selig Enterprises, Portman Associates, Barry Real Estate, and Jacoby. When any of these names come to town, be excited.
Novare was going to do something over in that area too...and like evrything else, it didn't materialize
What has been the most recent status of 200 Riverside/ The scaled down version of the original plan?
^I believe it died.
Hey MJ'ers, has anyone done a site inspection of Chelsea St. on McCoys Creek? The chain saws are a buzzin. I've been over there over the weeks and the survey stakes and crews were everywhere. Stakes are all gone. Took some pics. Right now the ball park at Brooklyn park is getting a tree canopy buzz.
Is there Spring training that we just don't know about?
Is this a Public/Private Partnership?
I hope somebody realizes that you take away that tree canopy and you immediately lose that URBAN DOWNTOWN WATERWAY DESTINATION ROOKERY that leads under the Times Union and into the St. Johns River our American Heritage River a Federal Initiative.
Be concerned.
Keep score.
I'm scared to death.
Quote from: tufsu1 on December 09, 2011, 10:03:06 PM
Novare was going to do something over in that area too...and like evrything else, it didn't materialize
How positive are you of this? I think they put Jacksonville on a list of other cities to examine the possibility of expanding to, but Jacksonville did not check enough boxes to bring anything to an investment committee. Sort of like Trump at the height of the development bubble and MGM now - they'll visit for a day, say they looked at a site or a city, and end up in the obvious markets, i.e. South Florida :)
Here is who Pope & Land plays with:
On one tower, 34 stories - 17 stories of office (425,000 SF class A), 17 stories of condos (Ritz Carlton branded residences), Pope & Land got Duke Realty to cosign for the office component of a $187M semi-perm that came due in 2011. Novare and Post Properties partnered on the residential component. This is the loan/project that all but killed Novare. This was Novare's last project, and their company has gone from a decent staff count (I even applied) to about 3 people. Now they are in committee on their first project since (it's been 3 years), and an offshore bank is acting as debt and equity. It will be a rental high rise in Midtown, market rent ($1,500 and up for 1-bedroom, $2,300 and up for 2-bedroom, cheapest new construction in a high rise in the city - construction loan for 24 floors is said to be under $40M).
Pope & Land is also partnering with another prominent Atlanta developer, Regent Partners, on a Peachtree Rd site across from Regent's last development: 3344 Peachtree (which sold this year for about $350/SF to the purchaser of Eola Capital, then owners of Independent Square and 245 Riverside Ave). They plan to do a 100,000-200,000 SF mixed-use development with retail and a restaurant fronting Peachtree and some sort of use above.
At the time Pope & Land developed 3630 Peachtree (which is only now leased up, 3 years later), Tishman Speyer, Manulife, Prudential REI, Cousins, and Crescent Resources (tied to Duke Realty, i.e. competitive and conflicting interest) were all putting up separate office towers (largest office boom ever in any submarket in the SE). Prudential suffered an $82M write down on their loan for Terminus 200, which is the smaller office building in the development in which I work, now fully leased up (if only they could have waited 3 YEARS). At this time John Williams, the CEO of Post Properties, had a pet project called the Mansion - Robert A.M. Stern designed, penthouses going for $20M, mixed-use hotel and condo, Tom Colicchio helmed Craft Restaurant, 5-star spa, bla bla bla. He personally invested in a $20.4M mezz piece, and ended up losing practically everything, including his reputation. iStar Financial was the lender, took it back in auction for $66.1M, and still holds it - the initial cost was $250M. First condo sale there in 2 years just occurred, but the hotel, which is operated by Rosewood, is very successful.
Anyway, long story short, Pope & Land is a big time player, but they are a suburban player. They own one or two things in a CBD, and these are office buildings, not pedestrian friendly mixed-use developments. They are certainly not a first mover type of developer, and anyone coming into Brooklyn with a mixed-use project there is going to be a first mover, by far. Perhaps even an only mover. This will be an interesting one to watch.
Simms,
If you were to predict- what would you expect to happen on this site?
I think my long point is "no telling." Pope & Land is an active developer in NW Atlanta, i.e. the suburbs. In this city, most developers are active in 1-2 products and in one, maybe two specific submarkets. If this were Jamestown, Green Street, Hines, Post, Gables, Amli, etc and it bought this land, it would be more predictable. Pope & Land seems to have a stellar reputation for getting projects done, but they aren't known for their urban infill, adaptive re-use, or apartments. They also were notable for being a late mover in one of the worst micro-bubbles of all time: the Buckhead office boom in 2007-2009. It is surprising to me that a) they are buying land here...but at that price it may be to hold, b) they are buying land in the core right next to the CBD, and c) they are entering a dead submarket in a dead market (for development) before anyone even bothers to look. What are they thinking? I have no idea.
I don't think we need to get ahead of ourselves on what this all means. I'm just happy to see some ripples in the water over there; it shows some measure of interest in an important area that's been dormant for years.
Quote from: jcjohnpaint on December 09, 2011, 11:11:38 PM
What has been the most recent status of 200 Riverside/ The scaled down version of the original plan?
news on that should be out soon
Quote from: simms3 on December 10, 2011, 02:05:31 AM
Quote from: tufsu1 on December 09, 2011, 10:03:06 PM
Novare was going to do something over in that area too...and like evrything else, it didn't materialize
How positive are you of this? I think they put Jacksonville on a list of other cities to examine the possibility of expanding to, but Jacksonville did not check enough boxes to bring anything to an investment committee.
enough that my company was asked to put together a propoosal for site engineering services...the plan was a hotel/condo combo on the vacant property between the YMCA and Haskell
^^17 floors? I think I heard about that. They never got very far...not even to design or subsequently on to investment committee. I think the problem with that whole road is that it is a tweener location. It doesn't connect to Riverside, and it doesn't connect downtown. There are some office workers, but it is generally a pass through. There is nothing to connect to downtown, and Riverside is showing signs of life, but it has sterile corporate campuses, parking garages, and an interstate highway separating it from Brooklyn.