TUESDAY April 30, 2019
Public legal notices begin on page 4
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Daily Record JACKSONVILLE
REDEVELOPMENT
THE MATHIS REPORT
New vision for LaVilla Daily Record JACKSONVILLE
Additional multifamily housing, a Heritage Trail and a reduction in the number of Water Street driving lanes are part of plans recommended by a consulting firm.
Daily Record Daily Record JACKSONVILLE
THE LAVILLA HERITAGE TRAIL
A Heritage Trail runs through LaVilla near Downtown Jacksonville in this rendering from a report released by the Downtown Investment Authority and the Jacksonville Transportation Authority on the future of the historic neighborhood.
JACKSONVILLE
KAREN BRUNE MATHIS EDITOR
VyStar signs could go up on its tower this summer The city OK’d permits Friday for the almost $380,000 project.
Along with cultural components along the route honoring the area’s black history, the trail will connect LaVilla to the city’s other investments on the St. Johns River. The report Friday follows the last of four public meetings. Nearly 60 neighborhood stakeholders and city leaders filled the Ritz Theatre and Museum on Thursday to hear the
VyStar Credit Union intends to post it name atop its 23-story Downtown tower, likely in August, now that the city has approved permits for the installation. Judy Walz, chief marketing and planning officer of Jacksonville-based VyStar, said she did not have a specific date for the installation or for removal of the SunTrust Walz name. SunTrust’s lease expires at the building in July, so the sign removal could be expected to coincide with that. The city issued two permits Friday for Brown Enterprises to put up the VyStar name and logo on the east and west elevations of the top of the building at a total cost of $377,026, or $188,513 each. The signs each are 1,906 square feet as agreed upon with the Downtown Development Review Board, reduced from
SEE LAVILLA, PAGE 3
SEE MATHIS, PAGE 2
Special to the Daily Record
BY MIKE MENDENHALL STAFF WRITER
T
he Downtown Investment Authority and Jacksonville Transportation Authority released its final report Friday on plans to redevelop the city’s historic LaVilla district. The vision emphasizes returning a major residential component to LaVilla,
with a mix of workforce and senior housing on top of midmarket for-purchase townhomes and market-rate rentals. The study, conducted by consulting firm GAI’s Community Solutions Group, builds the residential components around an expansion of Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing Park — dedicated to Jacksonville Native and Harlem Renaissance-era composer J. Rosamond Johnson — and a new Arts Gateway Park and a Heritage Trail.
Durbin Station office-condos Stratagem Partners launched development of Durbin Station, a 31,000-square-foot, 28-unit office-condo project on Longleaf Pine Parkway in the Durbin Crossing DRI in St. Johns County. Site work is scheduled to be completed by early May with project completion in the first quarter of 2020. The group said that it is contracted for 16 units with closings expected to begin in May. It announced that offices are under construction for attorneys, financial planners, a wedding planner and a veterinarian, with several more users in contract negotiations.
VOLUME 106, NO. 116 • ONE SECTION