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Jacksonville Daily Record 10/24/24

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OCTOBER 24 TO OCTOBER 30, 2024 | JAXDAILYRECORD.COM

BUSINESS & LEGAL NEWS IN BAKER, CLAY, DUVAL, NASSAU AND ST. JOHNS COUNTIES

AMERICAN DREAMER WHY DEVELOPER DAVID ERGISI KEEPS AIMING HIGHER

INSIDE

THE MATHIS REPORT

Construction can begin on Gateway Jax building PAGE 4

SMALL BUSINESS

Olympic gold medalist, family open swim school PAGE 10

Photo by Ric Anderson

Cross Regions Group President and CEO David Ergisi plans to build a condo tower in Downtown Jacksonville east of Riverfront Plaza and west of the Hyatt Regency Jacksonville Riverfront garage that would be taller than the Bank of America Tower about three blocks away.

The man behind plans for a $450 million Downtown tower says the challenges he overcame as a firstgeneration immigrant steel his will to succeed.

BY RIC ANDERSON ASSOCIATE EDITOR

A

s David Ergisi discusses his resolve to build his $450 million signature tower along the Downtown Northbank, he tells a story that began 40 years ago. In it, he is an 18-year-old stepping off an airliner at New York City’s John F. Kennedy International Airport. In his pocket is $80. It is all the money he has. He also carries the phone number of a North Carolina resident he met in Turkey, his home country. This is the only person he can turn to for help in the U.S.,

the nation to which he has immigrated. He has arrived on a one-way Pan Am flight from Istanbul, his first time traveling by air. His family told him not to get on the plane. “I’ll never forget them sitting down and saying, ‘We don’t support you to go. You should just go to college here, and you’re not going to get any support from us if you leave,’” he said. “So I knew then that I was on my own.” Four decades after that day in May 1984, Ergisi is pursuing the most ambitious project of a development career that has progressed from shopping centers to the SEE ERGISI, PAGE 6

CITY GOVERNMENT

Program seeks to boost Downtown The Hogan-Laura Corridor Activation Program wants to bring development of restaurants, shops and residential units to the City Center. PAGE 8 RESTAURANTS

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THE BASCH REPORT

How CSX will define its ‘yardstick’ for success At the railroad company’s Investor Day presentation Nov. 7, its first since 2018, investors and analysts want to hear CEO Joe Hinrichs’ outlook on the company’s future. PAGE 12

Lobster rolls to Town Center Mason’s Famous Lobster Rolls opens in St. Johns Town Center; Pinstripes Bistro Bowling Bocce permit is in review and Dank Burrito is entering Florida in Ponte Vedra. PAGE 3

VOLUME 111, NO. 50 | TWO SECTIONS | PUBLISHED SINCE 1912


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