Daily Record Financial News &
Tuesday, July 28, 2015
Vol. 102, No. 182 • One Section
Not waiting around for
Businesses enjoy low rental rates
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Ramona and Michael Cobb opened Accentuate, a specialty fashion accessory store, this month at the Jacksonville Landing.
Photo by Max Marbut
By Max Marbut Staff Writer
Landing
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Arlington Expressway sites sell for $2.25M
LANDING 2.0
With the city and owners of the venue working with design firms on a new vision for the Jacksonville Landing, major changes might be on the horizon for Downtown venue. Many involved agree that’s great, but what do you do in the meantime if you’re running a shopping center that has just about as many empty spaces as it does tenants? “Nothing is stopping,” said Janice Lowe, Landing general manager. But it takes a nontraditional retail leasing outlook. Lowe said new tenants are not being required to sign the usual five-year contract with a five-year option. And the Landing is offering some of the most attractive lease rates Downtown or anywhere else in Jacksonville. She declined to quote specific monthly rates, but said, “Our retail space is very affordable.” Affordable rent combined with a shortterm commitment brought three new tenants to the Landing this month: a clothing accessories store, an art gallery and a tech startup incubator. All are aware they will likely have to relocate in a couple of years — or even sooner — but that’s OK. The riverfront location in the center of the urban core and the Landing’s reputation as the foundation of modern-era Downtown retail made it the best choice for them. Ramona Cobb and her husband, Michael,
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A South Florida investment group paid $2.25 million last week to buy two Arlington Expressway buildings and some vacant land. Omega Group Center LLC of Aventura bought the property from Benwood Investments LLC of Stockbridge, Ga. Those properties are assessed for 2015 tax purposes at $2.88 million. Property Appraiser records list the market value at $6.5 million. Benwood had purchased the property in March for $750,000, property records show. The seller was BOTO FL Properties LLC, which is Bank of the Ozarks in Little Rock. The property descriptions show Benwood had acquired two six-story buildings at 7960 and 8000 Arlington Expressway, totaling almost 189,000 square feet of office space on 9.56 acres. They were built in 1972 and 1973. The descriptions show Benwood also bought 6.32 acres of vacant commercial land. Omega Group’s purchase July 22 included the same legal descriptions. A third building, at 7820 Arlington Expressway, is owned by a Miami investor. That six-story, almost 93,500-square-foot building was built in 1975 and formerly housed the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Jacksonville field office. The FBI moved to Gate Parkway in 2009. Benwood Investments Manager Benjamin Helms has not returned calls left on numbers for him listed with WhitePages. com. Omega Group Center is led by managers Jacky Schneider and Yaron Teshby of Aventura. Their registered agent was unavailable and his office said to call back at the end Mathis
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Question of how to pay for dredging remains Environmental impact also an issue
Photo by Max Marbut
By Max Marbut Staff Writer
Rotary Club of Jacksonville past President Tommy Grimes, left, and Brian Taylor, CEO of JaxPort.
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The questions associated with the potential economic and environmental impacts of deepening Jacksonville’s shipping channel have different responses depending on who’s answering them. The main question — how to fund the $500 million-$700 million project — remains without an answer. While the concept for the project has been approved by the federal government, no funds have been appropriated on the federal, state or local levels for dredging. All three will have to commit the funds before the project can begin.
Channel dredging was discussed Monday at the Rotary Club of Jacksonville by Brian Taylor, JaxPort CEO; St. Johns Riverkeeper Lisa Rinaman; Vince Cameron, president of the International Longshoremen’s Association Local 1408; and Larry Harvey, Putnam County Commissioner and director of operations for Save the Rodman Reservoir Inc. Taylor said the project is in its third version. It was first envisioned to deepen the channel to 50 feet from the Atlantic Ocean to the Talleyrand terminal Downtown. That plan was scaled back to dredging the channel to 47 feet deep for 13 miles inside the St.
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Johns River at a cost of about $700 million. The latest plan, which Taylor said is not settled on, would deepen the channel to 47 feet for a distance of 11 miles for about $500 million. He said in the past five years, the port’s business has diversified from being primarily dependent on shipping to and from Puerto Rico to competing in the global market as well, particularly with shipping companies that call on ports in Asia. Taylor said 57 percent of the port’s business comes from the Asian routes, which allowed the port to add more than 2,000 jobs. It also means larger ships that Port continued on Page A-4
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