{"id":225425,"date":"2026-04-09T21:45:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T21:45:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/225425\/"},"modified":"2026-04-09T21:45:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T21:45:07","slug":"the-merrydelle-historic-ambassador-hotel-renamed-under-marriott-brand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/225425\/","title":{"rendered":"The Merrydelle: Historic Ambassador Hotel renamed under Marriott brand"},"content":{"rendered":"

The historic Ambassador Hotel in Downtown Jacksonville has a new name and could soon reopen under Marriott International Inc.\u2019s Tribute Portfolio brand.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Developer and hotel owner Gateway Jax Inc. announced Thursday that the long-vacant building at 420 N. Julia St. is now the Hotel Merrydelle \u2014 named as an homage to the early 20th century modern art pioneer Merrydelle Hoyt<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Gateway Jax CEO Brian Moll tells Jacksonville Today that it secured an agreement with Marriott International to use the Tribute Portfolio Hotel<\/a> brand. The developer says plans will include amenities and finishes that are \u201con the higher end\u201d of the Marriott, three-star hotel Tribute flag.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are elevating the elements where we\u2019ve got a little bit more discretion in the grand standard of Tribute from Marriott,\u201d Moll said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He says Gateway and hotel partner Indigo Road Hospitality Group<\/a> will incorporate woods paneling on the interior columns and fixtures along with other flourishes to pay tribute to the history of the Ambassador, which opened in 1924 as upscale apartments.<\/p>\n

Marriott lists 199 Tribute flag hotels globally on its website. The brand highlights independent, architecturally unique hotels. The closest one to Jacksonville is the Hotel Amalga<\/a> in St. Augustine.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"A look at the interior of the Italian Colletta restaurant proposed as part of a renovated Hotel Merrydelle, formerly the Ambassador, in Downtown Jacksonville. | Gateway Jax Inc.<\/p>\n

Gateway made the announcement just hours before the Downtown Development Review Board voted unanimously to award the hotel project final design approval.<\/p>\n

The board is an appointed city agency responsible for maintaining architectural and planning guidelines in Downtown Jacksonville. <\/p>\n

Plans for the project show a 109-room hotel, a coffee and pastry shop and the modern Italian Colletta restaurant and bar operated by Indigo, based in Charleston, South Carolina.\u00a0<\/p>\n

According to Moll, Indigo Road founder Steve Palmer toured the hotel site in Downtown Jacksonville\u2019s North Core, and he pitched a Colletta restaurant<\/a> that has another location north of Atlanta.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The 120-seat restaurant will serve fired pizzas, house-made pasta and antipasti, Italian wines and cocktails, according to a news release.<\/p>\n

\"\"A conceptual rendering of the proposed interior of the renamed Hotel Merrydelle, formerly the Ambassador, in Downtown Jacksonville\u2019s North Core. | Gateway Jax Inc.<\/p>\n

\u201cHotel Merrydelle will be a place where people naturally come together as Downtown Jacksonville transforms into a vibrant, community-focused neighborhood,\u201d Palmer said in the release. \u201cWe are excited to be a part of this project \u2014 not only offering a welcoming destination for visitors, but a place where locals can connect over shared meals.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gateway hopes to open Hotel Merrydelle by summer 2027, adding hospitality to the mix of developer\u2019s $750 million Pearl Square mixed use development.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When Pearl Square<\/a> is complete, Gateway says it will have 1,250 new residential units; approximately 200,000 square feet of retail space anchored by Publix; a new office building; and public parks and pedestrian walkways.<\/p>\n

From Ambassador to Merrydelle<\/p>\n

Gateway acquired<\/a> the full city block that includes the century-old Ambassador and the neighboring Central National Bank building in February 2025 for $17 million.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The developer bought it from subsidiaries of the project\u2019s former developer Augustine Development Group, which was facing foreclosures<\/a> on the property.\u00a0<\/p>\n

At the time, the group cited construction cost increases and supply chain issues related to COVID-19 for the consistent delays to its effort to revive the hotel, which began in 2018.<\/p>\n

With design approval behind it, Gateway now turns its attention to the city\u2019s Downtown Investment Authority. Moll says the development company plans to ask for about $10 million in city incentives as early as May for the $50 million hotel renovation.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Moll said that would come from the DIA\u2019s Downtown Preservation and Revitalization Program<\/a>, which offers forgivable and low-interest loans for historic restoration projects.\u00a0<\/p>\n

City staff and DIA have not finished the final numbers of that potential deal, but Moll says he expects the city to recoup $2 for every $1 of public investment through bed, sales and property taxes.<\/p>\n

If the DIA board approves, that agreement would need approval from the Jacksonville City Council. Many of Jacksonville\u2019s elected leaders have become wary of large cash incentive packages<\/a> for businesses and private developments as the city faces projected budget deficits in the coming years.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Gateway is also seeking $48 million in city incentives<\/a> for its Publix-anchored project in Pearl Square.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe understand there\u2019s a lot of conversation about incentives, and we\u2019re really trying to keep that number as low as possible,\u201d Moll said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Work to shore up the hotel building\u2019s roof and structure won\u2019t wait for the city incentives, Moll says. Site work is scheduled to begin within the next month. Gateway hopes to have the hotel and restaurant open by summer 2027.<\/p>\n

The hotel sat without windows for years, exposing the interior of the building to the elements. Moll says that made most of the work completed by the previous developer unusable.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re actually going to be taking out a lot of the walls and the studs. \u2026 We essentially designed the building from scratch,\u201d Moll said. \u201cThere wasn\u2019t really much of anything we could reuse from the former renovation. It\u2019s unfortunate, but it also gave us an opportunity to kind of rethink what the project could be.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

An attorney for Gateway Jax told design review board members Thursday that the adaptive reuse project will also include expanded sidewalks around the building, \u201cenhanced streetscapes,\u201d and more tree canopy outside of the building.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The hotel is on the National Register of Historic Places and is a locally designated landmark. Gateway says it has been working with the National Park Service to ensure that the renovations comply with the hotel\u2019s historic status.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe decision to name the hotel \u2018Merrydelle\u2019 is a direct tribute to a true Jacksonville visionary,\u201d Moll said in the news release. \u201cMerrydelle Hoyt, an artist who brought her expansive vision from New York to the South, saw the opportunity to expand minds through art. Hotel Merrydelle aims to capture that same spirit \u2014 a destination that will provide respite and inspiration in the heart of Pearl Square.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The historic Ambassador Hotel in Downtown Jacksonville has a new name and could soon reopen under Marriott International…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":225426,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[558,43323,5073,9000,88005,116,118,117,99028,115,58835],"class_list":{"0":"post-225425","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-distribute","10":"tag-downtown-development","11":"tag-downtown-jacksonville","12":"tag-government-politics","13":"tag-jacksonville","14":"tag-jacksonville-headlines","15":"tag-jacksonville-news","16":"tag-jaxtdy1","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-urban-core"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=225425"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225425\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/225426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=225425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=225425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=225425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}