{"id":233215,"date":"2026-04-15T20:22:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T20:22:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/233215\/"},"modified":"2026-04-15T20:22:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T20:22:11","slug":"former-school-site-will-become-affordable-housing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/233215\/","title":{"rendered":"Former school site will become affordable housing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Affordable housing<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 including homes for public school employees\u00a0\u2014 and an early childhood learning center will soon be built at the site of a former school on the Northside.<\/p>\n

Located at the site of the former Lake Forest Elementary School, at 901 Kennard St., which closed in 2019 and was demolished earlier this year, the Villages at Lake Forest will bring 180 units of affordable housing between 40% and 80% of the area median income.<\/p>\n

A quarter of Village at Lake Forest\u2019s one-, two- and three-bedroom units will be set aside for Duval County Public School staff. In addition, the community will have a computer lab, library, community space, an area for workshops and trainings and a walking trail. The property also will have a pre-kindergarten school and a playground. The school district will operate the on-site early-learning center.<\/p>\n

The community will offer 25 units at 40% of the area median income, 72 units at 60% and 23 units at 80%.<\/p>\n

This is a joint-venture by the nonprofit and Duval County Public Schools. The school district still owns the 9.8-acre property.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel confident in saying that we\u2019re all benefiting from this masterclass in teamwork, collaboration and community,\u201d Jim Culbert, chief operating officer of Duval County Public Schools, said at a greoundbreaking Wednesday. Culbert also noted that the school opened in 1950 and had served thousands of students.<\/p>\n

Reggie Fullwood, who became\u00a0CEO of Ability Housing<\/a>\u00a0this year, told the\u00a0Business Journal\u00a0he is looking at doing future partnerships like this with Duval Schools in the future.<\/p>\n

\"\"Reggie Fullwood, CEO of Ability Housing, speaks at a groundbreaking Wednesday, April 15, 2026. | Leah Foreman.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are several schools that are closing down or already closed that we\u2019re interested in,\u201d he said. \u201cIt makes a lot of sense because schools are often community hubs and when we build our projects we want to make them community hubs as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

This was Fullwood\u2019s first groundbreaking as CEO of Ability Housing.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s exciting. I\u2019ve been around the organization as a board member for years and a part of a lot of these, but it\u2019s sort of special doing it as CEO,\u201d Fullwood said.<\/p>\n

In addition to Fullwood and Culbert, Mayor Donna Deegan; City Council member Ju\u2019Coby Pittman; Mark Bennett, president of\u00a0Bank of America<\/a>\u00a0Jacksonville and an alumnus of Lake Forest Elementary School; and Richard Sisisky, chair of the board of trustees for The Community Foundation for Northeast Florida spoke at the event.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m hoping this is a blueprint that we can continue to replicate, because this is, this is a wonderful way to move forward on affordable housing,\u201d Deegan said.<\/p>\n

Deegan noted that this community\u2019s 120 units add to nearly 7,000 units of affordable housing that have been added to Jacksonville since she took office.<\/p>\n

\"\"Illustration of the planned Villages at Lake Forest. | PGH Group<\/p>\n

The project was made possible through a unique funding stack, which combined public and private sources.<\/p>\n

Bank of America is underwriting a $23 million construction mortgage.<\/p>\n

Nonprofit syndicator National Equity Fund is providing about $18.1 million in low-income housing tax credit equity.<\/p>\n

The Community Preservation Corp. is underwriting a $10 million permanent mortgage.<\/p>\n

The city of Jacksonville also provided $4 million through a community development block grant and $2.5 million from a HOME loan.<\/p>\n

The Jacksonville Housing Finance Authority provided $2.5 million in financing.<\/p>\n

The Community Foundation for Northeast Florida provided a $500,000 impact investment through its Local Capital Pool.<\/p>\n

The nonprofit enlisted construction services from Elkins Construction and architecture services from PDQ Group.<\/p>\n

Elkins Construction was issued\u00a0a $15 million permit for demolition<\/a>\u00a0of the former school building in February 2026. The site is currently being prepped for utilities, and digging is underway for a retention pond.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This marks Ability Housing\u2019s second project with Elkins Construction, after the Village at Cedar Hills<\/a>,\u00a0a 90-unit project\u00a0on the Westside.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re passionate about affordable housing,\u201d Rob Charnley, project manager for Elkins Construction, said. \u201cHopefully we will build our relationship with [Ability Housing] and we hope to keep the ball moving.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Charnley said it will be about a 22-month project and is slated for completion by December 2027.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

This story was published as part of the\u00a0Northeast Florida News Collaborative<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Affordable housing\u00a0\u2014 including homes for public school employees\u00a0\u2014 and an early childhood learning center will soon be built…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":233216,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[116,118,117],"class_list":["post-233215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233215","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=233215"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/233215\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/233216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=233215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=233215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=233215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}