{"id":365622,"date":"2026-08-07T21:10:07","date_gmt":"2026-08-07T21:10:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/365622\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T21:10:07","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T21:10:07","slug":"jacksonville-councilmembers-seek-clarity-about-28m-completion-grant-for-downtown-publix","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/365622\/","title":{"rendered":"Jacksonville councilmembers seek clarity about $28M completion grant for Downtown Publix"},"content":{"rendered":"

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 The Jacksonville City Council has deferred consideration of nearly $49 million in incentives for a planned Publix-anchored development<\/a> at the Pearl Square redevelopment, not because members oppose the project but because they want more clarity on how the city would pay for it.<\/p>\n

Gateway Jax<\/a> asked the council for $48.6 million in incentives for the Block N7 portion of the project, a $138 million development that would replace the former First Baptist Church auditorium with a 15-story tower containing about 500 apartments, parking and a 31,000-square-foot Publix grocery store.<\/p>\n

Council members have expressed particular concern about a completion grant that could exceed $28 million. <\/p>\n

\u201cNo, no, it\u2019s certainly about the way the money gets spent,\u201d City Councilmember Jimmy Peluso said. \u201c\u2026I believe that we have a couple of council members that are a little uncomfortable with the size of the completion grant when the completion would be paid out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Peluso called the proposed Publix \u201cthe last major piece of the puzzle\u201d for downtown and said many residents and leaders want the project to move forward, but only with an incentive structure the council can support. Possible changes under discussion include reducing the size of the completion grant.<\/p>\n

Gateway Jax CEO Brian Moll said the company has been negotiating alternative incentive structures with the city for months and views the council\u2019s decision as additional time to finalize details. <\/p>\n

\u201cI have the utmost confidence that we\u2019re going to be able to get a deal done,\u201d Moll said, adding that most of the council, the administration and the downtown development authority support the project.<\/p>\n

Negotiations over a revised incentive package will continue before the proposal returns to the council for consideration. Construction on other parts of the Pearl Square development is already underway.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 The Jacksonville City Council has deferred consideration of nearly $49 million in incentives for a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":363362,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[5073,36346,116,118,117,2159,99],"class_list":["post-365622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-downtown-development","tag-gateway-jax","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-money","tag-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365622","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=365622"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365622\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/363362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=365622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=365622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=365622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}