Armory Being RFP'd

[nuts over reality]

REVA is required to make a $3 million initial investment in the property, Wendland said. It also must maintain “minimum levels of maintenance” on the building. The city could terminate the lease if the building is not maintained or if activity at the property is not sufficient.

The statement above is from the commission meeting.


So if the armory building is not maintained the city gets the armory back and now looses the majority of the land needed for parking.

[thelakelander]

What they've planned for the Armory (event space, art studios, performance space, art galleries, mini-food hall, etc.) sounds like raw open space. The Joinery (see images below) is a new food hall in Lakeland done on the cheap for less than $1 million. Basically they took a warehouse and subdivided a portion of it for a few vendor stalls while leaving the majority of it open as communal seating and craft brewery. I suspect the communal area also acts as event space. As long as the Armory is structurally sound, to use as a warehouse likely won't require a $10 million investment.















I've heard that REVA has been working with the Eastside on some sort of level for this particular project. I don't know too much about this particular deal with COJ but there are several examples of developers leasing public property instead of purchasing. Publix has leased their downtown Lakeland offices in an old JCPenney building for more than 20 years now for something like $10/year.



The parking lot appears to be fairly large although at some point the part on the optional parcel will probably shrink with the restoration/reconstruction of Hogans Creek, which should help with flooding in the long term. I'll see if I can find a copy of the documents discussed in the article to better understand what's proposed.

[Tacachale]

I don’t get it. If all they wanted was the other land, there are other parcels to do it on that don’t have an armory tied to them.

[nuts over reality]

https://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/boynton-beach-commission-set-to-review-town-square-project-as-cos
https://www.cfdc.org/publix-announces-headquarters-expansion-adding-700-jobs/

good reading

[thelakelander]

Sounds like two cool projects. I'm familiar with the Publix expansion. However, my quote above about the Downtown Lakeland IT office in the old JCPenney (321 S Kentucky St) was incorrect. The lease is cheaper than I thought. The CRA leased that building to them for $1/year for 20 years. For Lakeland, doing so was a good way to get 600 high paying jobs into a dead downtown space immediately. Jax should consider doing the same when it has an opportunity. It's a quick way to activate dead sites, knowing activity can have a great long term public payoff.

What's the connection to the Boynton Beach project? Is REVA involved with it some way?

[marcuscnelson]

Out of curiosity, what spaces/buildings Downtown would be suitable for such a role, if it were to be implemented here?

[nuts over reality]

no, an example of the cost to renovate a older building. The renovation cost for the high school was 10 mil.
With publix, they would have added them jobs regardless. they are adding onto their corporate campus currently to handle the additional staff they have added.
Also they are looking for local and state money to do so.
After making over 3.2 billion net.

[thelakelander]

That building looks in way worse shape than the Armory and it includes some uses that require a different interior built-out.....like a public library. Without knowing more, it's hard to equate the two as equals in terms of renovation costs.

With Publix, they would have added jobs, but those jobs would have likely been at their suburban industrial complex off Wabash and US 92. Publix only moved corporate jobs into the closed JCPenney back in the 1990s because they were approached by the LDDA and given a deal they could not refuse, along with them being a good corporate citizen in that community. Publix, along with Watkins Trucking (who took the empty neighboring Maas Brothers building on a similar deal), directly led to that city being able to bring its downtown back to life in a fraction of the time that Jacksonville has talked about revitalizing its own downtown. In the years that have followed, Publix has grown significantly, including adding a large corporate headquarters on the south side of town near the airport (that opened right before I moved from Lakeland to Jax) and now they have hundreds of more Downtown Lakeland jobs than they started off with the JCPenney deal years ago.

[nuts over reality]

Has anyone heard if the armory is going to be redeveloped. Went by the armory and seems like nothing has happened. tthx

[marcuscnelson]

Community meetings planned to discuss a block grant for Made at the Armory.

https://www.jaxdailyrecord.com/news/2024/mar/11/community-meetings-planned-on-funding-to-transform-historic-armory-building/

[Charles Hunter]

What about flooding?

[thelakelander]

Good question.

[acme54321]

Drove by this afternoon and there was a crew out there doing geotech, so something is still happening.  Maybe.