What's next for gutted building off Arlington Expressway? It could become apartments

The Arlington Expressway was prime real estate when a company built three cube-shaped buildings in 1975 as the headquarters for an enterprise that envisioned the construction of floating nuclear power plants, one of the odder episodes in Jacksonville history.

The floating power plants in the St. Johns River never happened, but the trio of buildings built for Offshore Power Systems still stand, vacant and abandoned in a high-visibility spot. For years, the only change in the structures had been the ever-increasing number of broken windows that faced the stream of motorists passing by them on the expressway.

That finally changed in recent weeks when partial demolition of one six-story building completely stripped away the walls, creating a kind of time machine in reverse for what the building looked like in the 1970s as it was being built. This time around, the end result could be reconstruction as an apartment building with 118 market-rate units.

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The second life for the building, which is best known as the former Jacksonville office of the FBI until 2009, also could serve as a model for how Jacksonville can fill the housing gap while also getting rid of blight in older parts of the city, rather than expanding so much into suburban green space.

In some ways, it's actually easier to turn older buildings into apartments than it is to make the same conversion on newer structures, said Joshua Hicks, who was appointed by Mayor Donna Deegan as the city's affordable housing and community director.

"I would say one of the advantages of using older buildings and old office buildings like we have around the city that we can repurpose into affordable housing is some of the plumbing is old enough to where it's actually more amendable to housing and rental apartments," he said. "Some of the newer buildings, it's a little harder to do that."

Arlington Expressway is one of those corridors lined by older buildings, but it's been undergoing some redevelopment. Closer to the Mathews Bridge, renovations continue on the College Park shopping center that used to be called Town & County where University Boulevard meets the expressway. Next to College Park, ongoing demolition and clean-up has cleared out almost all the ruins of the old Thunderbird Motor Hotel spread across 18.5 acres.

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Mayor Donna Deegan has said she wants to find ways to boost housing options and also fill in abandoned areas in older parts of the city. Hicks said the Arlington Expressway could be a good fit for that approach.

Her transition subcommittee that's been meeting about affordable housing brought up the former office building off the expressway as it was considering recommendations. The project provided an example of what can happen when a developer renovates an existing structure of a formerly commercial building into housing.

Doing so for affordable housing, as opposed to entirely market rate, could be incentivized to developers looking for city buy-in. The possibility could extend past former office buildings to include existing structures like strip malls.

The committee will decide on final recommendations, including for incentivizing similar developments, on Friday.

The city already has tax incentives in place for the planned conversion of the building at 7280 Arlington Expressway. City Council agreed in 2021 that if the redevelopment happened by the end of 2023, the city would rebate 75% of the additional property taxes generated by the redevelopment over 10 years, or up to $820,000. The incentive deal does not require any of the apartment units to have below-market rents.

It was an unusual incentive deal at that time because the city had been limiting tax rebates for residential development to downtown, but City Council members agreed with the city's Office of Economic Development about trying to bring investment into an economically distressed area.

The city's incentive agreement was with Theokotos Holding, LLC. A year later, Theokotos sold the building on nearly 5 acres to Arlington Florida LP for $2.2 million, according to court records. The potential for future tax rebates also transferred to the new owner, provided it follows through on creating the apartments.

Arlington Florida also purchased the two other vacant office buildings that are part of Three Oaks Plaza. Arlington Florida paid $4.8 million for those buildings on nearly 10 acres in 2022. Arlington Florida has not reached out to the city about seeking incentives for redevelopment of the other two deteriorating buildings.

Hicks said he's not sure what's planned for those two buildings, but they could be suitable candidates for transition to apartments like the one currently undergoing renovation.

"I'm excited to see the steel instead of those old buildings because it shows progress is being made along that strip of land in Jacksonville that I believe should be highlighted because you're going across the bridges into downtown (from the expressway), and it should be an area that, you know, we try to build up," he said.

Arlington Florida representatives did not respond to phone calls and emails seeking comment.

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Redevelopment of Jacksonville office building into apartments