‘It’d be awesome:’ The $87M proposal to bring Jacksonville’s Laura Street Trio back to life

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — There’s a new financial proposal for the Laura Street Trio, the historic buildings that have been sitting empty in downtown Jacksonville for decades.

Action News Jax told you about an agreement in principle; now we’ve gotten our hands on the documents.

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The latest proposal has the City of Jacksonville and Downtown Investment Authority committing funding, some in grants and loans, “no more than” $87 million.

It’s the latest attempt in trying to resolve financial differences between the developer and the city.

Joey Presutti is an attorney downtown and has been working in the area for 10 years, seeing the same empty buildings each day.

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“I’ve been passing this place every day for the last 10 years and it’s kinda just been sitting here,” he said.

Presutti said he’d like to see it change.

“Anything that makes downtown Jacksonville more palatable for people to come down, man, I’m for it. I think it’d be awesome,” he said.

The financial back and forth between the developer of the Laura Street Trio and the city took another step forward with a new proposal for the historic buildings, submitted by the developer.

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The total hotel and multi-family capital stack is more than $190 million.

The proposal also dropped an unconditional loan the city wasn’t going to pursue. Jacksonville City Council member Matt Carlucci saved the Trio from being demolished 20 years ago. He said this is a good step.

“They’re working on those, they, the developer, along with timing of incentives,” he said. “When some of the dollars would kick in and be paid.”

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Carlucci believes the redevelopment could transform downtown.

“I think it is going to become reality more than ever, or ever. I love the Trio from the historic point of view, what it means to Jacksonville,” he said.

We’re told the numbers surrounding the Laura Street Trio proposal aren’t set in stone, a council member said there could be an update by the end of the week. We’ll share that update on air and online as soon as we get it.

To see the proposal by the numbers, look at the documents below:

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