Gateway Jax is asking Jacksonville's Downtown Development Review Board to sign off on the conceptual design for a 20-story hotel and residential tower planned for the former Jacksonville Landing site, the first step toward a project the developer says will also require an estimated $20 million completion grant from the city. The board is scheduled to consider the Riverfront Plaza Hotel & Residences design at its 2 p.m. meeting on September 10 at the Main Jacksonville Public Library at 303 N. Laura St.
The tower would occupy a 1.26-acre development pad at the northeast corner of Riverfront Plaza in downtown Jacksonville, with a main entrance off Independence Drive, according to the Jacksonville Daily Record. As designed, the building would include residential units through the ninth floor and hotel rooms from there through the 19th floor, along with a mezzanine, second-floor parking, food and beverage space, and a third-floor sky terrace. Gateway Jax previously committed to building at least a 17-story residential and hotel tower on the site, so the 20-story plan exceeds that baseline commitment.
Design Board Wants More Detail on Pedestrian Experience
DDRB staff have recommended approval of the conceptual design, but only subject to revisions, per the same Daily Record report. Staff asked Gateway Jax to meet downtown design standards for the pedestrian experience, submit detailed plans for landscaping, the rooftop and its amenities, and loading, trash and service areas, and address extended blank wall conditions on the tower's east and west podium sections. The project's plans list Stantec, a Canada-based engineering, architecture and environmental consulting firm, alongside CookFox Architects, the New York firm serving as lead designer. CookFox is known nationally for biophilic design work, including Manhattan's LEED Platinum Bank of America Tower at One Bryant Park, according to Wikipedia.
The tower is meant to connect directly to Riverfront Plaza Park, the 9-acre public space next door whose $38 million first phase opened in December 2025 with an event lawn, riverwalk enhancements, a splash pad and a rooftop playground, as Hoodline reported in its park's grand-opening coverage. Construction on the park's $46 million second phase is now underway, per the Daily Record's account, and the tower is structured to help pay for it: the project would generate roughly $700,000 annually for 30 years toward park maintenance and programming, funded through a hotel room surcharge and a homeowners association fee on the condominium units.
A Site Cleared by a Complicated Land Swap
The pad itself traces back to a 32-year run of the Jacksonville Landing, the 126,000-square-foot festival marketplace that anchored the Northbank waterfront starting in 1987 before it was demolished in 2019 and 2020, according to background compiled from Wikipedia. Gateway Jax acquired the Riverfront Plaza pad through a land swap with the City of Jacksonville that closed in December 2025, after the City Council voted in June 2025 to direct the city to pursue the exchange. In that deal, Gateway Jax gave up the former Interline Brands building at 801 W. Bay St. — which it had bought in October 2024 for $4 million from HD Supply Facilities Maintenance Ltd. of Atlanta — so the city could hand the property to the University of Florida for its LaVilla graduate campus.
UF is set to hold a ribbon-cutting for that campus on September 9, with first classes to follow, per the Daily Record's reporting. The university's Jacksonville push has drawn more than $300 million in combined state, city and private funding, including a $5 million donation from VyStar Credit Union committed in August 2026, according to Credit Union Times. Gateway Jax founder Bryan Moll has said the land swap would generate $56 million in tax revenue and related funding over 30 years, and the city estimates it will need to spend $5 million to $10 million to integrate the development pad into its broader park plans.
Council Fight Over Cash Grants Looms Again
Moll told the Daily Record that Gateway Jax and its partners will need an estimated $20 million completion grant to actually build the tower, a request that arrives as Jacksonville officials are already sparring over how to fund the developer's other projects. The City Council has approved nearly $40 million in completion grants for four other Gateway Jax projects, on top of $98.58 million in incentives — split between $38.95 million in completion grants and $59.63 million in rev grants — awarded in August 2024 for the developer's first four Pearl Square projects. Rev grants function as tax rebates rather than upfront cash, and council members have increasingly signaled they prefer funding projects largely or entirely through that mechanism instead of direct completion grants.
That preference set up a public clash in June 2026, when council members debated a proposed $28.25 million completion grant for Gateway Jax's 15-story, Publix-anchored Block N7 project at 119 W. Beaver St., a tower with a $138.6 million development value, as Action News Jax reported at the time. Gateway Jax and the Downtown Investment Authority are now renegotiating a $48 million incentive package for that project, and City Council Finance Committee chair Will Lahnen has raised concerns about the completion grant structure. The fiscal backdrop is significant: the Downtown Investment Authority reported earlier this year that 10 active downtown projects could collectively request between $145.6 million and $224.7 million in city completion grants, a tension Hoodline detailed in its report on developer grant demands.
Betting on Tax Revenue to Make the Case
Gateway Jax is framing the Riverfront Plaza tower's financial upside as its counterargument heading into that debate. The project is projected to generate $1.16 million annually in property taxes from its hotel and condominium components, and an estimated $35 million in incremental ad valorem tax revenue overall, per the Daily Record's figures. So far, Gateway Jax has not sought incentives for this particular tower — it has only signaled, through Moll, that it will need the roughly $20 million completion grant once the project moves forward.
The Riverfront Plaza tower is the latest piece of Gateway Jax's broader downtown buildout, which the company describes as a more than $750 million Pearl Square district north and west of City Hall, part of an overall master plan estimated at $2 billion across 25 city blocks. The developer — a partnership between Bryan Moll, JWB Real Estate Capital and DLP Capital — has already launched construction on all four of its first Pearl Square projects and is preparing to open its first completed development in the district. Elsewhere downtown, Gateway Jax is converting the long-vacant Ambassador Hotel at 420 N. Julia St. into Hotel Merrydelle, part of Marriott's Tribute Portfolio, adding to a pipeline that already includes the 22-story Block N8 tower Hoodline covered when the city issued its building permit, in a story headlined $145 Million Block N8 Tower Play.
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