Newk’s Eatery intends to join Galleria Marketplace in the Southpoint area, completing the project under development by brothers Paul and Louis Sleiman.
The city is reviewing a permit application for tenant build-out for Newk’s in almost 3,800 square feet of space in the center at 6025 Butler Point Road at Bonneval Road. No contractor is listed for the $500,000 project.
It will join Kazu Sushi Burrito, Smoothie King and Chicken Salad Chick.
Louis Sleiman said Newk’s completes the tenant list and the center will be fully occupied. It should open in August or September.
The brothers, part of the Sleiman real estate families, haven’t announced their next project but said when they set up their business they were looking around the area for different types of development.
Newk’s Eatery, based in Jackson, Miss., has three restaurants in town and is expanding. It intends to open in the spring of 2017 in the Town Center Promenade near St. Johns Town Center.
It is expected to add another five to six locations throughout Northeast Florida in addition to the Galleria Marketplace location.
Carrie Smith, regional managing partner of the Franklin Street real estate company, represents Newk’s Eatery in the market. She said the company continues to look for locations, specifically in the Westside and at the Beaches.
$3M financing for Level Office
Bank of the Ozarks issued a $3 million mortgage agreement to the owners of the Level Office co-work and professional office building planned at 25 N. Market St. Downtown.
The Arkansas-based bank made the loan May 6 to 25 N. Market Level Office LLC, based in Chicago.
It was signed by William Bennett, manager of Iconic Investors LLC, which is the manager of 25 N. Market Level Office LLC.
Bennett’s group bought the building in January for $2.05 million and plans to invest about $2.1 million to build-out, furnish and equip the at least 91-year-old building, which is at Market and Forsyth streets.
His group plans to create 70 offices and 3,000 square feet of co-working space, along with event and gathering areas, in the four-story, 53,016-square-foot building.
Bennett expects a July opening.
The Public Defender’s Office operated in the building for at least 16 years, moving in 2011 to the Jake Godbold City Hall Annex and leaving the Market Street building vacant.
Earth Fare inching closer to Mandarin?
The city is considering a zoning deviation for the Mandarin South shopping center at 11700 San Jose Blvd. Drawings show the potential for the expected Earth Fare grocery store.
Property owner PGP Jacksonville Inc. wants to reduce minimum landscape requirements and increase driveway widths at the almost 5-acre property, built 34 years ago.
“Renovations to the building are necessary to attract national and local businesses to occupy the entire vacant building to meet the community’s retail needs,” says the application.
Solid Rock Engineering Consultants Inc. is the agent for the application.
The administrative deviation plan shows the 75,550-square-foot building, which contains some tenants and has space for multiple leases.
However, the anchor space, at one time a Winn-Dixie grocery store, includes proposed building additions and what appears to be an entryway similar to those at Earth Fare.
The back of the store includes a truck loading area.
No tenant name is on the plan, although Earth Fare’s name has come up.
In February, a former tenant that left the center said she was told by landlords that Earth Fare had signed a lease there.
That would make sense. When Earth Fare opened its first Jacksonville store in August 2014 at Kernan and Atlantic boulevards, the CFO said the company wanted to open up to four stores in Jacksonville, including in Mandarin and Westside. The first one is 24,000 square feet.
North Carolina-based Earth Fare is a natural and organic foods chain. It has not confirmed the Mandarin location.
An Earth Fare spokeswoman said in February it would comment when it is ready to make a statement. The company did not have a comment Monday.
Preferred Growth Properties is a subsidiary of Alabama-based Books-A-Million. It bought Mandarin South in July 2014 and has posted on its website that the property will be redeveloped as a high-end lifestyle center.
Westside Aldi continues to progress
More filings are surfacing for the proposed Aldi Food Market in West Jacksonville.
A mobility-fee certificate shows a $53,814 calculation for the project, planned at 7043 Normandy Blvd., the site of a former Golden Corral restaurant.
The 10,269-square-foot restaurant would be demolished and replaced with the 18,850-square-foot Aldi.
The fee is the cost for a new development based upon the link between land development and transportation.
It takes into account the mix of uses at the property and other factors that affect the amount of traffic the project is expected to generate.
The developer is Aldi (Florida) LLC in Haines City. The property owner is ARC CafeHLD001 LLC, led by Cole Capital of Phoenix.
Site plans previously were filed for the no-frills discount grocer at the 2.78-acre property, which is west of Interstate 295.
Aldi is based in Germany and its U.S. headquarters are in Batavia, Ill. It has been expanding nationwide, with three stores open in Northeast Florida and at least two more planned.
In addition to the Normandy store, it also plans to build a store in the Town Center Promenade near St. Johns Town Center.
Aldi did not respond Monday to an email or phone call.
More plans filed for Walmart market
More plans surfaced for the proposed Walmart Neighborhood Market in Baymeadows Commons in Southside.
Bowman Consulting Group Ltd. sought a mobility fee calculation for the project, which was assessed at none.
The discount grocery store, which is the supermarket-size arm of Wal-Mart Stores Inc., would occupy about 42,000 square feet at the site of the former Bailey’s Powerhouse Gym.
Baymeadows Commons now comprises almost 79,000 square feet of retail space. That would decrease to reconfigure space for Walmart.
