TU: Permit issued for downtown dorms for FSCJ

Florida Times-Union

http://jacksonville.com/business/2017-01-16/permit-issued-downtown-dorms-fscj

Housing won’t be ready for fall students

Construction is expected to begin in the next month turning a century-old downtown building into student housing. But it may not be done in time for students starting the fall semester.

The $4,793,734 building permit was issued Friday for the Lerner Building at 20 W. Adams St.

When it’s done, Florida State College at Jacksonville will lease the entire building. The bottom floor will become a cafe which will be part of the school’s culinary program, spokeswoman Jill Johnson said.

The top five floors will be turned into 20 apartments, mostly three-bedrooms, for 58 students and a director.

She said the college hoped to move students in this fall, but Kirt Steimer of Danis Construction said completion may not happen until late fall. Construction has not started, he said, because the project is still waiting for financing. He said he hopes to start within a month.

FSCJ’s downtown campus is about 10 blocks from the building, but the apartments would be open to students at any of the school’s campuses, she said. When the college surveyed students in 2015, about 1,400 said they would be interested in living downtown.

The college does not currently offer housing to its students.

In 2015, the Downtown Investment Authority approved a $600,000 historic preservation grant and up to $600,000 in zero-interest loans for conversion of the Lerner Building, which dates back to 1911.

Former NFL player Eugene Profit’s Phoenix Adams Rising LLC paid $750,000 for the building in 2015 and is doing the conversion.

Roger Bull: (904) 359-4296