Development Status: Approved

Currently on Hendricks Avenue, the Salon on the Southbank is expanding it’s footprint and services a block away on Kings Avenue in the newly redeveloped former Redi-Arts

Starbucks will operate a ground-floor storefront at Bay and Laura Streets in the 42-story Bank of America tower. The coffee shop will also have an entrance directly on the sidewalk as well as seating.

Tavola Trattoria is bringing an “upscale yet approachable Italian restaurant blending classic cuisine with modern presentation and local Florida ingredients” to 1037 Hendricks Ave.

The restaurant will be open from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily, serving brunch, lunch, and dinner to a targeted crowd of young professionals, hotel visitors, Downtown residents, weekend diners, and an upper-scale business lunch crowd. Owned by Carl and Lindie Garrett, trattorias are typically casual, family-owned Italian restaurants with homestyle cooking. Tavola San Marco will closely resemble the existing location in Bentonville, Arkansas location with a large menu and a full bar.

It will receive a $135,000 DIA Core Retail Enhancement Program grant. Tavola Trattoria plans to renovate its building at an estimated cost of $600,000. The full 4,500-square-foot renovation would be for the dining room, which includes an open kitchen, a large display pizza oven, and a cocktail bar with seating.

That Bar in the Sports and Entertainment district will undergo an addition and renovation. The result will be a two-story exterior space and an uncovered rooftop space, expanding the capacity of the existing space.

A dedicated seven-story parking garage will serve the future Ambassador Hotel and Pearl Square. Previously approved as part of a former development attempt, improvements to the garage’s design and functionality were an amendment to a design approved in 2021 for renovation of the hotel. The block is bordered by Duval, Julia, Church, and Pearl streets. Together, the parcels in the block encompass 1.48 acres.

The precast concrete garage will offer 480 spaces for use by the hotel, other Pearl Square properties, the Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department, and the public.

Renderings show the north and west sides of the garage clad with perforated metal and louvered panels that give them a checkered facade. The south wall will be painted with a yet-to-be-designed mural, as future development on the parcel immediately south of the wall is undetermined. The lot abutting the mural will be activated in a passive way in the meantime. The east wall, which abuts the hotel, is unadorned, and will serve as the back-of-house operations side for the hotel.

The garage received final amended approval from the Downtown Development Review Board in June 2025. The DDRB’s vote on the garage constituted final action. Among the board’s purposes, it serves as a version of the planning commission for Downtown on design.

The Lofts at Southbank is a 10-story mixed-use building with ground floor retail, office, restaurant, or other commercial programming; personal property self-storage uses on floors three through six; and about 100 multi-family residential units on floors seven through 10. The $38.8 million project, led by Jacksonville-based Vestcor, is located at Prudential Drive and Hendricks Avenue at the site of a closed restaurant at 1004 Hendricks Ave.