A developer’s contested plan to build a 10-story building with affordable apartments, retail and self-storage units near San Marco inched forward this week.

City Council members on the Land Use and Zoning Committee on Tuesday narrowly endorsed a rezoning request that could make way for the highly controversial Lofts at Southbank development on Jacksonville’s Southbank. 

The vote was 4-3, with Council members Reggie Gaffney Jr., Kevin Carrico, Rahman Johnson and Rory Diamond voting yes and Ken Amaro, Raul Arias and Joe Carlucci voting no. 

For about three years, residents of the Southbank have been fighting against iterations of storage units proposed for the corner of Hendricks Avenue and Prudential Drive. Tuesday was no exception. Dozens of people approached the lectern to oppose the request by the developer to rezone the property as a “planned unit development” as a step toward creating the multi-use building.  

Earlier this month, the Downtown Development Review Board — which is under the Downtown Investment Authority — also allowed the project to move forward, despite a staff report that recommended the board deny the rezoning.

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Diamond, who represents the Beaches, said the project just isn’t viable without the self-storage element.

“You have to have a PUD and have to add this extra use for the financial piece of this puzzle to add up. Otherwise we would have had multifamily here ages ago,” Diamond said of the corner that is currently occupied by a closed Thai restaurant and a small office building. “I’m a yes because I’m looking at the project as a whole and because for the same reason that (the Downtown Development Review Board) voted yes: The conditions that they’ve offered really make a lot of sense.”

Developer Boyd Simpson of Atlanta-based The Simpson Organization and Jacksonville-based Vestcorp are partnering on plans to build and manage the site, which would include retail on the first floor, approximately 100 parking spaces in a garage above, between 550 to 600 storage units on the floors above that, and 100 affordable apartments on the top floors. 

Diamond called the storage component a “relatively small part” of the plan.

San Marco Councilman Joe Carlucci said he wanted to like the project but ultimately had to vote against it.

“It has components of it that are good components,” Carlucci said. But he said he doesn’t like the request to sidestep the Downtown zoning “overlay,” which does not permit storage units in the area. 

”This PUD does not do anything except allow a use that was adamantly opposed in 2019 when we enacted the Downtown overlay,” Carlucci said. “And it passed unanimously.”