Laura Street Trio to be sold, raising hopes of redevelopment

A new developer is set to take the reins to overhaul the Laura Street Trio, an iconic group of decaying Downtown buildings that have long sat at risk of demolition.

Paul Bertozzi, president of Live Oak Contracting, announced the imminent purchase agreement to Jacksonville City Council on Tuesday night.

He said the company expects to complete the purchase of the three historic Downtown buildings — the Florida National Bank Building, the Bisbee Building and Florida Life Insurance Building — within 45 days. 

Steve Atkins, managing director of SouthEast Development Group, bought the buildings in 2013 and aimed to transform the group of structures into a hotel and apartments with a restaurant.

The company’s original plans to redevelop the buildings at the corner of North Laura and West Forsyth streets hit a major hurdle a year ago after the City Council criticized a potential $38.5 million deal between SouthEast and the city of Jacksonville back to the drawing board.

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Then, in August, Atkins expressed frustration to the city over the negotiations, telling City Council he was “tired of dealing with the city of Jacksonville.”

A few months later, the city refiled a foreclosure lawsuit against SouthEast Development’s land holding company, Laura Trio LLC, claiming the company owes the city more than $800,000 in fines for code violation.

That same month, Bertozzi announced his company was negotiating a sale, according to a Jacksonville Daily Record report — although the lein on the properties and the lawsuit were an obstacle to any purchase agreement.

What’s next for Laura Street Trio

At the City Council meeting this week, city Chief of Staff Mike Weinstein said the city paused efforts on the suit when negotiations began with Bertozzi.

“Probably about six or eight weeks ago, we met and we discussed, we negotiated a way forward with the lawsuit,” Weinstein told City Council members. “We had to put a postponement on it until this happened. This, as (Bertozzi) said, just happened within the last day or two, and now we’ll sit down and revisit that.”

Weinstein said that when the suit was paused, “we were all in agreement,” so he said there appears to be nothing in the way of moving forward with a 48-month agreement to amend the code issues with the properties and settle the code fines.