An illustration of a new marine fire station has been erected at the riverfront site where the station will be built. | Dan Scanlan, Jacksonville Today
Published on November 14, 2025 at 12:09 pm
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Downtown Jacksonville is about a year away from having a marine fireboat station capable of quicker response to shipboard blazes and riverfront conflagrations.
Station 39 will open in the fall of 2026 off Gator Bowl Boulevard. It will be the first phase of a bigger Downtown firefighter presence as plans continue to add fire trucks and rescue units to the two-story structure.
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Fire and city officials grabbed shovels Friday for a ceremonial groundbreaking at 115 Festival Parkway, next to WJCT Studios and Metropolitan Park. Crews have been prepping the riverfront site for months, filling in the city-owned land in preparation for the $7.6 million marine station that will also have room for fire engines when that phase is approved.
The station will provide protection against future Downtown fires, said City Council member Jimmy Peluso, who represents the area around the station.
“Before we start seeing more marinas and more ships coming into our beautiful St. Johns River, we need to make sure we have that preventative maintenance,” Peluso said. “Station 39 is that preventative maintenance.”
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The new station will house a marine unit that was moved to Arlington’s Lions Club Park a few years ago from the former Downtown Kids Kampus just west of Metropolitan Park.
Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Fire Chief Percy Golden II said more fire protection is needed for an up- and-coming area that includes the Four Seasons Hotel construction, the $1.4 billion renovation of EverBank Stadium and the rebuilding of the Rise Doro apartment complex after fire ravaged the building in early 2024,
“A lot of folks will be down here, so this station is key to continuing the safety of the citizens of Jacksonville in this Downtown area,” Golden said. “We moved that station to Arlington not too far away on the other side of the Mathews Bridge, so it’s a quick commute to get back over here. But having it actually here Downtown will be great to have it back in this location.”
Multiple fireboat stations
Jacksonville has five marine fire stations to handle its 22 miles of coastline and 1,100 miles of navigable waterways.
Friday’s groundbreaking comes just three months after Golden and others broke ground on a new fire station at JAXPORT’s Blount Island Marine Terminal. Station 48 will open in about four months with a four-person team handling its fire engine and tanker and a fireboat blocks away to help with ship fires.
Marine Station 68, the city’s newest, opened in March 2024 in a renovated home in the Beauclerc neighborhood.
Station 39 will initially handle fireboats and their crews for Downtown waterfront incidents, plus a fire chief. But as growth continues Downtown, something more has been added, Golden said.
“A rescue chief will be running out of that station too, so there will be some ground response as well,” Golden said. “We did build that station out for things in the future, possibly another fire engine and things like that down the road.”
Peluso said: “We are not too far away from where we had probably one of the largest fires this city has seen in a long time at the Rise Doro. JFRD showed up in a matter of minutes and helped put out a massive, massive fire. The fact that we are seeing this entertainment district start to build up and grow, we need to make sure we have proper preventative maintenance.”
Station 39 will be named in honor of Firefighter Edgar A. Cowart, who drowned Nov. 6, 1986, when he was trapped under an overturned fire rescue boat that hit a piling near the Hart Bridge while responding to a call for help from a tugboat, Golden said.
