This historic Armory building, completed in 1916, sits south of Hogans Creek and north of State Street near Downtown Jacksonville. | Mike Mendenhall, Jacksonville Today
Published on October 27, 2025 at 5:56 pm
Free local news and info, in your inbox at 6 a.m. M-F. Sign up for the Jacksonville Today newsletter.
The city of Jacksonville is closer to selling the 109-year-old Armory building — once the site of performances by Duke Ellington and the Allman Brothers — to a private developer that’s been working to restore and repurpose the property since 2020.
The Mayor’s Budget Review Committee, a panel of city department heads and officials from Mayor Donna Deegan’s administration, voted Monday to send the $2.89 million proposed sale to City Council for final approval.
Jacksonville Today thanks our sponsors. Become one.
Fort Lauderdale-based Reva Development Corp. first entered into an agreement with the city in late 2020 to lease the property that borders Downtown and Springfield at 851 N. Market St. Reva would revitalize the armory building into a food hall with artists spaces.
Those plans have been repeatedly delayed over the years due to growing costs to repair and remediate asbestos and lead used in the building. At the time, Reva told city officials that unforeseen costs amounted to $15 million. During former Mayor Lenny Curry’s administration, the City Council amended the agreement to give Reva more time.
That deal also included an option to build affordable housing on an adjacent 2.02-acre parcel of land, which Ed Randolph, the city’s director of the Office of Economic Development, says was dropped from the plans because the Emerald Trail‘s current design could encroach on that piece of the site.
Jacksonville Today thanks our sponsors. Become one.
According to Randolph, city officials agreed to seek a $7.5 million loan from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to aid the development in 2024. But with the affordable housing component gone, the project would not qualify for that type of aid.
“The building has quite a bit of asbestos (and) lead. … There’s millions of dollars of work that needs to be done in there in order to make it habitable. They’ve got to go in and invest in it,” Randolph told the committee Wednesday.
Brittany Norris, director of intergovernmental affairs for the Deegan administration and the only no vote from the committee Monday, noted that Reva has not been able to execute on its plans in the five years since it first signed its agreement with the city.
She asked Randolph, “What is the likelihood that it’s going to change the behavior once they own the building outright?”
“What happens if in five years we still have a defunct building that’s weighing down Downtown? We have to buy it back,” Norris said.
Randolph told Jacksonville Today that the developer did receive a $500,000 stipend from the city for leaky-roof repairs and to install security cameras. He says the developer has not indicated it will ask for additional city incentives for the redevelopment.
“We’ve come to a meeting of the minds and have agreed to just sell them the property outright and then they’re going to bear those costs,” Randolph said during the meeting.
When the Deegan administration introduces the latest armory bill with City Council on Oct. 28, Randolph said the sale will include only the Armory building at the approximately 2 acres where it sits south of Hogan’s Creek.
A memo from Randolph to committee chair and city Chief Financial Officer Anna Broche and state filings shows Reva will purchase the Armory property through the subsidiary Armory Redevelopment Associates LLC.
If it passes City Council, the deal could be finalized before the end of 2025.
The armory’s history
Referred to over the years as the Jacksonville Armory, Duval County Armory or National Guard Armory, the Gothic-Revival style building was completed in 1915-16, designed by architects Talley & Summer and used as a facility for local National Guard troops, according to the Jacksonville History Center.
It’s also appeared perennially on the history center’s Endangered Historic Properties report.
It has history as an events venue, playing host to a 1936 speech by first lady Eleanor Roosevelt; performances by Duke Ellington, James Brown and Ray Charles in the 1950s and 60s; and the debut concert by the Allman Brothers on March 30, 1969. It also played a role in civil rights history.
