Update, September 15, 2026: The incentive request described below as not yet filed has now been filed. On September 14 the Downtown Investment Authority released Resolution 2026-09-02 for its September 16 board vote: a $20 million completion grant from Northbank CRA tax increment plus a 75% REV grant valued at $35.4 million by Jacksonville Today and nearly $39.4 million by the Jacksonville Daily Record, against a $271.5 million project. The residential count is now stated as 50 to 150 units, condo or rental. Full detail in our September 15 report on the incentive package. The September 11 update and original report follow as written.
Update, September 11, 2026: The Downtown Development Review Board voted 6-0 on Thursday, September 10 to grant conceptual approval to Gateway Jax's 20-story hotel and residential tower on the last empty pad at Riverfront Plaza, the Jacksonville Daily Record reported that afternoon. Three board members were absent. The vote came with conditions the developer must satisfy before returning for final approval, and for the first time the project has a size: 50 to 100 residential units and 130 to 170 hotel rooms, per the developer's attorney. The estimated $20 million completion grant the developer says it needs has still not been requested, and it lands in the middle of a Council fight over exactly that kind of money. Our original September 6 report follows, revised where the vote changed the facts.
What is on the drawings
The Daily Record's account, as summarized by Jacksonville Today and Hoodline, describes a 20-floor tower with the top floor reserved for mechanical equipment. Residential units run through the ninth floor and hotel rooms from there through the 19th. Below them are a mezzanine, second-floor structured parking, food and beverage space and a third-floor sky terrace. The Jaxson published the DDRB agenda packet language on September 4: application DDRB 2026-011 seeks conceptual approval for a mixed-use hotel and residential tower on Riverfront Plaza Pad B, bounded by Independent Drive and the park, with structured parking inside the podium and publicly accessible open space designed to tie into the park. Vehicle access and the porte cochere come off Independent Drive.
The site is a 1.26 acre pad at the northeast corner of Riverfront Plaza, at the foot of the Main Street Bridge. New York's Cookfox Architects is listed as lead designer with Stantec on engineering. The September 3 and 4 reports gave no unit count. The range disclosed at the September 10 meeting, 50 to 100 residences and 130 to 170 hotel rooms, is the first public sizing and is still a range, not a final program.
What the review board decided on September 10
Conceptual approval is the first of two DDRB steps. The board granted it 6-0, with members Joana Berling, Kevin Craig and Peter Deiuliis absent, according to the Daily Record's September 10 report. The conditions staff had recommended carried through to the vote: address the extended blank wall conditions on the east and west podium areas, meet the downtown design standards for the pedestrian experience along the sidewalk, and submit detailed plans for landscaping, the rooftop and its amenities, and loading, trash and service areas before coming back for final approval.
Two facts surfaced at the meeting that were not in the filing. Cyndy Trimmer, the attorney and lobbyist representing Gateway Jax, told the board the building would hold 50 to 100 residential units and 130 to 170 hotel rooms. Gateway Jax CEO Bryan Moll said the company has agreed to term sheets with two flagship hotel brands and hopes to announce its pick soon. Board chair Linzee Ott called the site an opportunity for activation and visitation on the riverfront, and member Carl Dawson Jr. tied the hotel use to Jacksonville's prospects as a tourist destination.
A yes on conceptual design does not start construction. It moves the project to final design, and the financing and any incentive package run on separate tracks.
How Gateway Jax got the pad
Jacksonville Today's report walks through the land swap. The pad was city owned. In 2025 the city proposed exchanging it for the former Interline Brands building at 801 W. Bay St., which Gateway Jax had bought in October 2024 for $4 million from HD Supply Facilities Maintenance of Atlanta. The city wanted that building for the University of Florida's graduate campus in LaVilla. City Council directed the exchange in June 2025 and, per Hoodline, the swap closed in December 2025, which matches Jacksonville Today's line that the filing comes more than eight months after Gateway Jax acquired the pad. UF opened the LaVilla campus on September 9, the day before the DDRB meeting, and the Daily Record's September 10 report says the university is now holding its first classes there.
As part of that deal Gateway Jax committed to build at least a 17-story residential and hotel tower on the pad. The 20-story filing clears that floor.
The $20 million question
Here is the part that will matter more than the renderings. The Daily Record reported on September 3 and again on September 10 that Gateway Jax CEO Bryan Moll has told Council members and Downtown Investment Authority board members the tower will need an estimated $20 million completion grant from the city to get built. Nothing has been filed, and the September 10 report repeats that Gateway Jax has not sought incentives for the project. But the number arrives while Council members are already pushing back on completion grants, which are cash paid on completion, in favor of REV grants, which rebate property taxes the project itself generates. That tension played out in June over the Publix-anchored Block N7 tower, which we covered in our post on the downtown Publix incentive rework, and it has not gone away.
The scale of the ask across downtown is the backdrop. Hoodline cites a Downtown Investment Authority figure from earlier this year that ten active downtown projects could together request between $145.6 million and $224.7 million in completion grants. Council has already approved close to $40 million in completion grants for four other Gateway Jax projects, on top of the $98.58 million package for the first four Pearl Square blocks in August 2024. A new $20 million request goes into that queue.
What the tower is projected to pay back
Gateway Jax's counterargument is revenue. The figures Hoodline attributes to the Daily Record: about $1.16 million a year in property taxes from the hotel and residential components, roughly $35 million in incremental ad valorem revenue over time, and about $700,000 a year for 30 years toward Riverfront Plaza park maintenance and programming, funded by a surcharge on hotel rooms and a fee on the residential units. Moll has separately said the land swap as a whole would produce $56 million in tax revenue and related funding over 30 years, while the city estimates it will spend $5 million to $10 million integrating the pad into the park.
Those are developer projections carried by a news outlet, not audited numbers, and we present them as such.
The park it sits next to
Riverfront Plaza's first phase, about 9 acres with an event lawn, riverwalk work, a splash pad and a rooftop playground, opened in December 2025 at a cost Hoodline puts at $38 million. A $46 million second phase is under construction. The tower is meant to open directly onto the park, which is why the DDRB staff conditions lean so hard on the pedestrian edge and the blank podium walls.
Where the reports differ
Three things to flag. First, the DDRB packet language quoted by The Jaxson says "residential units" and never uses the word condominium; the condo description comes from Hoodline's account of the Daily Record, which refers to an HOA fee on the units. We use both terms and note the source. Second, the $20 million grant figure and the tax projections appear in Hoodline's summary and in the Daily Record's own headline and lede, but the Daily Record story is paywalled and we could not read it in full. Third, Hoodline discloses that its articles are AI-assisted; we used it only where it cites the Daily Record or a public record, and we have said so each time. Fourth, the unit and hotel room counts come from one source, the developer's attorney speaking at the September 10 meeting as quoted by the Daily Record, and are ranges rather than a fixed program.
What this means for buyers, sellers and agents
Downtown Jacksonville has almost no for-sale high-rise inventory, and this would be the first new residential tower on the Northbank riverfront in years if the residences are sold rather than rented. That is a 2028 or later story at the earliest, since conceptual approval is not a permit, and there is no financing package and no incentive vote yet. In the meantime it is a useful marker for anyone pricing a riverfront or Southbank condo today: the pipeline is real, but it is years out, and the existing supply picture is covered in our Florida condo inventory analysis. The property tax side matters too. A tower projected to pay $1.16 million a year would be one of the larger single parcels on the downtown roll, and how much of that is rebated back through a REV grant is exactly what Council is arguing about. For how the Duval millage and homestead rules work on any home, see our Duval County property tax guide, and for the broader market context, the Jacksonville housing market tracker.
People also ask
What is Gateway Jax proposing at Riverfront Plaza in downtown Jacksonville?
A mixed-use tower called Riverfront Plaza Hotel and Residences on Pad B, a 1.26 acre development pad at the northeast corner of Riverfront Plaza, the former Jacksonville Landing site on the Northbank. Plans show 20 floors with the top floor for mechanical equipment, residential units through the ninth floor, hotel rooms from there through the 19th, second-floor parking, food and beverage space and a third-floor sky terrace. The Downtown Development Review Board granted conceptual design approval, application DDRB 2026-011, by a 6-0 vote on September 10, 2026, with conditions to be met before final approval, according to the Jacksonville Daily Record.
Has Gateway Jax asked the city for incentives on the Riverfront Plaza tower?
Not formally as of September 11, 2026. The Jacksonville Daily Record reported on September 3 and September 10 that Gateway Jax CEO Bryan Moll has told Council members and Downtown Investment Authority board members the project will need an estimated $20 million completion grant from the city, and that the company has not yet sought incentives for it. Hoodline's account of the September 3 report puts the project's projected property taxes at about $1.16 million a year and says a hotel room surcharge plus a fee on the residential units would send roughly $700,000 a year for 30 years toward Riverfront Plaza park maintenance and programming.
How many condos and hotel rooms would the Riverfront Plaza tower have?
At the September 10, 2026 DDRB meeting, attorney Cyndy Trimmer, representing Gateway Jax, said the building would hold 50 to 100 residential units and 130 to 170 hotel rooms, per the Jacksonville Daily Record. No price point or sales timeline has been published, and conceptual approval is not a building permit. Whether the residences are sold as condominiums or held as rentals is not stated in the DDRB packet language quoted by The Jaxson; the condominium description comes from Hoodline's account of the Daily Record report, which describes an HOA fee on the units. Final design approval, a financing package and any incentive vote would all have to come first.
The takeaway
The Downtown Development Review Board voted 6-0 on September 10, 2026 to grant conceptual approval to Gateway Jax's 20-story hotel and residential tower on the last open pad at Riverfront Plaza, with conditions on the podium walls, the pedestrian edge and detailed landscaping and service plans before final approval. The developer's attorney put the program at 50 to 100 residences and 130 to 170 hotel rooms. Gateway Jax says the project will need about $20 million in city completion grant money, which has not been requested yet and which walks into an existing Council debate over cash grants versus tax rebates. No price point or timeline has been published. We will update this post when the final design application or an incentive filing appears.
Sources
- Jacksonville Daily Record, "Riverfront Plaza tower receives conceptual approval from DDRB", by Joe Lister, published September 10, 2026: jaxdailyrecord.com
- Jacksonville Today (Jacksonville Daily Record partner content), "Hotel and tower under review at Riverfront Plaza", published September 4, 2026: jaxtoday.org
- Jacksonville Daily Record, "Gateway Jax seeks first-round design approval for Riverfront Plaza tower", published September 3, 2026 (headline and summary; paywalled): jaxdailyrecord.com
- The Jaxson, "Renderings: Riverfront Plaza Hotel & Residences", quoting the September 10, 2026 DDRB agenda packet, published September 4, 2026: thejaxsonmag.com
- Hoodline (AI-assisted, citing the Jacksonville Daily Record), "Gateway Jax Pitches 20-Story Riverfront Tower, Then Asks City for $20 Million", published September 4, 2026: hoodline.com
- Downtown Investment Authority, Downtown Development Review Board meeting notice for September 10, 2026: dia.jacksonville.gov
How this article was prepared: every figure, date and name above is taken from the named reports and is attributed to the outlet that published it. The Jacksonville Today, The Jaxson and September 10 Jacksonville Daily Record reports were read in full; the September 3 Daily Record report is cited from its headline and summary; Hoodline is used only where it cites the Daily Record or a public record. Nothing here is a forecast or a recommendation. Momentum Realty has no role in the project. Figures are as reported by the named outlets and are deemed reliable but not guaranteed. Equal Housing Opportunity.