Buildable lands inventory finds about 3.5 acres of developable employment land in Jacksonville

Consultants presenting the employment-side buildable lands inventory (BLI) told the Citizen Advisory Committee that Jacksonville has a very limited remaining supply of developable employment land inside its urban growth boundary.

Andrew Parrish, part of the consulting team, summarized the technical approach — classifying parcels as employment, residential or other; screening for constraints (steep slopes, floodplain, wetlands); and calculating net developable acres after accounting for rights-of-way and infrastructure needs. “So we we basically found there's maybe 3.5 acres of developable employment land left within the urban growth boundary today,” Parrish said.

Parrish and other consultants noted that the remaining employment parcels are small, with none larger than roughly an acre, and several sites lie within or adjacent to the historic-core area where development potential is constrained by existing uses and the town’s character. The consultants concluded that, if the city seeks additional employment land for the next 20 years, it will likely need to consider alternative strategies such as targeted UGB expansions, redevelopment incentives, or identifying candidate lands outside the current core.

CAC members raised examples of chronically vacant blocks (notably on G Street) and discussed the difficulty of attracting larger employers given the limited land base and the predominance of small, tourism-oriented businesses in the downtown.