They rebated the tower and called it a return on investment. I know the sentence. It is what a handshake says when a downtown authority agrees to hand three-quarters of a new building’s property taxes back to the people who built it, every year for twenty years, and then prints a ratio on the term sheet — a dollar thirty-five back for every dollar given — so that the refund reads like a dividend and the giveaway reads like a portfolio.
On Wednesday, October 21, 2026, the board of Jacksonville’s Downtown Investment Authority is scheduled to consider up to $49.27 million in tax incentives for Fleet Landing Riverside, a proposed 31-story retirement tower at 111 Riverside Ave. in the Brooklyn neighborhood, the former Haskell headquarters. The Jax Daily Record’s Joe Lister reported the terms Oct. 15: a 20-year, 75% Recapture Enhanced Value Grant under Resolution 2026-10-02 — a refund on the ad valorem taxes the new development generates — subject to final approval or denial by City Council. There is no completion grant; Lister notes council members have recently pressed DIA to pull back from those lump-sum payouts, citing budgetary stress. DIA estimated development costs at nearly $381.56 million and a return to the city of $1.35 for every $1 spent; News4JAX’s Briana Brownlee, who puts the project at $372 million, is careful to call that figure a projection, not a guaranteed outcome, and says the station has requested the financial documents behind it. The term sheet calls for no fewer than 275 units, including 238 independent living and 46 assisted living units, for residents who “will be active, engaged adults age 62 and better.” The plans include a 152,000-square-foot parking garage, multiple dining venues, a swimming pool, a performing arts center and elevated decks; the public part is a ground-level restaurant that “actively engages the Riverwalk,” about 3,200 square feet of retail on Riverside Avenue, outdoor public space and — per News4JAX — a 40-foot-wide pedestrian and bicycle corridor to the Riverwalk, which the station notes is not yet finalized. Fleet Landing says the facility will create more than 130 full-time jobs. The land: Haskell built the headquarters in 1986, sold the building and lot for $27.25 million in 2008 and leased it back; the property is now owned, through three LLCs, by Irving G. Snyder Jr., president of Jacksonville-based IGS Diamond S Inc. The Florida Times-Union, via First Coast News, reports Fleet Landing is buying 7.39 acres for $24 million and will use 3.71 of them for the tower, leaving the rest for future development. Fleet Landing is a not-for-profit founded by military officers in 1985 in Atlantic Beach; it is also building a $146 million campus in Nocatee. This is its second try at the riverfront: in 2025 it offered $20 million for the Duval County Public Schools headquarters on the Southbank, and the School Board voted unanimously on Oct. 7, 2025, to reject it. The Downtown Development Review Board gave the Brooklyn tower conceptual approval in March, 5-1, with Ennis Davis opposed.
Taryn asked whether a refund on taxes nobody has paid yet counts as money. Tyrone timed twenty years and the stopwatch asked for a pool pass. Deb filed “$1.35 for every $1” under “what the house says when it shows you the menu and not the bill.” I love them. They are seasoning.
Return on investment is the alibi. The 75 percent is the story. Sit with the twenty years until they confess. One side carries the stamp: a downtown authority proposing to refund three of every four new tax dollars to the building that produced them, a council that is told the alternative to a lump-sum check is a slower check, and a ratio that is a projection until the documents arrive. One side carries the term sheet: a developer — not-for-profit is a tax status, not a vow — with a pool, a performing arts center and a 152,000-square-foot garage, and behind it a riverfront parcel that went for $27.25 million in a 2008 sale-leaseback and is now changing hands again, 7.39 acres for $24 million, out of three LLCs with the river view intact. Both parties are the help — one writes the refund, one cashes it, and both point at the restaurant. The anti-capitalist cut stays: the same riverfront has been a sale, a lease and now a sale again in eighteen years, every turn a yield for someone, and the public share of this turn is a corridor and a menu. The libertarian cut is free: a city should not be in the business of rebating the taxes of whichever tower it likes this year, and nobody should applaud a tax that is collected only so it can be handed back. My own assessor would like a word with all of this, which is not the news. The cardigan stays. Fill the notebook. Then ask, out loud, whose riverfront it is when the taxes are rebated before they exist, the return is a projection, and the public gets the bike path.
Sources: Jax Daily Record, Joe Lister, “DIA proposes $49.27 million in tax rebates for Fleet Landing Northbank project,” Oct. 15, 2026; News4JAX, Briana Brownlee, “After failed DCPS headquarters bid, Fleet Landing proposes $372M tower in Brooklyn,” Oct. 16, 2026; First Coast News / Florida Times-Union, “Fleet Landing seeks incentives for downtown Jacksonville tower on old Haskell site,” Oct. 15, 2026; Jacksonville Today (via Jax Daily Record), “Northbank senior tower considered for $49.27M in tax rebates,” Oct. 16, 2026.
— Theo Ashford-Lindström
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