-- Special

Demand forces changes
Shipyards finds million-dollar condos popular

By Mark Gordon
Times-Union business writer

Jeff and Carlton Spence, who made a lucrative business out of storing frozen foods, knew they had a steep learning curve when they decided to build a block of high-end homes, offices and boat slips on what used to be a run-down shipyard in downtown Jacksonville.

Lessons No. 1 and 2 were dealt over the past month: First, millionaires don't wait in line. And second, millionaires pick out the features of a million-dollar home they are going to buy, not the other way around.

The Spences, along with their real estate development company, TriLegacy, are behind the $865 million development of the Shipyards, a 45-acre project on the Northbank, near Alltel Stadium. The first stage of the project is 100 condominiums, with prices topping out at $1.1 million.

Originally, the plan was to charge a $5,000 deposit and then hold a lottery to give out the right to buy one of the condos. That plan has been scrapped.

"These people do not want to be a in a line or forced to wait in a lottery," said Ham Traylor, a TriLegacy spokesman. "They have plenty of choices in how and where they spend their money, and they wanted to choose how and where they live."

The condominium phase of the Shipyards calls for a trio of six-story buildings, with a total of 100 homes. Features in the condos, which will be about 2,500 square feet, include granite countertops and marble floors. The entire Shipyards project is on a 10-year track and includes a 16.8-acre public park, 150 boat slips, a trio of high-rise condominium towers, office space and a hotel. -- Special

The condo phase of the Shipyards is going through several other changes, too. Interest in the most expensive condos has been greater than expected, Traylor said, so the number of multimillion-dollar condos being built has jumped from six to 20. Those higher-priced condos also are getting an interior makeover and design from Thomas Jayne, a well-known New York designer.

But on the flip side, interest in the less-expensive models, priced in the $400,000 to $700,000 range, has cooled off. Traylor said the sour economy since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks has taken "a chunk out of" the people interested in buying those units. Most of those potential buyers, Traylor said, were people interested in second homes, or corporations and companies looking to buy a Jacksonville home for clients and employees who work in the area.

Hitting home Construction on the condominiums is expected to begin by the middle of 2002, and the buildings could be ready to be occupied by mid-2003.

Terry Mullins, dean of the Davis College of Business at Jacksonville University, said overall the national economy has suffered since Sept. 11, but the downturn has done little to the spending habits of the very wealthy, the people who would be able to buy million-dollar condos. Mullins has recently studied the First Coast real estate market.

"People at the low end of the market and the high end of the market are still making decisions," he said. "But people in the middle are taking a much more cautious approach."

Interest in the high-end condos is still trickling in, Traylor said, but specific numbers aren't available because developers can't take a binding contract until they finalize floor plans with the state of Florida.

Traylor said he's been talking with a Tennessee resident who might purchase two condominiums in the complex so she can get all the space she wants.

Staff writer Mark Gordon can be reached at or via e-mail at mgordon.