David Bauerlein | Jacksonville Florida Times-Union

The big red water tank standing on top of the Union Terminal Warehouse that thousands of motorists drive past on their way into downtown is among the features an Atlanta-based developer kept intact while turning the century-old warehouse into an apartment building.

In the building’s heyday as a warehouse, the tank held 50,000 gallons of water connected to a sprinkler system that run throughout the building where dozens of metal-plated doors also were ready to swing shut to keep any fire from spreading.

Built in 1913, the warehouse opened when memories were still fresh of the Great Fire of 1901 that destroyed much of Jacksonville.

“All of that was a signal to prospective tenants and users of the building — the city burned down but your stuff ain’t going to burn down here,” said Ryan Akin, development manager and partner at Atlanta-based Columbia Ventures.

These days, the message behind the water tank and other historic features preserved in the building is its connection to the Eastside neighborhood.

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Source: Jacksonville Florida Times Union

By Emma Behrmann – Reporter, Jacksonville Business Journal
Jan 27, 2025

Amid a burgeoning grocery business following the Great Fire of 1901, C.B. Gay
built Union Terminal Warehouse, which sat along railroad tracks that led to the

Union Terminal Warehouse at 700 E. Union St.
RYAN AKIN

largest rail yard in the state at the time — Union Station — and served as a dry
goods distribution center with barge service from Hogans Creek.
More than a century later, Columbia Ventures, an Atlanta-based developer with
a track record in historic, adaptive reuse, purchased the building in 2018. Then,
it was a 97% occupied, industrial building mostly home to storage, but it also
hosted a range of tenants like a signage company and a guitar maker.

Now, seven years and $73 million later, the 330,000-square-foot warehouse is
home to 228 apartment units, 43 small offices of about 100-500 square feet,
restaurant space, a basement with 11 flex spaces and Vantage Point Coffee
which will build-out the existing shell space soon. The first resident will mo
in on Feb. 1, and a ribbon cutting ceremony will be held March 6.

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Source: Jacksonville Business Journal