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Downtown on the cusp of 10,000 residents

Taylor Williams sits outside the Burrito Gallery in Downtown Jacksonville. Williams, a freshman at Florida State College at Jacksonville, lives in student housing Downtown and works a couple blocks away at Burrito Gallery on East Adams Street.
Bob Self
/
Florida Times-Union
Taylor Williams sits outside the Burrito Gallery in Downtown Jacksonville. Williams, a freshman at Florida State College at Jacksonville, lives in student housing Downtown and works a couple blocks away at Burrito Gallery on East Adams Street.

Take a drive around downtown Jacksonville and you'll find cranes, bulldozers and dump trucks at sites that vary from brand-new construction on the riverfront to full-scale restoration of abandoned buildings that previously looked like they belonged in the "The Last of Us" television series.

A total of 24 residential projects have either opened since 2018 or are under construction. They are delivering downtown's best run of housing growth since the city set a goal some two decades ago for 10,000 residents in downtown.

"We're seeing a ton of desirability," said Alex Sifakis, president of JWB Real Estate Capital, one of the companies engaged in the residential development.

Read the rest of this story at the Florida Times-Union, a WJCT News partner.