Kaufman Real Estate & Consulting, in partnership with Oldivai, has announced a two-site redevelopment project in Jacksonville's Springfield Historic District. The plan involves the adaptive reuse of a century-old brick industrial building at the northwest corner of Main and 12th streets, combined with a new modular workforce housing community directly across West 12th Street.
The existing two-story brick building, once home to Screen Process Printers Inc., was acquired in October 2019 by Springfield Community Development LLC, managed by Daniel Kaufman, along with a companion 0.23-acre vacant commercial parcel at 2124 N. Main St. The combined purchase price was $515,000. The site is located in the Springfield Warehouse District, adjacent to Andrew A. Robinson Elementary School, within one of the largest historic districts in the southeastern United States.
The redevelopment plan preserves the building's original brick shell and adds three new stories on top, resulting in a five-story structure. This will bring ground-floor commercial or creative office space and upper-floor residential units to a corner that has been largely dormant for decades. The approach reflects Kaufman Real Estate & Consulting's broader adaptive-reuse philosophy: pairing historic character with new supply rather than choosing between preservation and growth.
On the companion parcel across West 12th Street, Oldivai will develop a workforce housing community using an iteration of its Project Zero model—a modular, kit-of-parts construction methodology. Modules are built off-site in a climate-controlled factory using LEAN/Six Sigma manufacturing methods, then delivered and set in place by crane, accelerating the development timeline and improving quality and cost control relative to conventional construction. The community will target the "missing middle"—teachers, healthcare workers, first responders, and tradespeople earning approximately 80–120% of area median income who are increasingly priced out of the neighborhoods they serve.
Daniel Kaufman, President of Kaufman Real Estate & Consulting, stated, "Springfield is one of the best examples in the country of what adaptive reuse can do for a neighborhood. We've owned this corner since 2019 because we believed it deserved a plan that respected its history instead of erasing it. Restoring the building and building workforce housing across the street lets us do both at once." Susan Gillespie, COO of Oldivai, added, "Project Zero proved that modular construction can deliver workforce housing faster and at higher quality than the conventional process allows. Jacksonville gives us the chance to bring that model to a neighborhood with real employment density and real need for attainable housing."
The adaptive reuse project will involve an estimated $40 million investment and is expected to take 24 to 30 months to complete. It will include 125,000 square feet of space, with ground-floor retail and workspace, rooftop terraces, 80 residential loft units, and 50 workspace suites. The workforce housing component will consist of 150 units across a 6- to 7-story massing, with an estimated $35 million investment and a 16- to 20-month delivery timeline.
This project highlights a growing trend in urban development: combining historic preservation with innovative construction methods to address housing shortages. By repurposing an existing structure and adding density with modular workforce housing, the developers aim to create a mixed-use, inclusive community that serves both the neighborhood's history and its future needs.
