Development firm Gateway Jax will restore the Ambassador Hotel with the partnership of The Indigo Road Hospitality Group. Gateway Jax, made up of DLP Capital and JWB Real Estate Capital, manages a private equity fund focused exclusively on Downtown Jacksonville development.

Gateway Jax plans to redevelop the 100-year-old hotel into a minimum of 100-key concept with a restaurant and bar, conference space and other amenities. The Ambassador Hotel site will be integrated into Gateway Jax’s inaugural project, Pearl Square. The eight-block, multi-use development will also include 1,250 new residential units and approximately 200,000 square feet of grocery-anchored retail space, with abundant outdoor dining opportunities. The project’s first building, located at 515 Pearl Street, broke ground in October 2024 and is on track to deliver in 2026. Several other projects within Pearl Square will begin construction in 2025.

Gateway Jax is expected to invest over $2 billion into the Pearl Square development.

Kansas City’s Country Club Plaza, an iconic Spanish-styled shopping district, is slated to undergo a long overdue transformation by the property’s new Dallas-based owners.

An affiliate of HP Village Partners, a luxury retail company whose principal owners are descendants of oil tycoon H.L. Hunt, father of Kansas City Chiefs founder Lamar Hunt, purchased the retail site for $175.6 million in June. The company plans an additional $100 million infrastructure overhaul of the century-old Midwest shopping and dining district.

HP Village Partners includes Heather and Ray Washburne, and Elisa and Stephen Summers, and the group also owns the luxury retail center Highland Park Village in Dallas. The improvements will include cleanup, repaving streets, storefront upgrades, lighting, landscaping and re-tenanting the center, reported the Dallas Business Journal.

Built in 1922, The Country Club Plaza is 1.3 million square feet and spans 15 blocks. The Plaza’s retail space is 804,000 square feet, and it also has 219,000 square feet of office space.

Crescent and Nuveen jointly purchased the 20-story One Independence highrise in Charlotte in 2019 for $132 million. Since then, they’ve spent $30 million on renovations to the retail and restaurant offerings. Most of the improvements were aimed at the needs of tenants. In collaboration with architecture and design firm Gensler, retail space was repositioned, with Crescent leasing 23,000 square feet of restaurant and food and beverage space.

At the heart of those offerings is Monarch Market, an $18 million food hall that opened in November. The more than 18,000-square-foot space includes nine food vendors, such as Brooklyn Dumpling Shop, Kabab2Go, Rolled AF, Curry Gate and the recently opened Just Chicken. There’s also a full-service restaurant, Sushi Art and three unique cocktail offerings: Aster Cocktail Room, Lanai Terrace Bar and the Monarch Bar.

LRC Properties and Cornerstone Real Estate Advisors purchased what was then called 101 Independence Center from previous owner KBS Capital Advisors and Gramercy Property Trust in 2015 for $108 million