NewsLine staff
A private investment group is scouting sites across Northeast Florida, including southern Nassau County, for a proposed $120 million entertainment campus that would feature a 50,000-person festival venue, the Jacksonville Business Journal reported.
The project, known as The Grounds, is being led by Jacksonville entertainment entrepreneur Kyle Kane alongside Tom Blasen, founder and partner at Blasen Capital Markets Group. Planners have examined sites in western Duval County, northern St. Johns County and southern Nassau County, though the Cecil Commerce Center corridor in Jacksonville has emerged as the group’s provisional front-runner because of its available acreage and existing infrastructure, the Business Journal reported.
No venue that size currently exists in Northeast Florida; the region’s largest outdoor venues, Daily’s Place and the St. Augustine Amphitheatre, each hold under 6,000 people. The group is working toward an Oct. 1 site-selection deadline, with Jacksonville competing against other markets for the project.
“There’s probably eight to 10 meetings that need to happen for us to be able to say with confidence that this is going to be built,” Kane told the Business Journal. If a site is secured on schedule, first events could begin in spring 2028, with the full campus completed for the 2029 season.
