Inside The Claude Nolan Cadillac Building

[icarus]

Not really, my point is that unless you get landmark status any potential purchaser can tear it down as assuredly as COJ.

I'd like to see the property saved but its going to take a deep pocket.  I've read the environmental reports for the park view years ago.  The biggest problem in that location is the extremely high water table.  The existing environmental contamination is migratory.  It tends to migrate with the water so it makes any type of traditional financing difficult at best.

If you want to see the highest and best use of City incentives, perhaps it is in offering financing to an otherwise credit worthy buyer to deal with a site that can easily be characterized as a brownfield rather than grants for window dressing to would be retailers.

[Tony B]

If this property has serious environmental problems there is virtually no hope that anyone in the foreseeable future will do anything with it.  The cost of environmental remediation followed by a complete refit of the entire building will exceed the value of the completed property by quite a bit.  Much more cost effective to just build something new  somewhere else.

There is a nice piece of property on King st. that was most recently an antique store.  9,000sq/ft building built in the 1920s with a great parking lot in the middle of King st.  The property is seriously contaminated with dry cleaning chemicals from the 1950s-1980s (PERC). The owner is willing to basically give the property away at this point (according to the real estate agent) and no one will touch it.  The cost of remediation and potential liability exceeds the value of the property by several times.  Mellow Mushroom had a contract on the property a while back and pulled out once the environmental report came back.  We looked at it for our business. Why not? An almost free property and we pay for the cleanup - talked to an environmental consultant about remediation he said "it could easily exceed $1M not including the potential liability if an adjacent property owner or the city sues." We walked.  That is a piece of property in a prime location and no one will touch it.

With environmental issues the owner accepts liability so it's not likely that anyone will call it for auction. Also not likely the city will foreclose since then the city would be liable. It will sit and deteriorate.

[sheclown]

The only part of this with environmental issues is the small one story detached building in the back.  And that building MAY  contain issues. 

[strider]

If this property has serious environmental problems there is virtually no hope that anyone in the foreseeable future will do anything with it.  The cost of environmental remediation followed by a complete refit of the entire building will exceed the value of the completed property by quite a bit.  Much more cost effective to just build something new  somewhere else.

There is a nice piece of property on King st. that was most recently an antique store.  9,000sq/ft building built in the 1920s with a great parking lot in the middle of King st.  The property is seriously contaminated with dry cleaning chemicals from the 1950s-1980s (PERC). The owner is willing to basically give the property away at this point (according to the real estate agent) and no one will touch it.  The cost of remediation and potential liability exceeds the value of the property by several times.  Mellow Mushroom had a contract on the property a while back and pulled out once the environmental report came back.  We looked at it for our business. Why not? An almost free property and we pay for the cleanup - talked to an environmental consultant about remediation he said "it could easily exceed $1M not including the potential liability if an adjacent property owner or the city sues." We walked.  That is a piece of property in a prime location and no one will touch it.

With environmental issues the owner accepts liability so it's not likely that anyone will call it for auction. Also not likely the city will foreclose since then the city would be liable. It will sit and deteriorate.

Posts like this are often latched onto as truth and yet, it begins with the word IF.  So, any reading this thread please understand that there is no evidence that this building has major environmental issues other than the same issue the park has and the most recent study indicated only the small and oldest building of the three.  The building is fine, it is the ground on which it was built and the study only indicates that the one small building should be removed to facilitate the clean up, not because of the building itself.

Landmarking can also indirectly help with environmental issues.  Once landmarked, you can apply for various incentives that can help offset the rehab costs. In addition, the building codes are somewhat easier on historic structures which can translate into a savings.

The owners and the preservationists are for the landmarking of this building.  Why isn't city council?

[ChriswUfGator]

If this property has serious environmental problems there is virtually no hope that anyone in the foreseeable future will do anything with it.  The cost of environmental remediation followed by a complete refit of the entire building will exceed the value of the completed property by quite a bit.  Much more cost effective to just build something new  somewhere else.

There is a nice piece of property on King st. that was most recently an antique store.  9,000sq/ft building built in the 1920s with a great parking lot in the middle of King st.  The property is seriously contaminated with dry cleaning chemicals from the 1950s-1980s (PERC). The owner is willing to basically give the property away at this point (according to the real estate agent) and no one will touch it.  The cost of remediation and potential liability exceeds the value of the property by several times.  Mellow Mushroom had a contract on the property a while back and pulled out once the environmental report came back.  We looked at it for our business. Why not? An almost free property and we pay for the cleanup - talked to an environmental consultant about remediation he said "it could easily exceed $1M not including the potential liability if an adjacent property owner or the city sues." We walked.  That is a piece of property in a prime location and no one will touch it.

With environmental issues the owner accepts liability so it's not likely that anyone will call it for auction. Also not likely the city will foreclose since then the city would be liable. It will sit and deteriorate.

The environmental contamination hoopla was started by a SPAR member years ago in an effort to get the park view inn demolished, and in a classic case of unintended consequences, once the EPA came in they determined that contaminated incinerator waste had been spread over many of the residential lots in the neighborhood as topsoil and fill, which prompted the tagging of most property record cards in the district with hazardous waste warnings. That took years and a lawsuit to resolve. A wise man would not start beating that drum again if they actually care about the neighborhood. 

There is no environmental contamination specific to that building, it was a car dealership and then a restaurant equipment company that sold silverware and trays, it was not a dry cleaner or any sort of heavy industrial use. The contamination of the fill dirt underneath it is irrelevant as long as the building isn't demolished, and is a problem shared by half of the neighborhood including residential structures, so I'd be careful about how that particular fear gets mongered.

[Bill Hoff]

Just for the record, the Coal Gasification project was a Florida DEP study to determine the extent of contamination, and the property owners were a road block for a long time. Additionally, SPAR was not involved in that issue at all, except in an effort to try to understand what was going on with the park.

The ash tag issue stemmed from a settlement between the city and the Federal EPA, and stemmed from work done in the late 90s regarding all of Jacksonvilles incinerator sites. The city put the tags on the properties in an attempt to comply with the 2008 consent decree between the city and the EPA, and the city was subsequently sued over it, and the city removed the tags. Again, SPARs involvement was basically non-existent on either the front end, or the removal.

All this information is verifiable.

[downtownparks_2]

Hello everyone!

Dan here. I figured since my name is being used so liberally, why not make myself available to questions, and do a sort of MetroJax ama.

Since so much malevolence is being attributed to me and the efforts I was a part of, I figured I could make myself available to answer some questions about my time co-chairing the SPAR parks committee with Doug Vanderlaan from 2005-2008 and my (good/bad/indifferent) efforts regarding the parks.

For starters I am not 'gone'. True, I no longer live in Jax, but I am still a Springfield property owner, taxpayer, and advocate, and do what I can to support my friends and neighbors in Springfield.

I currently live in the northeast, where I moved for a great job opportunity. I miss Jax, and the thought one day returning to live the city where I met my wife, both of my children were born, and my inlaws continue to live, is not such a crazy idea. Who knows.

As far as the Claude Nolan building. I first went in it with Joey Marchy in 2005 for a story he did for Urbanjax, and I fell in love with it. It needs to be saved, period. Environmental issues do not have to be the death knell of a building.

That said, ask away!

[downtownparks_2]

Some easy reading in the mean time.
http://epa.gov/region4/superfund/sites/npl/florida/jaxashfl.html

http://jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/020307/bus_7673257.shtml

[ChriswUfGator]

Well yes, but I think Stephen's gripe is about the brilliant idea of alerting environmental officials in the first place. As I recall, that didn't exactly go according to plan. The question wasn't what happened to the park view site, it was the uninterested consequences suffered by the remainder of the neighborhood that one might call problematic. In any event it seems that you've done a 180 and now support preserving historic structures, so I have no qualms with you. People change.

[downtownparks_2]

The idea that anyone in Springfield alerted anyone to environmental issues is just not accurate. Doug V can speak to this as well, probably more so since he is an actual scientist.

In both the case of the coal, and the ash (two totally unrelated environmental issues, mind you) the EPA/DEP was in full swing since the 90s, and didn't include the community. The effort was not to alert them, but to find out what the hell was going on since, in both cases, Springfield was not the epicenter, but collateral damage.

For example, in 2006 in Schell Park (Boulevard), there was a nice new play ground installed to replace an old wooden playground. Everyone was happy. Then one day it was gone.

We reached out to Parks and Rec and Pat Lockett-Felders office to find out why. It turned out that Operation New Ground told the city that it couldnt be there due to ash remediation stemming from the 5th and Cleveland incinerator site. This is a full 4 years before the ash tag.

Instead, that nice new playground was moved to Brentwood park, and to this day even after remediation, no new play ground has been installed and there is a random sidewalk in the middle of the park.

I dont mind being called to the carpet for things I actually did. I will defend myself or admit failures accordingly, but lets keep to the facts, and not create story lines that simply were not there.

[downtownparks_2]

Ok. how so?

[Debbie Thompson]

downtownparks still owns property in Springfield, and has a vested interest in its success or failure, so I think his opinion is valid, even though he did move out of town for an job opportunity. 

This thread has taken a not too productive turn, guys.  We can't undo the past, regardless of who did what, or if, and when.  Any chance we can tone down the turd-tossing and get back to discussing what to do to preserve this building now, if there is anything we as a neighborhood can do?  Can we bury the hatchet and move forward?

[ChriswUfGator]

Debbie you know I love ya, and I wasn't planning on responding to this thread again, because Dan is now on the right side of history as far as I'm concerned and supports saving the Claude Nolan. But now I kind of have to, because it brings up one of the most infuriating things I used to experience firsthand. Back in the day, when arguments were constantly raging on this site and in person, downtownparks, Bill Hoff, really all of the SPAR people, would immediately de-validate and dismiss my opinion because I only had rental property in springfield and actually lived in riverside. Which was technically true, but I never could understand how that de-validated or denied me the right to an opinion. I love springfield.

This was the first thing they'd do whenever anybody said anything they didn't like, if you didn't personally live in springfield then you weren't entitled to an opinion. There were so many arguments over that, not just me either, they did it across the board to everybody. I have to admit it's kind of ironic now that a handful of them of started posting on this site again, that apparently the "if you don't live in springfield you don't have the right to an opinion" rule has apparently changed.

[JaxUnicorn]

Chris, I hear ya.  In addition, in some instances, even if you live in the neighborhood, there are folks here that will not even entertain the idea that a resident may have an opinion that differs from their own, especially if it does not 'support' what he/she thinks is right.

[Debbie Thompson]

It isn't that I disagree there were/are issues.  I got on "the $**t list" right after I moved here by insisting we needed to save the houses.  Some didn't like hearing that.  Some still don't.

I saw new posts on this thread, and thought we had some new ideas.  Then found out it's just a renewed pi$$ing contest between Stephen and downtownparks, and I was disappointed. 

It's tempting to vent.  I get it.  I just fail to see how this helps the Claude Nolan Building, is all.