Holland's plan to move elections office from Gateway could be a winner

[thelakelander]

With his parameters, he needs to be in an industrial park or on those empty lots lining I-95, where JTA wants to build the sprawling JRTC. Behind the JRTC gives you visibility, accessibility to both I-95 and the skyway. Also, I still believe something off Myrtle/Beaver is doable for his parameters, while still being centrally accessible.

[vicupstate]

Holland's attitude is to be commended.  He seems focused yet open-minded. Many times if public officials would merely COMMUNICATE their reasonings, they and the public would have a better understanding and a greater level of trust.

Maybe one idea is simply to renovate/build something that is 'wrapped' in space that could be used for other purposes.  In other words, there might be space within the footprint of the building for a sandwich shop  or other use that keeps the entire site from being so single-purpose and a potential dead zone, after hours.     

[John P]

Here is my response to Jerry's reply and his reply:

Jerry

I appreciate your speedy reply and it sounds like you’ve done a lot to try and work on saving the tax payers money. From my perspective, I would just like to see the city take more of an urban approach to our city buildings, build up instead of out. I’ve been discussing this with some folks over at Metro Jacksonville, which I feel is a great forum for forward thinking ideas in the city. Here are some suggestions made from some of the commenters about alternative sites. Of course none of these are owned city properties so I am sure that impacts the decision and the costs. However the inherent benefits of using existing historic structures far out way the short term costs.

1) None of the other government facilities downtown have dedicated surface parking.  Not the Tax Collector on Forsyth, not City Hall or the City Hall Annex, not the Courthouse.  There is no reason they can't use the public parking garages or the on-street parking system - or encourage people to use public transportation.

2) Is there an ordinance that prohibits city departments from leasing space from private buildings?  I don't believe so, because otherwise we would not see so many Tax Collectors’ offices in shopping centers throughout town.

The old library has at least 65,000 sf, a loading dock and a parking garage across the street.

Another comment:

My major concern with the general parameters are they seem to be suburban oriented and its going to be impossible to fit them into an urban Jacksonville setting without negatively impacting the surrounding atmosphere.  The only suitable locations would be urban industrial zones with brick warehouses obsolete for many modern distribution uses. 

With that said, those parameters are better suited for a warehouse like the old Load King building off Beaver & Minnie Street (1357 West Beaver, near Shiloh Baptist & I-95).


Michael

One reason dedicated parking is necessary is because voting is a protected right that must have a higher level of accessibility.  Making voters pay parking or walk long distances from parking garages is seen as barriers for those with limited mobility or finances for parking.  We did look at the old library, but there was no public parking, and the accessibility to load out 32 trucks for the elections appeared create a traffic problem.  Also, because of the need to have the ware house on the first floor, have in other offices on the 2nd floor make it more difficult for voter access.  We  have looked at ware house only sites however the location must also house our call center, poll worker training rooms, canvassing, absentee ballot processing center, making these locations distant of our downtown office creates an inefficient operation and cost more to operate, also we have the need for the location to still be very accessible from all locations for poll worker training and post election canvassing.

Please don’t see my responses as being critical because I do appreciate the feedback and chance to bounce back our concerns.

Sincerely,

Jerry Holland
SOE

I do not see anything in this response that would exclude the old Claude Nolan building at 1st street and Orange street off Main Street. They were considering it before I think. Parking, loading docks, bus line, all accounted for. Does any one know why it has to be a 1 story building?

[thelakelander]

I can see at least two that would exclude the Claude Nolan.

1. All three buildings at the Claude Nolan site combined are less than 50,000 square feet of space over multiple floors.  He mentioned he wanted 65,000 on a single floor.

2. Claude Nolan only has one or two loading docks.  If getting 32 trucks in and out of the Haydon Burns is a problem, so will it be at Claude Nolan.

[thelakelander]

Looking at Holland's site criteria keeps driving me back to the Myrtle Avenue warehouse district.

1. 65,000 square feet
2. 2 loading docks
3. 150 free dedicated parking spaces
4. City bus route
5. City owned property
6. Warehouse on first floor
7. Building would house call center, poll worker training rooms, canvassing, absentee ballot processing center
8. Centrally accessible



The green site is what the article mentions he's interested in.  However, this is on Union Street, which should be a gateway to downtown.  Whatever goes in that area should add life to the street and complement the Ritz Theatre to some degree.  A 65,000 metal or precast warehouse building does the exact opposite by cementing a large stretch of State as dead space.  With that in mind, without urbanizing his selection criteria, two other sites come to mind.

Highlighted in yellow are surface lots owned by JTA, adjacent to the JRTC.  To me, this looks like a decent location to build something from the ground up. Considering I-95 is well above ground level at that point, the frontage would be a great spot to place something like a warehouse with no street activity beside it.  SOE's office uses could then shield warehouse/processing operations from the street.  If you want to be accessible, it doesn't be more accessible than being located at the city's long term intermodal transit center and on/off ramps to I-95.  Also, the skyway is across the street, so workers at other downtown locations have the option to use it to access the site.  The major drawback is JTA would have to be willing to share some of this property with their crystal palace of a transportation center.  To me, it seems like it would be a good deal because you basically put a dedicated ridership base right at a major transit hub.


The site is the white area highlighted as existing parking between I-95 and the proposed JRTC bus terminal on Forsyth Street.

The other location is an existing warehouse on Beaver Street, two blocks west of I-95 that was once utilized by Load King Manufacturing.  Solid brick and open space, all constructed between 1949 and 1960.  It's probably cheaper to work with an existing raw space box like this than build from the ground up.



1. 65,000 square feet? Check. Here you have 100,000 square feet between three brick buildings with floor heights of 21, 18 and 16 feet to play with.

2. 2 loading docks?  Check. There's five facing Myrtle Street.  For the off chance you want more, the entire west side has a continuous rail dock area for a rail siding that used to tie into the abandoned S-Line.

3. 150 free dedicated parking spaces? Check.  This used to be a manufacturing plant that employed hundreds.  There's an existing parking lot that would have to be rebuilt but the land is there. For overflow, you can also parallel park on Minnie Street.

4. City bus route? Check. It's served by the B7 and B9, providing direct access with Rosa Parks Station and soon the JRTC.

5. City owned property? This site isn't owned by the city.  Load King still owns it but its been available for years and they obviously don't need the extra space.  In this market, the private sector will probably give you a better deal than the city.

6. Warehouse on first floor. Check?  Other than a couple of second floor offices facing Minnie Street, the entire thing is one big open box.

7. Building would house call center, poll worker training rooms, canvassing, absentee ballot processing center. Check?  It's one big brick and concrete open box with high ceiling heights.  Build whatever you want and even sublease the extra space if you want too.  Companies are doing cool things with old warehouses these days.



8. Centrally accessible? Check. Beaver Street is just as accessible as State & Union.  It's only one block south of Union and this warehouse is two blocks west of Interstate 95.  Definitely beats Gateway when considering accessibility.

[Noone]

Michael
I would welcome an existing building.  I need 65,000 square feet, with 2 loading docks 150 parking spaces, one story, on the city’s bus route.   I have looked but would welcome looking at any site you are aware of.  I did have the city’s real estate division also review all city own properties.  I will say as mentioned the site we are looking forward is city owned property.  Also, you called it a State Building, it would actually be a City Building.
Sincerely,
Jerry Holland

Encouraging to see such a quick response.  I have two issues with his statement.

1) None of the other government facilities downtown have dedicated surface parking.  Not the Tax Collector on Forsyth, not City Hall or the City Hall Annex, not the Courthouse.  There is no reason they can't use the public parking garages or the on-street parking system - or encourage people to use public transportation.

2) Is there an ordinance that prohibits city departments from leasing space from private buildings?  I don't believe so, because otherwise we would not see so many Tax Collector's offices in shopping centers throughout town.

The old library has at least 65,000 sf, a loading dock and a parking garage across the street.

Have the boundaries of the new Downtown Authority been identified yet? The Reason is and this goes to a recent public hearing on 2012-202 free parking for city council members.

The 150 parking spaces. Under the new Authority parking will be a primary revenue source. I realize that it is not the ultimate deal breaker but what amount of the 150 parking spaces is dedicated for employees and public?

So if the new SOE is outside of the zone it's a non issue. If its within the zone the Authority will have total control and the balance of parking revenue for events as opposed to general employment will be looked at. just a thought and this is what has happened with food trucks and goes back to 2010-856 the transient vendor ban. With the only exception being Downtown. So with the new Authority. What is the plan?  Public,Private,Parking (Partnership)

[JaxArchitect]

The green site is what the article mentions he's interested in.  However, this is on Union Street, which should be a gateway to downtown.  Whatever goes in that area should add life to the street and complement the Ritz Theatre to some degree.  A 65,000 metal or precast warehouse building does the exact opposite by cementing a large stretch of State as dead space. 

Lots of good ideas here...I just want to add that since a significant portion of his program is office / administrative space, there's no reason why the warehouse component of his new building has to be visually dominant on Union Street.  A building could easily be designed with this "public" face on Union and the warehouse component tucked discretely behind it.  It wouldn't be storefront retail but it could still be lots of glass and activity in the building as seen from the street.  This would still be acceptable in a "gateway" type of area as you mentioned.

[vicupstate]

Thinking out of the box here... could the Ford Motor Assembly Plant be used for this?  It is one floor and is MORE than big enough, perhaps too big, but maybe OTHER city/school district/state functions/warehousing could go in too?

I assume it wouldn't be on a Bus route, but I really don't know for sure, and couldn't that be changed?   

[thelakelander]

JaxArchitect, that means you then kill the Beaver Street frontage at the pedestrian level. If we want this area to be vibrant, at least that's what was once claimed, you need to minimize dead space on all four street edges.

[wsansewjs]

Lake,

Why the hell you are not the Mayor of Jacksonville?

-Josh

[JaxArchitect]

JaxArchitect, that means you then kill the Beaver Street frontage at the pedestrian level. If we want this area to be vibrant, at least that's what was once claimed, you need to minimize dead space on all four street edges.

Respectfully, I don't necessarily agree.  Admittedly, there will be some portion of the building that would most likely be windowless, but it doesn't have to be the majority of the building.   This constraint is common to many buildings and doesn't necessarily mean  that these facades need to be lifeless or "dead."
I think that the benefit that this new facility could add by enlivening the Union St. corridor and developing vacant property could outweigh a minor issue of a blank facade facing Beaver (& LaVilla School of the Arts) which I don't think is likely to have many pedestrians anyway.   Also, I'd much rather see these employees be located on the fringe of downtown on this site than on the other side of I-95.  It'd be much more likely that they'd support other downtown businesses on their lunch hour, etc.
I still agree with many who've pointed out that the ideal situation would be to locate them in an existing building, but I've not hear a good solution on property that is City Owned.

[thelakelander]

Good points, JaxArchitect.  I agree that an ideal situation would be an existing building, I'm just not sold on putting that much warehouse space on arterial downtown "gateway" streets.  When I made my comment regarding Beaver, I was looking at it from a neighborhood perspective, moreso than being site specific.  Beaver plays a large role in the future of LaVilla and New Town and the connectivity of these areas and other Westside neighborhoods with the Northbank core. From that perspective, Beaver (at least that stretch, including the LaVilla School of the Arts undeveloped property) is still salvageable, unlike most of LaVilla today.

The Beaver/Minnie Street warehouse being two blocks west of I-95 doesn't concern me as much because Church Street is a direct connector from that area into downtown's heart.  In either case, employees desiring to eat at downtown's restaurants will drive because there is nothing else in the immediate area.  If they are driving, an extra three or four blocks west isn't going to stop that from happening. However, this probably doesn't matter since it appeared that a company is in the process of moving into one of the warehouse buildings when I drove by earlier today.

[duvaldude08]

Duval elections office considers site of failed restaurant as new location
Posted: August 30, 2012 - 5:47pm  |  Updated: August 31, 2012 - 6:25am
Photos

DON BURK/The Times-Union
The old Sax Seafood restaurant is pictured here in 2008.
Infographic

Davis Street and Beaver Street, Jacksonville, Florida
 
By Steve Patterson
Duval elections office considers site of failed restaurant as new location
Steve Patterson
August 31, 2012 6:25 AM EDT
Copyright 2012 The Florida Times-Union. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Years after Jacksonville leaders hoped an unfinished restaurant could breathe life into downtown's LaVilla, the same site is in the running to become a new elections office.

The City Council voted Tuesday to consider the former Sax Seafood & Grill property at Union and Davis streets as a potential new headquarters for the Duval County supervisor of elections.

“It just puts it in the mix for consideration,” said Councilman Clay Yarborough, who introduced the resolution (2012-468) after he and other council members reviewed prospective sites this year. The city owns the property already, and the resolution tells lawyers, auditors and other city workers to assemble the information needed to judge whether it has potential as an elections site.

It looks promising at first glance, Supervisor of Elections Jerry Holland said.

It's downtown and close to Interstate 95, but has enough parking area available to make it attractive, he said.

It might make sense financially, too, said Holland, noting the rent he pays for a cavernous space at the Gateway Shopping Center elections office warehouse has totaled in the millions over several years.

“Over the next 10 years, we'll plow another $6 million in” and still not own anything, Holland said.

He’s not sure what a new building there would cost but said pitches from developers suggest costs might be as low as $5 million.

Finding a new site isn't simple, he said.

Holland said he has personally visited about 30 sites. The new office ideally would be able to replace both the Gateway site and the current headquarters at 105 E. Monroe St., making another downtown site attractive.

An Orlando developer started construction on Sax in 2005 after lining up a $1.9 million loan from the city. The building was never finished, and in 2008 the developer handed over the site in return for the city dropping any claim to have the loan repaid.

The building has been fenced and partly boarded up since then.

Holland said the vote to look at the property wouldn’t lock anyone in, but that it's important to move toward some plan for a new elections site. If a solution is reached quickly, he said, a site might be ready before the 2014 statewide elections. But otherwise the office might have to push its timing back because of  the 2015 city races.

A foreclosure case this year involving Gateway underscored the value of settling on a new site, Yarborough said. If a new owner opted to sell Gateway or kick out its tenants, “at this point they don't owe us anything,” he said.

“No matter what we do, we need to do something,” Yarborough said.



Read more at Jacksonville.com: http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2012-08-30/story/duval-elections-office-considers-site-failed-restaurant-new-location#ixzz258au8GwV

Looks like he must have been listening to my conversation about that building! 

[Tacachale]

Let's keep in contact with Holland to make sure whatever is chosen is as good as we can make it. Lake, you might email him the suggestions you posted here if you haven't already.

[JayBird]

Looks like Mayor Brown has same thinking, no new building necessary.

From Daily Record today:

City: Yates Building 'promising' for SOE
11/23/2012
by David Chapman, Staff Writer

Mayor Alvin Brown's administration is recommending any potential move of the Supervisor of Elections Office should be Downtown into the Yates Building and not to the Sax Property in La Villa, which a report to City Council states could cost up to $10.8 million.

The cost, recommendations and a brief history of the buildings are included in a report issued Wednesday to City Council from the administration.

Council passed a resolution in August directing the administration to conduct a review of a possible consolidation and relocation of the Supervisor of Elections Office functions.

The office has two buildings â€" its main office Downtown at 105 E. Monroe St. and an elections center at the Gateway Mall at 5200-2 Norwood Ave.

The Downtown office is about 10,000 square feet and the center is about 50,000 square feet, according to the report.

Brown allowed the Council resolution to become law without his signature and responded in a Sept. 11 letter saying he supported the consolidation goal but had "concerns about building a large, new government facility during these challenging times." In that letter, Brown said Holland estimated a construction cost of at least $5 million.

The report said the City Public Works Department estimates a new La Villa facility would cost $10.8 million, but that Supervisor of Elections Jerry Holland provided a plan for a $6.8 estimate.

The report also said Holland believes a Request for Proposals could result in a lower price for the project, which includes construction of the building and parking lot.

In addition, the City owns the La Villa property and the sale of the elections main office could defray the cost of a new building, the report said.

The report also said Holland stated a need for at least 65,000 square feet with two loading docks and 150 parking spots, among other features.

Holland also said in the report that a private developer who provided the $6.8 million cost estimate said the La Villa project could take 12-13 months. Public Works said the project would take between 21 months, which includes design and build, and 26 months, which includes design, bid and build.

The report also said consolidation would save an estimated $75,000 annually, according to the elections office.

The report said if the Yates Building were to be used, its current tenants â€" the Property Appraiser's Office, Tax Collector and several City departments â€" would be relocated.

In its detail of the Yates Building, the report said Holland is willing to examine the building for the office's use but he is concerned about the lack of a sufficient loading dock to accommodate Election Day operations and he said the building does not contain large enough freight elevators for some equipment.

The administration has four recommendations for a potential move:

• It "strongly" recommends the main elections office headquarters remain Downtown with other constitutional offices, which aligns with Brown and Council's Downtown revitalization efforts.

• Due to current City fiscal challenges, it does not recommend an additional $6.8 million to $10.8 million in debt that would be needed to build a new elections office Downtown on property that could have commercial potential.

• It "finds promising" the possibility the City-owned Yates Building could be used to house all or part of the elections operations. It also recommends the administration closely work with the supervisor of elections to determine how the building could accommodate the office and report back by Jan. 21.

• It found if the Yates Building, alone or in conjunction with the current elections main office, could not accommodate elections operations, the City could maintain the existing main office and pursue a new long-term lease with the Gateway Mall or another facility that could save taxpayers and meet elections needs.


dchapman@baileypub.com

(904)356-2466


http://www.jaxdailyrecord.com/showstory.php?Story_id=538104