Building Constructed in 1916 at 5 West Forsyth Condemned. Next for Destruction?!

[stjr]

( Note:  After posting on another thread, I decided this should have its own thread. )

The old American Heritage Life building at the corner of Main and Forsyth streets was condemned by the City last Wednesday and is subject to demolition. According to the Property Appraiser’s Web site, the building is owned by 5 W. Forsyth St. Inc., which lists a P.O. box in Atlantic Beach as its address. In 2008, the building had an assessed value of $940,878.

From 6/30/2009:   http://www.jaxdailyrecord.com/showstory.php?Story_id=52650&text=american%20heritage&type=thisexactphrase

Anyone know what this is leading up to?

Per the property appraiser, this is the approximately 20,000 square foot two-story white brick building facing Forsyth across Main Street from the former AHL tower (now 5 East) and is an historic building built in 1916!   Looks like another great and endangered building from Jax's history.

I have been in this building before and it was nicely renovated in the 1980's and maybe again since.  It should  be in decent shape even today.  Is there no end to our destruction?!  Will Jax step up and save this one.  It's much larger than Lerner's was around the corner.

It will be criminal if this joins the scrap heap.  There will be no hope ever for historic preservation in this City.  HELP!!!!! [/color]

Link to Google Street View:   http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=main+and+forsyth,+jacksonville,+fl&sll=37.0625,-95.677068&sspn=48.50801,78.837891&ie=UTF8&ll=30.327043,-81.658008&spn=0,359.997594&t=h&z=19&layer=c&cbll=30.327045,-81.658018&panoid=dAZgxYK5CBzGfD3CCY2CaQ&cbp=12,32.83,,0,-2.02

[civil42806]

Thats really odd, can anyone get into the building and see if there has been a significant change in it?  Wouldn't pt it past the city but  still there are usually 2 stories to every event.

[Karl_Pilkington]

thats another Hionedis shell corp, so just add this one to the long list of others he lets rot.

http://sunbiz.org/scripts/cordet.exe?action=DETFIL&inq_doc_number=P03000014074&inq_came_from=NAMFWD&cor_web_names_seq_number=0000&names_name_ind=N&names_cor_number=&names_name_seq=&names_name_ind=&names_comp_name=5WFORSYTHST&names_filing_type=

[thelakelander]

Has the Jax Historic Preservation Commission or Historic Society addressed this issue?  If not, any idea of why they don't publicly advocate for the preservation of all remaining historic structures in the DT area?  Would establishing a portion of DT as an official historic district be the answer to preserving what's left?

[reednavy]

Wow, that's one helluva URL.

[JeffreyS]

Would establishing a portion of DT as an official historic district be the answer to preserving what's left?

Lake that is a great idea. Any downtown resident's ready to stake your claim on your community?

[thelakelander]

I'm sure the idea has come up in the past and there would be heavy opposition in a demo happy place like this.  Anyway, it would make the demolition process more difficult while also opening up new federal funding options to renovate structures at the same time.

[stjr]

This building, along with another historic building next door, that was torn down for the now present ugly parking garage, and the marble bank/Laura Street Trio, were all owned at one time by Jack Uible's Jacksonville National Bank/Charter Mortgage/Alliance Holding and Mortgage companies.  These companies were spun off to Uible by The Charter Company when he departed it and Charter Mortgage became Alliance Mortgage upon sale of his companies to Florida National Bank in the early 80's.  It's now part of Everbank.

At its prime, JNB/Alliance had hundreds of employees and they lovingly renovated the Trio and these Forsyth-facing buildings to near Class A quality to house them all.  Very nicely done.  It's sad that in about 20 years they could go from the equivalent of multi-million dollar renovations to being tear downs/condemnations/derelict.  If this can happen to buildings with this history, no building in Jax is safe from the wrecking ball!

[samiam]

Now is the time for the people to be heard, if word gets out that any of these building are slated to come down a demonstation needs to take place.

[heights unknown]

Demonstrations won't do any good.  I really don't have an answer regarding stopping this madness.  It all boils down to money I am sure; if no one wants to buy the property, and the Owner doesn't have the money or doesn't want to invest in the property then it sits, waiting on a buyer, and if not kept "up to snuff," the city eventually condemns the property and readys it for the wrecking ball or other type demolition.  Sad thing. 

Heights Unknown

[heights unknown]

Has the Jax Historic Preservation Commission or Historic Society addressed this issue?  If not, any idea of why they don't publicly advocate for the preservation of all remaining historic structures in the DT area?  Would establishing a portion of DT as an official historic district be the answer to preserving what's left?

If they don't intervene, or speak in a loud voice regarding these type issues, then in my opinion they don't care either.  And if they don't care, and there are no other avenues or options in saving the building/property, then "here comes the wrecking ball!"

Heights Unknown

[TREE4309]

This building was advertised in today's Florida Times-Union as for lease.

[macbeth25]

This sounds interesting.  Is anything being done about trying to get the Federal or possibly a designation on the State level?

[Karl_Pilkington]

other cities levy fines against properties that aren't kept up to code and then when the fines reach a certain point the city forecloses their liens and unloads the property to the highest bidder.  This results in two things, one the recalcitrant property owner will lose the property and still be responsible under the note they signed and two someone can snap up a property for a song allowing them to do the needed renovations.

In this city they only levy fines, but thats it.  The fines pile up, but the building continues to deteriorate eventually falling down or becoming so bad that remediation would be prohibitively expensive.  When someone like Hionedis can sit back and do nothing and just let the building rot it does noone any good.  And even if he was to try to lease or sell it bringing it up to code would cost too much.  The way Jacksonville deals with this issue is a joke.  I wonder how much money goes uncollected every year in both fines and property taxes, but they want to raise taxes HA!

[stjr]

This building was advertised in today's Florida Times-Union as for lease.

Hmmm... how easy is it to lease a condemned office building?  I can see it now: Lease term for 5 years or whenever building collapses, which ever comes first!

Unfortunately, with the courthouse moving, this side of downtown could begin to take a real hit with lawyers and other professionals relocating and making this area more like the desolate area that has existed these last few decades where the courthouse is moving to .  We shall see.