Comments about historic preservation.

[mtraininjax]

There is something quite compelling about walking within hundred year old walls. Touching their surface. Viewing the workmanship of my great grandfathers. Historic structures are the best structures. They are the fabric of who we are.

Walking around in a building in use is one thing, but just saving a structure because its 100 years old to keep it around and HOPE someone will occupy it is wrong. We don't build structures to let them sit idle, so why would you keep "historic" facilities only to let them sit alone? Bad idea, tear them down if not in use.

PS4 would be a great idea, if there was anything around it that would lead to more development. A history center is a museum plain and simple. You don't put a museum on the grid and hope people add around the museum. It opens at 8, closes at 5, no better than the downtown buildings.

Trying to get young people to care about "historic" in jax is like asking the SJTC to stop building new trendy restaurants. Nice idea, but it won't happen, because the young people want to go to new and trendy. The Landing is dead without more people living downtown. It cannot compete with SJTC and no one wants to drive for the same thing you can find on Southside Blvd.

[Timkin]

PS4 would be a great idea, if there was anything around it that would lead to more development......


Lets look at this for a few minutes....

First off ..PS #4 can be reconnected to the Riverside Park it once adjoined ,simply by constructing and landscaping around it, a pedestrian walkway underneath the approaches to the Fuller Warren Bridge..  That would put it two blocks from the 5 points shopping district. The artwalk is appx 3 blocks south of it. So you're saying theres no possibility for development in the area around PS#4??  That it is a better idea to put a museum in that flop downtown ,affectionately known as the landing versus a historic building?  You're saying that youth does not care about history??  I'm not so sure that is the case...

As to PS 4 sitting unused for 40 years that was (respectfully) mostly BECAUSE the foundation who purchased it, wanted to develop it for residential... THEY MAY HAVE , but if they did, I was never aware of it, have tried other ideas..Never heard about any of those...just the residential...and in THAT PARTICULAR LOCATION , who would pay for a condo/apartment that has breath-taking view of traffic on a fly-over on its west side and an Automotive Repair shop on the East side??  No one that I can think of.. This must be unanimous because residential never did end up working there ,and IMHO NEVER WILL.   A museum is a different situation altogether... and the building is appx 45,000 Square feet, so we not only need a museum , but some other organizations , commercial ,etc in it so as to make it a destination..  A destination development WILL work at PS#4 .. guarantee it!  Coupled with a museum, it could make a wonderful tribute , as another member posted , to Jacksonville's few-remaining Historic Pieces.   It is not like PS #4  has no potential whatsoever...nor any hope for development around it.    Thanks to the mindless destruction of our downtown urban core, it will be far more monumental to attract sizable numbers of people there , than to PS#4 and the Riverside/5 points area...  I am no specialist at anything... but common sense should be obvious in this matter.

[mtraininjax]

can be

As long as I have been reading metrojax, people have been using the words "can be". Lots of things can be done. Wayne Wood worked for a number of years to bring an arts market and followed through on his words of it "can be" done. Who will walk in his footsteps and fulfill "can be" for either PS4 or FS5?

Should we let these buildings sit empty for another 5 years? 10 years? Waiting for someone to fulfill "can be"?

[Timkin]

I personally think we should let them remain.    I guess if they were YOUR buildings ,,they would already be gone.  

Im not sure that I understand who you are and what you stand up for, except your claim to be a realist. .. Fine ..be a realist..    I am an optimist.  If it takes 5 , 10 , 30 years and they are finally reused  the end result is they are being used again..  If we demolish them they are gone forever.

I sure hope from the sound of your opinions ( and again you are entitled to them) that you don't walk in Mr Woods footsteps.    I can say that I at least spent a year out on the School grounds with a few other kind-hearted volunteers TRYING to improve School house 4.    And I guarantee you this sir.... IF I CAN POSSIBLY PROVE YOU WRONG , YOU CAN REST ASSURED I WILL ! 

[finehoe]

Should we let these buildings sit empty for another 5 years? 10 years? Waiting for someone to fulfill "can be"?

If the alternative is yet another empty lot, yes.

[mtraininjax]

If the alternative is yet another empty lot, yes.

And city resources will be wasted to police and maintain empty buildings. We talk about waste we see, what about this and all that which we never see, know its wrong, but chose to ignore. Ignorance should be outlawed, but yet it thrives in Jacksonville.

[finehoe]

Well, mtraininjax, it seems to me your approach has already been tried in DT.  How's that worked out?

[mtraininjax]

Well, mtraininjax, it seems to me your approach has already been tried in DT.

Yes, far more structures to go too. City wants to cut 60 million out of the budget, so they want to cut out libraries and places that educate our minds. I am against that, but we could also go after slumlords and people allowing their buildings to sit empty.

The old JEA building on Julia has been empty for 10+ years, just sitting......A good example.

[hanjin1]

so i assume we might as well just decimate downtown and tear down all the buildings. that'll do it then everyone will come

[Captain Zissou]

old rotten ugly building for something demolishing history that no one in my generation cares about

It's a shame that our generation is personified by people with your viewpoints.  If you don't care about historic preservation, go to the town center.  Right now. Pack up, move out, go. 
The only reason anyone goes downtown is for the history and character of the urban environment.  Otherwise, 10 bars wouldn't have popped up and thrived in the past 3 years, Artwalk wouldn't be a success, and you wouldn't have this forum.  Downtowns are for celebrating a city's history.  Whether you know it or not (I'm guessing not), you do appreciate the historic structures and architectural details that have totally vanished from modern construction.   

[fieldafm]

IMO, PS4's viability rests on the potential expansion of RAM to the lot across the street.  If/when that expansion happens, Timkin is right in that PS4 could be again connected to Riverside Park.  PS4 would be a much more attractive building to develop.  The highway creates obstacles, but plenty of buildings have been retrofitted to keep highway noise out.

Talk of expansion of RAM could create a catalyst of change for Annie Lyttle.  It's a gamble for sure, but it would be an immensely more calculable gamble in that scenario.

I'm very hopeful of that happening.

[Captain Zissou]

fielda, could you elaborate more on where RAM might expand to?  I wasn't aware of that but I'm quite interested.

[Timkin]

Clearly he doesn't care about historic preservation.  As to the City maintaining or securing PS 4  he is so far off base it is ridiculous.. The CITY hasn't done boo-squat for PS 4.  I was personally boarding the place up during my cleanup effort...   The sheriff's office was on again/off again with helping to monitor the place..  Even adding a silent alarm system to the building to alert them when people broke in was for not.   The Alarm was destroyed within a month.. and the city never paid a cent for any of that , except the occasional police drive by.

[iluvolives]

http://www.metrojacksonville.com/forum/index.php/topic,5418.0.html

RAM wants to build a walkway that will extend underneath the I-95 all the way from the current market space to Riverside Park (where the Park St. exit is). It would allow artists to line the walkway with their art and connect the two spaces.

[mtraininjax]

The only reason anyone goes downtown is for the history and character of the urban environment.

You must not know much about downtown. I guess going to Riverside, Avondale, San Marco is all the same, because of the history and character of an "urban environment"? If there is sooooooooooooo much character, why does the Snyder Memorial Church still sit empty? Why is the old Library still sitting empty? Why is the old JEA Office building at 233 West Duval Street still empty, after more than 10 years of no one in it? Why? Surely its got character, it was built in 1955, anyone care that it sits empty?

Interesting dates and history and sizes of buildings in Jax, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings_in_Jacksonville

According to that list, we have no "skyscraper" buildings older than 1926. I'd like to see the Laura Trio get fixed, but to start the process and halt it where they are, its a travesty and a real eye sore to downtown Jacksonville.