News4Jax: Chamblin Plans Downtown Residential Unit
(http://photos.metrojacksonville.com/photos/1841182789_K5ZxdB3-M.jpg)
Quietly, one of downtown's most successful merchants has decided to move forward with a project that promises to add life to Laura Street and Hemming Plaza.
Full Article
http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2012-jul-news4jax-chamblin-plans-downtown-residential-unit
This project is going to be awesome!!!! I got a chance to walk through the building a year ago. While it looks pretty run down, the space really gives you a good feeling. You know that if it is brought to its full potential, that building will be something wonderful.
I'm a little jealous of Ron, but I am so excited for him that he gets to create something really special for our downtown and our city.
Way to go, Ron! This is a great idea!
Didnt I see this story last month?
This looks like an amazing place to live! That first photo makes me want to put a deposit down. I think part of the answer to the question of how to fix downtown is more housing like this, not just new mega-condos.
I love city living and I used to wonder why people ever left cities to live in the suburbs, but it's getting harder to remember how polluted cities were and how cheap a lot of the construction was. My wife's father said he never regretted leaving Queens because it was so dirty. A lot of warm-weather developing countries are still pretty gross places to live. Pollution means not just exhaust from the old coal-burning factories and leaded-gasoline-burning cars, but also from your neighbor cooking with garlic across the hall from you in your pre-HVAC apartment with leaky doors and windows. People didn't even have plastic bags for their trash back then, so you had trash smells everywhere on the streets. Those same unsealed apartments let in all the noise pollution, too, and there used to be a lot of traffic downtown.
Once Mr. Chamblin fixes this space using modern building methods and materials, it will be a gem.
Wow. That staircase is amazing. I'll bet it's burled wood under that paint. And all the original molding, doors and tubs. And the view of Hemming Plaza. They will be wonderful.
Very nice.
Very exciting project.