The Premature Destruction of Downtown Jacksonville

[mtraininjax]

Brown will not give the order to tear down the buildings without his favorite "Public/Private" partnership in place with someone on the properties. Who knows, maybe they will both stay, but there is almost NO or (ZERO for those who don't understand NO) chance the City will maintain ownership of them.

The maintenance on these buildings is an absolute joke. So keeping them open just to provide cheap office space, is not going to work. These sites would not even fetch the $$$/sq ft being sold for Industrial Space, in their present condition. There are warehouses in better condition that these buildings. So keeping them open, just to hope to land someone, is not realistic, after all the City has a new courthouse and Federal Courthouse they now have to maintain and support, so why stretch already tight resources to support the old, as well as the new?

Secure them with locks until we can find someone who Brown, Hand and City Council can find who want to take them over and then provide the public/private partnership. Nothing will or should be done until the expense to do anything is absorbed by new owners. So relax for a while, we also have thousands of square feet on the market for office space, so these things will sit for a while.

[Timkin]

Exactly.  let them sit.  I only proposed letting a company occupy them until a fate for them is decided. Public/Private or whatever.  having an occupant even if rent free would be good with the stipulation that THEY pay the maintenance of the building, not the City.

But like everything that sits vacant,   The moving vans wont be out of sight before the vandalism begins and that is the vicious cycle every vacant building endures.   So on one hand I kind of do understand the proposal to immediately do away with them.   Since that seems to be the proposal , who says it has to happen immediately , especially in a time where money to maintain City properties is so tight. 

What I do not get is where the seemingly never ending supply of money comes from to demolish.  We cannot fix anything. We cannot vacate a building and then adapt it to a new use. We can't establish new destinations in our dying urban core, but Lord help us, we sure can find endless means to remove stuff.

Maybe the answer is to just Secure (very well!!) the lower levels of the Courthouse and let it sit.  There is a tab on that.  I have no idea what the demo tab is but it has to be steep when you factor asbestos remediation in .    So until better times either sublet it to an occupant who will assume responsibility for maintaining it at least, or secure it and hope for the best.  Since the building is likely doomed to demolition anyway,  What is 5-7 years of sitting there going to hurt? .

[Mike D]

Following up on the last comment, if the buildings do sit vacant for 5-7 years, that will give the city 5-7 years to contemplate why Jacksonville hasn't been able to gain that critical mass that will bring investors back to downtown.  What incentives exist?  Or, rather, what incentives exist for investors not to come downtown?  Who (read: landowners with connections, insiders, etc) benefits when yet another development encompasses acres of land and contributes once again to needless sprawl while bypassing what was once a vibrant urban core.  We have destroyed dozens, really hundreds of unique, significant buildings of value that were part of a real city.  What remains is an island surrounded by those acres of eerie, threatening empty land I cited in my last entry.  Yet there are still real assets downtown...if only we will hold onto them.  Even now, there is enough left to become the center of a real cityscape...something that is not like Atlanta or Charlotte or Miami...but is like Jacksonville, a place with an identity of its own that reflects all of its attributes.  We've destroyed too many of the architectural assets that were unique to this town already.  Please, let's figure out a way to stop the maddening, mindless assault on our heritage.

[Timkin]

Following up on the last comment, if the buildings do sit vacant for 5-7 years, that will give the city 5-7 years to contemplate why Jacksonville hasn't been able to gain that critical mass that will bring investors back to downtown.  What incentives exist?  Or, rather, what incentives exist for investors not to come downtown?  Who (read: landowners with connections, insiders, etc) benefits when yet another development encompasses acres of land and contributes once again to needless sprawl while bypassing what was once a vibrant urban core.  We have destroyed dozens, really hundreds of unique, significant buildings of value that were part of a real city.  What remains is an island surrounded by those acres of eerie, threatening empty land I cited in my last entry.  Yet there are still real assets downtown...if only we will hold onto them.  Even now, there is enough left to become the center of a real cityscape...something that is not like Atlanta or Charlotte or Miami...but is like Jacksonville, a place with an identity of its own that reflects all of its attributes.  We've destroyed too many of the architectural assets that were unique to this town already.  Please, let's figure out a way to stop the maddening, mindless assault on our heritage.

^  agreed !!!

[mtraininjax]

The buildings are not 8 blocks off the river on Julia or worse, near the Prime Osborn, they are right smack dab on the river.

These buildings will not sit empty or be around in 5-7 years. The land is too valuable. I doubt Brown can get his act together fast enough to do anything with them this term. He does not even have his downtown team together, almost 1 year into his term. He moves at the glacial pace of government.

[Jack]

This has been an excellent discussion, but one additional thing needs to be addressed. The courthouse, in it's current state, is not fit for habitation by any new tenants. I am personally aware of two instances in which plumbing pipes have spontaneously burst, flooding office areas. Fixtures are literally falling from walls. The HVAC system can not be properly adjusted. Rats inhabit inner spaces.

Though I have no personal knowledge, the City Hall Annex cannot be in much better shape. Thus, if these buildings are to be saved, they will have to be completely gutted and re-built from the inside. I am not sure that they have enough historical value to justify this type of expense. On the other hand, if the land is to be sold for redevelopment, it will no doubt be more valuable if vacant. I am not in favor of demolishing these buildings, but do not believe there is any reasonable alternative.

[Kaiser Soze]

This has been an excellent discussion, but one additional thing needs to be addressed. The courthouse, in it's current state, is not fit for habitation by any new tenants. I am personally aware of two instances in which plumbing pipes have spontaneously burst, flooding office areas. Fixtures are literally falling from walls. The HVAC system can not be properly adjusted. Rats inhabit inner spaces.

Though I have no personal knowledge, the City Hall Annex cannot be in much better shape. Thus, if these buildings are to be saved, they will have to be completely gutted and re-built from the inside. I am not sure that they have enough historical value to justify this type of expense. On the other hand, if the land is to be sold for redevelopment, it will no doubt be more valuable if vacant. I am not in favor of demolishing these buildings, but do not believe there is any reasonable alternative.

Here here

[thelakelander]

This has been an excellent discussion, but one additional thing needs to be addressed. The courthouse, in it's current state, is not fit for habitation by any new tenants. I am personally aware of two instances in which plumbing pipes have spontaneously burst, flooding office areas. Fixtures are literally falling from walls. The HVAC system can not be properly adjusted. Rats inhabit inner spaces.

Though I have no personal knowledge, the City Hall Annex cannot be in much better shape. Thus, if these buildings are to be saved, they will have to be completely gutted and re-built from the inside. I am not sure that they have enough historical value to justify this type of expense. On the other hand, if the land is to be sold for redevelopment, it will no doubt be more valuable if vacant. I am not in favor of demolishing these buildings, but do not believe there is any reasonable alternative.

As long as they are structurally sound they are possibly salvageable and they are certainly not in danger of collapsing Berkman II style.  In reality, they are not different from many similar structures built a half century ago that have been reused in cities all across the country, including Jacksonville.  Just in downtown alone, Metropolitan Lofts and City Place are examples of similar structures that have been reused.  Furthermore, in most adaptive reuse cases, structures are pretty much gutted anyway.

Anyway, in a downtown environment where building fabric is critical in terms of building pedestrian scale vibrancy, outright demolition should always be a last case scenario.  Today, despite billions literally spent on downtown redevelopment gimmicks over the last 40 years, we're all witness to a downtown environment that has suffered as a result of shortsighted demolition happy moves at the public level.

At this point, without true evaluation of the properties or a viable coordinated plan for downtown in general at the public level, who knows if these buildings should stay or go?  All in all, this is the main point of this article.  Before we slam the door with a sizable investment in dynamite, let's actually take the proper steps to determine what the best move really is.

[sheclown]

Demolishing a building to rid it of rats seems rather drastic.

As far as pipes bursting,  it is probably old cast iron pipes.  One could survey the pipes that are in bad shape and replace them.  As far as fixtures falling from the walls, reattach them?

Not a fan of gutting either. 

There was gutting fever in Springfield a couple of years ago.  What happened?  Contractors gutted and then left town leaving the skeletal remains of buildings everywhere.

[Timkin]

This has been an excellent discussion, but one additional thing needs to be addressed. The courthouse, in it's current state, is not fit for habitation by any new tenants. I am personally aware of two instances in which plumbing pipes have spontaneously burst, flooding office areas. Fixtures are literally falling from walls. The HVAC system can not be properly adjusted. Rats inhabit inner spaces.

Though I have no personal knowledge, the City Hall Annex cannot be in much better shape. Thus, if these buildings are to be saved, they will have to be completely gutted and re-built from the inside. I am not sure that they have enough historical value to justify this type of expense. On the other hand, if the land is to be sold for redevelopment, it will no doubt be more valuable if vacant. I am not in favor of demolishing these buildings, but do not believe there is any reasonable alternative.

Here here

Jack.  In your personal opinion, would it cost less to completely replace a building, girders and concrete and all than it would be to gut it and replace outdated systems?

It seems like after you rebuilt the actual structure, you would still have to install new plumbing, HVAC, and electric systems.

What's your insight into this?

Would it be far cheaper to rehab?

^^ For that matter... to completely remove a building , is there not a fairly substantial impact fee, just to replace the building?   For something of that size, or a replacement building that is possibly larger, is there not a fee, AFTER the enormous cost of asbestos remediation, demolition, etc?

[thelakelander]

If pipes failing means its time for demolition, we may want to put the new courthouse on the list....

New courthouse already leaking; contractor paying for spill repairs

The contractor overseeing construction of the new Duval County Courthouse will handle costs of repairing water damage discovered after a sprinkler system joint failed this month, a city official said Tuesday.

“This repair will not affect the opening of the courthouse,” said Jim Robinson, the city’s acting public works director. He said the failure was “unfortunate but not a major issue.”

Carpeting, ceiling tiles and drywall were damaged in a 3,200-square-foot area after a second-floor sprinkler pipe apparently failed following a pressure test, he said.

full article: http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2012-04-17/story/new-courthouse-already-leaking-contractor-paying-spill-repairs

[Jack]

I am not an engineer, and don't know the relative costs of gutting and rebuilding from the inside vs. starting anew. Perhaps the former is cheaper. But choosing that option assumes a prospective tenant/tenants who would be happy with the number and size of floors these buildings present. That is a HUGE limitation on development options. Again, I agree with the premise that the buildings should be saved. However, I live in the real world. How long have the Laura St. trio been a blight on downtown in their present condition? When will they be redeveloped?

[thelakelander]

Did you know Detroit's Book Cadillac Hotel sat abandoned for 24 years before being renovated in 2008 as a Westin Hotel?  Downtown Lakeland's Terrace Hotel sat vacant for a decade before it was renovated in 1998.  We've had some buildings like the Old YMCA, Carling, etc. sit vacant for years before being reused as well.  I'd call a demolished site "blight" within a pedestrian scale environment before I'd label structures like the Laura Trio in that category.



IMO, the real world means leaving all alternatives on the table and properly evaluating them before locking yourself into a single position that could do more harm than good.  You can't assume limitations to options without fully vetting them.

[fsujax]

well, since there is no demand downtown for housing, hotel rooms, restaurants, parking or whatever. What would go in the restored buildings?

[thelakelander]

Who says there's no demand?  At the FTU editorial board meeting last week Alvin Brown practically swore companies are calling daily about possibly coming downtown in response to Everbank's move.  Downtown is so empty even 7-Eleven decided it was feasible to immediately open up two stores blocks from each other.  Downtowns are in demand nationwide.  Downtown Jax's struggles are the same as the struggle that keeps the city from retaining a larger margin of young professionals.  Too many public regulations and a reluctance to allow free flowing market rate innovation and creativity.