Tearing Down Worman's Deli - via Jax Daily Record

[mtraininjax]

Properly  mothballed, a house looks cared for because it is.

Do you have some samples you can share, which are in Duval County, here in Jacksonville? When they were mothballed and how long they have been in their state?

The prevailing wind in Jacksonville is not to mothball, but to tear down. If you are passionate about this concept, I wish you well in changing the hearts and minds in Code Enforcement.

[vicupstate]

Mothballing leads to other problems, squatters, no upkeep of the property and eyesores in the area. Prospective tenants or new business is less likely to move into Commercial retail when there are problem buildings with vagrants, or spray paint, you can see this along Forsyth with some of the old furniture buildings, which have sat idle for years now, and with no plans to incorporate them into a use with downtown. Annie Lytle has had its share of vagrants and fires and all kinds of issues. Is that what will become of a Mothballed Worman's?

If no one is going to use the structure, donate it to someone who will, why has donation to a non-profit not been discussed?

Mtrain, Jax has tried it your way for decades with nothing positive to show for it.  Remember the definition of insanity?  When will Jax ever learn?


'Destroy it, and they will come' should be Jacksonville's motto.  Small organic businesses CANNOT afford to build new, and by extention pay top dollar for space.  Therefore they will not open in the DT area.  That is what has happened for decades now.  Without the local pioneers (who will take a risk),  the nationals will NEVER come, because the market is unproven. 

Compare that to Charleston where it is almost impossible to demo anything on the peninsula.  Sure, there are eyesores, but the gems were once eyesores too.  After 60 years of seeing eyesores turned into beautiful, productive (and very valuable) buildings, no one there even doubts that today's eyesores will also return to their glory, given more time.  They know the northward progression of revitilization up the peninsula is near certain to continue, because it has already done so for 60 years, and policy doesn't really allow any other option.   

BTW, the percentage of money that STAYS in the local economy with a renovation (labor intensive) is about double what stays local with new construction (material intensive).

Here is an example of what I am talking about.

Click on the link and scroll to pg 71.  Now before reviewing the remaining 10 pages in the pdf, ask yourself a question "If this structure was in Springfield would it have been torn down?"   If you are being honest with yourself, you will say 'yes, most definitely, probably several years back'.

http://www.charlestoncity.info/shared/docs/0/07.25.2012%20image%20overview.pdf

Now look throught the plans for this structure (pages 72-81 : existing is left side proposed is right side per page) .  Then ask yourself 'If this were in Springfield/ DT/ Brooklyn/LaVilla and completed, would it be better than a vacant and overgrown lot?

If your answer is 'yes', then ask the City , 'Why can't Jacksonville do the same thing Charleston is doing?'   

[Dog Walker]

In the T-U this morning it was stated that the building was condemned because of structural damage it sustained when a car ran into it some months ago and the owners couldn't afford to repair it to code.

[strider]

Properly  mothballed, a house looks cared for because it is.

Do you have some samples you can share, which are in Duval County, here in Jacksonville? When they were mothballed and how long they have been in their state?

The prevailing wind in Jacksonville is not to mothball, but to tear down. If you are passionate about this concept, I wish you well in changing the hearts and minds in Code Enforcement.

Mothballing is new to Jacksonville.  We, meaning Preservation SOS, did the first one December of last year




Here's the most recent:



Look a bit better than the one next to it?

At a guess, I guess there are now about  dozen or so mothballed houses or at least  in progress, within Riverside and Springfield.  It was indeed a fight and once passed, we had to fight a sunset ordnance someone mistakenly wanted. We won that one too.   As we progress forward, we find there are a few issues to be resolved.  A couple of those issues deal with the head of MCCD seemingly not wanting to give much up. We are making head way though and will succeed in changing the  mantra of the city from demo or else to one of mothballing and preserving for the future.  At least in the Historic Districts.

[strider]

In the T-U this morning it was stated that the building was condemned because of structural damage it sustained when a car ran into it some months ago and the owners couldn't afford to repair it to code.

And yet, the building still stands ....

MCCD officers know little of structure.  The biggest issue is policy though and how they define safety.  We have seen houses condemned because of one dripping pipe and others left standing for years with only a 6 inch tree holding the thing upright. No rhyme or reason.   Plus, once MCCD is involved, the chant is repair every little thing or demolish it.  That is what needs changing, even if that change has to start at the top.

[Timkin]

Where to start is at the City.   Change the "policy"  and  for that matter, change out the entire MCCD.  These people are paid OUR tax dollars to create a nuisance. What is to show for the work they do? Demolitions.  hey that is impressive.  Its wrong and it desperately needs to change.

People like SOS who do projects like the above pictures are making a POSITIVE difference.  The homes they are saving are no threat to anyone.   They are target for people in MCCD  to badger the owners , some of which simply cannot afford to repair  their homes. ( I wouldn't wish this position on any one of them, however if they were placed in that position, it might finally open their eyes to have a little sympathy for building owners...THEY might not be quite as motivated to push demolitions through)

That is an important first step.   STOP DEMOLISHING.. it does nothing to improve the problem.   

[mtraininjax]

Demolition is contagious in the La Villa area, perhaps that is what the city council rep there recommends? Commercial demolition has been popular in the downtown area, as opposed to the residential.  There is a Mothballed house at Day and Post street, not as nice as the ones shown above in Springfield, but then again, maybe Murray Hill has a ways to go to achieve proper mothballing technique.

[urbanlibertarian]

From yesterday's TU:

http://jacksonville.com/entertainment/food-and-dining/2012-07-27/story/dining-notes-downtown-jacksonville-dining-landmark

Dining Notes: Downtown Jacksonville dining landmark to meet wrecking ball
Posted: July 27, 2012 - 12:09am  |  Updated: July 27, 2012 - 4:40pm

By Gary T. Mills   

Plans were put into motion this week to bring down a century-old building and former downtown dining landmark.

A building permit issued by the city on Monday shows plans to demolish the former Worman’s Bakery & Deli, which operated for seven decades at 204 Broad St. before its closing in August 2009.

At the time, Morris Worman â€" who, with sister Pearl Worman Leibowitz-Sederbaum, co-owned the restaurant their parents first opened â€" said:

“We kept saying, ‘We’ll hang on until the courthouse opens.’ We waited nine years. We thought we could hold out. But we couldn’t keep throwing good money after bad.”

But it wasn’t until six weeks ago â€" nearly three years after the restaurant’s closing â€" that the new Duval County Courthouse finally opened across the street, giving hope to some that a new restaurant would open in the 5,000-square-foot building originally built in 1909.

Few, however, realized the city condemned the building in April 2011, the month a car drove into northeast corner of the building, causing significant structural damage.

Martin Leibowitz, son of Pearl Worman Leibowitz-Sederbaum, said the family’s immediate plan is to demolish the building in preparation to sell the property â€" a tough, but necessary decision.

“The entire family shares the loss of the building,” Leibowitz, an attorney, said.

But without anyone in the family set to pick up the Worman tradition started by his grandparents, Sam and Rosa Worman, in Jacksonville in 1923, the time had come to move forward.

Like his mother, now 86, Leibowitz grew up in and around the bakery. “I took my first steps outside that building,” he said.

Read more at Jacksonville.com: http://jacksonville.com/entertainment/food-and-dining/2012-07-27/story/dining-notes-downtown-jacksonville-dining-landmark#ixzz221hVkbkW

Sounds like the family doesn't want to demolish but has no option without a buyer or some other outside intervention.

[thelakelander]

^Why would they have to pay to demolish to have the ability to sell the site?  What's the cons to just selling the site in its current condition?

[Timkin]

^ Interesting that over a year after the car hit the building "causing significant structural damage"   that NOW the building is slated for demolition.  If it is now structurally compromised to the point that it is not repairable for reuse, why was it allowed to stand for so long.   If the car hit the building , I would think the owner of the car would be responsible for the damage.  What happened there?

    This reeks of MCCD  intervention and pressuring the owners to fix or demolish.  After all it is what they do...everywhere.

I would think it would be far cost-effective to repair this existing building, than wiping the slate, doing site preparation, impact fee for new-build.

I don't buy that the site cannot be sold as-is and repaired.   Really wish a member of the family could clarify why the option to demolish seems the only way to go.

[urbanlibertarian]

COJ didn't condemn the building until April.  I'm thinking fines will start piling up soon if they haven't already.

[strider]

I would think that they may already have fines.  It doesn't take long for MCCD to be able to take a owner to Special Masters.  the fines could easily be $ 250.00 per day so even the threat of the fines can be significant.  Remember that the fines will attach to everything the owner has and will make the property so toxic it can;t be realistically sold at all.  Also remember that to repair in MCCD's eyes is to repair everything up to full code, not just the damage that triggered the condemnation.  Everything MCCD says and does, whether by default or design, makes it seems that demolition is the best and often the only recourse a owner has.

I recently was involved with an issue in Springfield with MCCD. While it was actually refreshing that there seemed to be a change of heart and we were invited to help find a solution to the problem, the talk was still all about demolition.  That the rear of the house had to be demolished.  Which, as they were not recognizing the fact that it was all one roof line, would have resulted in the loss of the entire structure.  That would have cost thousands.  Indeed, with the number of personnel involved with this issue just from MCCD, it may have anyway.  The end result though was that a contractor and PSOS raised funds and for less than a thousand dollars worth of work (all donated in this case) stabilized the structure and saved it.  The sad part is that the law allows for this to be done by MCCD rather than the demolition they insist upon.

This is a policy issue with the head of MCCD and if you care about structures like this, that policy, if not the head of MCCD,  must be changed.

[Debbie Thompson]

Reply #28 +1.  We are far too demo happy in Jacksonville.

As for the appearance of the Worman's Building, I doubt it looked like that when it was built.  It was probably "modernized" mid 20th century.  MJ, do you have a pix of it before that?  It's possible the original facade could be restored.

If you look at the EH Thompson Building on Main Street, it looks awful with the pink concrete panels, but if you look at a picture of it when it was built, it's an incredible building similar to the one across the street.  Somewhere on this forum, there's a picture of the original building.  Remove the awful add on panels, and it too can be restored to its original appearance.

[vicupstate]

According tot the T-U demolition started today.

[Wacca Pilatka]

Reply #28 +1.  We are far too demo happy in Jacksonville.

As for the appearance of the Worman's Building, I doubt it looked like that when it was built.  It was probably "modernized" mid 20th century.  MJ, do you have a pix of it before that?  It's possible the original facade could be restored.

If you look at the EH Thompson Building on Main Street, it looks awful with the pink concrete panels, but if you look at a picture of it when it was built, it's an incredible building similar to the one across the street.  Somewhere on this forum, there's a picture of the original building.  Remove the awful add on panels, and it too can be restored to its original appearance.

There's some great Prairie-style and Cadillac-related original details surviving INSIDE the EH Thompson building as well.