Mayor opposes LaVilla elections office and questions Clay Yarborough's motives

[downtownjag]

Few thoughts.... And I admittedly haven't read everything here yet. But you can build an office building with 4/1,000 for about $185psf. Gateway is a retail center so it's probably a net lease.

Personally, it sounds to me like the SOE just doesn't like the Yates because the lack of a loading dock is a ridiculous reason to exclude a building.

The issue with Yates is the security.  If he is correct and it is a secure building, having the SoE office on the top floor would require everyone needing to go to the office to check in at security.  This would create an excessive burden for security and anyone needing to go to the SoE office at election time when there are more people visiting the office. 

Gotcha, thanks.  There certainly is a way around that though.  They have another building right down the street, they could move offices around, or maybe re-work Yates so the public office is on the first floor before the security check.

[thelakelander]

There is no security check if the offices occupying the building today are relocated to other half empty city-owned downtown buildings.

[Tacachale]

The lack of a loading dock and freight elevators was mentioned by Holland. A new facility would largely be a warehouse to store equipment. Conceivably an office building like the Yates would not be prime for that.

[thelakelander]

The warehouse thing keeps pushing me back to this needing to be on the fringes of downtown and not a gateway corridor.

[Tacachale]

^It would be nice if that was the objection of the Mayor's office. We might see some positive movement.

[thelakelander]

I'm working on an article about LaVilla for tomorrow's front page story.  My hope is to show the significance of what's left in that area and why it's overall future should become a part of the SOE discussion.

[blfair]

I wonder if the armory could be converted. It has the huge gym space in the middle doesn't it?

[carpnter]

^It would be nice if that was the objection of the Mayor's office. We might see some positive movement.

It would be nice to see the Mayor's office actually come up with a workable proposal instead of basically saying no, nope, and not happening. 

[urbaknight]

I think their true goal is to suburbanize the office of elections. They want to put it out of Dt in a huge ss style atmosphere with parking lots completely surrounding the building. As it stands now, I can just walk to the supervisor of elections office to cast my vote. It's just more walkability they're trying to eliminate. That's their true motive. Look at Hemming Park, the Courthouse, the stupid pocket park on Main. The urban movement is really starting to pick up steam, So the city is trying to destroy everything urban and walkable they possibly can before the the urban minded take over.

[thelakelander]

I wonder if the armory could be converted. It has the huge gym space in the middle doesn't it?

That was considered by SOE a while back but it was deemed too expensive to renovate.

[thelakelander]

Gateway's new owner has made a counter offer, which includes $450,000 in renovations to the old JCPenney store. One Imeson has also presented an offer that's cheaper than Gateway's.  In response, Councilman Yarborough has deferred legislation paving the way for relocation to LaVilla until February.

Gateway Shopping Center has cut in half the price it wants to charge the Supervisor of Elections Office to lease space there â€" information that has led the Jacksonville City Council to pause for a bit before finding out how much it would cost to build a headquarters for the office.

http://m.jacksonville.com/news/premium-news/2013-01-11/story/gateway-offers-cut-rent-elections-office

[vicupstate]

From reading the article, the decision of renting vs. buying seems to be based on a 10 year basis, but if you buy, then you have a building that can still be used for 10,20,100 more years beyond the original 10 years. 

[Tacachale]

^Yeah, pretty much. This shouldn't even be a question. Talk about penny wise and pound foolish.

[thelakelander]

I'd still like to hear more about potential existing city-owned buildings that could be utilized for the SOE needs.  If a loading dock is an issue, it's still cheaper to add something like that, or a freight elevator, to an existing city-owned structure then building from the ground up.