Abandoned Jacksonville: Old JEA Tower Building

[Metro Jacksonville]

Abandoned Jacksonville: Old JEA Tower Building



Vacant for 15 years, 233 West Duval Street is downtown Jacksonville's largest forgotten structure. Today, Metro Jacksonville takes a look inside of a building that has become a silent memorial of a vibrant downtown era gone bye.

Read More: http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2014-mar-abandoned-jacksonville-old-jea-tower-building

[Noone]

Very nice. Did the JEA sell the surplus house across from Exchange Club JEA Island? The number one FIND project for 2014. we are so LOST.
There is $5,000,000 plus in the Historic Preservation Trust Fund.
At the last DIA special meeting. Someone who was there from day one with his hand out and told the Mayor if not given the money would never buy another building Downtown again now after getting the money announced that he and others may be looking at another 3 or 4 deals. Could this be converted to housing?

[vicupstate]

I assume this building is on the market? If so what is the price?

[mbwright]

might make some cool loft apartments.

[strider]

As this is an abandoned building owned by the city, does it get the rolling fine treatment like many others do?  Is it at risk of being torn down? After all, just from the pictures, it meets the criteria MCC uses to condemned building after building and impose those fines.

It is sad that we still promote the construction of new office buildings on newly developed land while we have so much empty downtown.  Just think of how many office buildings have been built on the Southside in just the last ten years while this building sat empty. Sometimes I wonder if we were not consolidated would Downtown be better off?  At least then Downtown could compete for the companies to fill office space, as it is our city council is willing to sell everything else out to enable new construction in the suburbs.

[vicupstate]

As this is an abandoned building owned by the city, does it get the rolling fine treatment like many others do?  Is it at risk of being torn down? After all, just from the pictures, it meets the criteria MCC uses to condemned building after building and impose those fines.

It is sad that we still promote the construction of new office buildings on newly developed land while we have so much empty downtown.  Just think of how many office buildings have been built on the Southside in just the last ten years while this building sat empty. Sometimes I wonder if we were not consolidated would Downtown be better off?  At least then Downtown could compete for the companies to fill office space, as it is our city council is willing to sell everything else out to enable new construction in the suburbs.

There are plenty of Consolidated cities that do not have these issues.  Nashville, Indianapolis, Norfolk for example all have strong Downtowns.  Dallas, Houston, Austin, OKC and Charlotte, while not consolidated per se, all stretch out over many hundreds of square miles with lots of suburban office districts, yet their Downtowns are thriving as well.     

The difference is those cities are not stuck in a 1980's mindset. 

[Keith-N-Jax]

15 years??? wow

[Overstreet]

Building looked in pretty good shape till the last few photos. Plaster does not like moisture and flakes paint and outter layers. Tile, assumed VAT, doesn't like water either(curling popped tile). Besides all that it looks dry. The windows look to be intact. I see that they took all the ceiling tile out. Good move ACT doesn't like moisture either.

I suspect the building would have some difficulty meeting current energy codes.

[Wacca Pilatka]

Agreed with Vicupstate, but Norfolk isn't consolidated.  It's an independent city, but only 60 sq mi or so also.  Its neighbors, Suffolk and Virginia Beach, are sprawling consolidated monsters that cover 300-400 sq mi or thereabouts.

[JayBird]

I assume this building is on the market? If so what is the price?

Think its pretty much make an offer. I seem to remember when I first moved here (early 2000s) it was in the $3-5M range and there was some actual competition between investors to buy it. There was a group from SoFL that wanted to make it apartments, two or three that wanted to have new office space. Don't know what happened but obviously those talks fizzled long before the market tanked.

I also seem to remember this property has made the commercial real estate rounds. Its been marketed by Colliers, Addison, Dickinson-Klotz and now Petra:

http://www.petramanagement.com/index.php/listings/jea-building/

[TomHurst]

This building is truly one of Jacksonville's architectural treasures.  It's not only a beautiful building (when maintained) but it was also built extremely well.  It's such a shame to see it sit unused for all of these years.
Dasher Hurst Architects designed a proposed renovation / addition to this building last spring.  One of the main goals was to increase the rentable floor area of each floor which is currently pretty small (5,300 s.f. per floor on upper floors) and also take advantage of views toward Hemming Plaza.  Our client is very interested in pursuing this development but has not yet proceeded primarily because he had no luck getting a response to his proposal from Chris Hionides (the current owner).  It's too bad, it's an amazing building.  If it got renovated, we'd even talked about moving our office into it.

http://www.dasherhurst.com/portfolio/independent-life-building/

[coredumped]

http://www.dasherhurst.com/portfolio/independent-life-building/

Those are some real nice looking drawings, it would be real nice to see that come to life.

I wonder why Chris isn't responding, you think he'd want to unload the property - in this market he can't be drowning in offers.

[thelakelander]

Great looking design Tom. That looks very "un-Jacksonville-like." I love the balance of architecture. The 1950s tower and the proposed modern addition blend well together.

[JaxNative68]

This is absolutely my favorite building in downtown Jax.  I hope that it is brought back to life.  It was on the market about 12 years ago for $3million.  Unfortunately the building floor plates are designed very inefficiently, which makes the rentable square footage less attractive to investors.   I like the ideas by DasherHurst to expand it's rentable numbers.

[Scrub Palmetto]

It's one of my favorite buildings in Jax, too! It reminds me of a mini-homage to the PSFS Building in Philly.

I really thought that all the activity around Hemming Plaza in the last decade would have reached it, but at least it's still standing. I hope not only that it is occupied again, but most of its mid-century character can be restored, too. It's an endangered architectural era, for which renovation is a far more popular concept than preservation. And of course there's the demolition threat. A lot of people still haven't wrapped their heads around preserving buildings like these, but this building's been generally eligible for the National Register for almost 10 years now.