1634 Ionia - owner requested demolition

[CCMjax]

In fairness, it could just as easily have been san marco that a group of developers had decided it was going to demolish in order to build fake historic buildings as it was Springfield.

Well, if someone is going to get away with demolishing a historic home or building, I certainly hope they would have the decency to replace it with something that fits in with the surrounding fabric of the neighborhood and possess the quality and craftsmanship to be considered beautiful and historic 100 years from now.  I think at least some of the developers are doing a decent job of that in Springfield.  I don't believe I have seen any new homes in Springfield that don't look like they belong in Springfield or another traditional style neighborhood.

[Gunnar]

The thing that sucks is the empty lots.  Which far outnumber the infill construction.

That seems to be the recurring story in Jax - rather than do infill construction on already empty lots, still standing buildings are torn down for actual or potential new construction. Why not start with the empty lots first ?

[strider]

In fairness, it could just as easily have been san marco that a group of developers had decided it was going to demolish in order to build fake historic buildings as it was Springfield.

Well, if someone is going to get away with demolishing a historic home or building, I certainly hope they would have the decency to replace it with something that fits in with the surrounding fabric of the neighborhood and possess the quality and craftsmanship to be considered beautiful and historic 100 years from now.  I think at least some of the developers are doing a decent job of that in Springfield.  I don't believe I have seen any new homes in Springfield that don't look like they belong in Springfield or another traditional style neighborhood.

In the case of this demolition, the owner has stated that there are no plans to replace the building. It becomes one more "lost tooth" on Ionia Street which has already lost 45% of the habitable structures.

[Steve]

Strider - So San Marco better get on the ball with a zoning overlay, neighborhood groups that fight and slander each other, and the right number of abandoned houses with no windows so it can be considered a legitimate historic area? 

Seriously, the Clifton area of Jacksonville is probably older than the rest of the Jacksonville neighborhoods, going back to 1817.  You never hear any drama coming out of that area over historic preservation and neighborhood groups.  Even Fruit Cove has history going back to the 1700's.  I'm not sure why Springfield feels that it's carrying the banner for historic preservation for the area.  There's a lot history around here, and most of it is much older than Springfield.

I'm not anti-historic, it's just that the Springfield folks need to get a grip.

Dude, you're missing a very important point here. The locally-recognized historic districts (Strider is right - St John's Quarter in the Riverside neighborhood is technically it's own district - the reason for it's distinction isn't important here) were set because of voter approval. The residents of those areas voted for protection, and it passed.

What you're saying is the equivalent of moving to a city with a voter-approved 10% sales tax, then going to a store and refusing to pay it.

[Bill Hoff]

The thing that sucks is the empty lots.  Which far outnumber the infill construction.

That seems to be the recurring story in Jax - rather than do infill construction on already empty lots, still standing buildings are torn down for actual or potential new construction. Why not start with the empty lots first ?

As the market improves, so does infill.

There's 12+ new construction single family homes being built by 4+ different builders in SPR now, most are pre-sold. Assuming the housing market stays stable (a big assumption) it wouldn't surprise me if the vacant lots are cut in half within a few years. There's obviously demand in SPR, and a couple of the builders plan to develop aggressively.

[strider]

The thing that sucks is the empty lots.  Which far outnumber the infill construction.

That seems to be the recurring story in Jax - rather than do infill construction on already empty lots, still standing buildings are torn down for actual or potential new construction. Why not start with the empty lots first ?

As the market improves, so does infill.

There's 12+ new construction single family homes being built by 4+ different builders in SPR now, most are pre-sold. Assuming the housing market stays stable (a big assumption) it wouldn't surprise me if the vacant lots are cut in half within a few years. There's obviously demand in SPR, and a couple of the builders plan to develop aggressively.

Infill is important.  But not as important as the historic housing stock.  Based on conversations with some of the builders, who are still struggling with SF values to some extent, it will take at least ten years at the current rate of build to cut the number of available empty lots in half.

The best way to make infill more attractive to more builders is to raise up the values of the existing historic homes.  The way to do that is to fix the ones that require it not tear them down to make more empty lots. The last wave of aggressive developers didn't get that and believed tearing down the historic houses was how to "fix" the Historic District.  We can not go back to those days as it gets us no where long term.  A couple of the new developers in Springfield get that.  I hope they all do or we will end up going no where in the end.

[CCMjax]

The thing that sucks is the empty lots.  Which far outnumber the infill construction.

That seems to be the recurring story in Jax - rather than do infill construction on already empty lots, still standing buildings are torn down for actual or potential new construction. Why not start with the empty lots first ?

As the market improves, so does infill.

There's 12+ new construction single family homes being built by 4+ different builders in SPR now, most are pre-sold. Assuming the housing market stays stable (a big assumption) it wouldn't surprise me if the vacant lots are cut in half within a few years. There's obviously demand in SPR, and a couple of the builders plan to develop aggressively.

Infill is important.  But not as important as the historic housing stock.  Based on conversations with some of the builders, who are still struggling with SF values to some extent, it will take at least ten years at the current rate of build to cut the number of available empty lots in half.

The best way to make infill more attractive to more builders is to raise up the values of the existing historic homes.  The way to do that is to fix the ones that require it not tear them down to make more empty lots. The last wave of aggressive developers didn't get that and believed tearing down the historic houses was how to "fix" the Historic District.  We can not go back to those days as it gets us no where long term.  A couple of the new developers in Springfield get that.  I hope they all do or we will end up going no where in the end.

And what really needs to happen in order for the restoration of the really bad ones to make sense for a developer is for there to be more of an improvement on Main Street so it becomes a HIGHLY desirable community as a whole, not just moderately desirable simply because there are a lot of nice historic homes.

[NaldoAveKnight]

Strider - So San Marco better get on the ball with a zoning overlay, neighborhood groups that fight and slander each other, and the right number of abandoned houses with no windows so it can be considered a legitimate historic area? 

Seriously, the Clifton area of Jacksonville is probably older than the rest of the Jacksonville neighborhoods, going back to 1817.  You never hear any drama coming out of that area over historic preservation and neighborhood groups.  Even Fruit Cove has history going back to the 1700's.  I'm not sure why Springfield feels that it's carrying the banner for historic preservation for the area.  There's a lot history around here, and most of it is much older than Springfield.

I'm not anti-historic, it's just that the Springfield folks need to get a grip.

Dude, you're missing a very important point here. The locally-recognized historic districts (Strider is right - St John's Quarter in the Riverside neighborhood is technically it's own district - the reason for it's distinction isn't important here) were set because of voter approval. The residents of those areas voted for protection, and it passed.

What you're saying is the equivalent of moving to a city with a voter-approved 10% sales tax, then going to a store and refusing to pay it.

So you're saying that the 'historic district' status, SPAR, and zoning overlay has worked against Springfield?  Or are you saying that Springfield's 'historic district' status, zoning overlay, and SPAR have catapulted it to top dog status amongst Jacksonville neighborhoods with historic homes?

If the vote for 'protection' was held today, what would the outcome be?  Maybe that's what needs to happen, a vote to repeal historic status or maintain status quo.
 

[Steve]

So you're saying that the 'historic district' status, SPAR, and zoning overlay has worked against Springfield?  Or are you saying that Springfield's 'historic district' status, zoning overlay, and SPAR have catapulted it to top dog status amongst Jacksonville neighborhoods with historic homes?

I don't understand any of what you said here. All I said was that the residents (at the time) voted to add protection to their neighborhood. My point was that moving to a neighborhood and not wanting to follow the rules was the equivalent of moving to a city and refusing to pay their local taxes.

If the vote for 'protection' was held today, what would the outcome be?  Maybe that's what needs to happen, a vote to repeal historic status or maintain status quo.

As a non-Springfield resident but a resident of a historic district, I think that's a mistake personally. While Riverside never had some of the issues that Springfield had, Riverside had plenty of these houses. The difference was that Riverside and Avondale fought for these structures and slowly restored them - I wasn't around but every indication is that Riverside and Avondale in 1980 is nothing like it is today. Over time, they hit the tipping point where it became the cool thing to do.

[NaldoAveKnight]

So you're saying that the 'historic district' status, SPAR, and zoning overlay has worked against Springfield?  Or are you saying that Springfield's 'historic district' status, zoning overlay, and SPAR have catapulted it to top dog status amongst Jacksonville neighborhoods with historic homes?

I don't understand any of what you said here. All I said was that the residents (at the time) voted to add protection to their neighborhood. My point was that moving to a neighborhood and not wanting to follow the rules was the equivalent of moving to a city and refusing to pay their local taxes.

If the vote for 'protection' was held today, what would the outcome be?  Maybe that's what needs to happen, a vote to repeal historic status or maintain status quo.

As a non-Springfield resident but a resident of a historic district, I think that's a mistake personally. While Riverside never had some of the issues that Springfield had, Riverside had plenty of these houses. The difference was that Riverside and Avondale fought for these structures and slowly restored them - I wasn't around but every indication is that Riverside and Avondale in 1980 is nothing like it is today. Over time, they hit the tipping point where it became the cool thing to do.

Fixing up old houses has always been cool, maybe not in Jax but in the greater world.  The headwinds in Springfield facing the usual folks that fix up historic homes are insurmountable.  That is why there's empty lots and abandoned homes with no windows. 

The only people that can fix up homes in this artificial environment are folks with super deep pockets (Strider...).  By artificial, I'm referring to crazy requirements for any kind of improvement to the home.  Most folks that do this kind of renovation work move into the home and slowly do things over time as their finances allows.  The last thing they need is to keep going in front of a fussy historic board (potentially asking for bribes...) to get approval for each and every step.

I know because that's what I'm currently doing and I grew up doing this.  Otherwise, all you have are corporate interests like SRG or rich guys playing contractor.  Most corporations rather invest in a place like Nocatee and there's not many rich guys interested in spending lots of time in abandoned homes with no windows.

[Steve]

The only people that can fix up homes in this artificial environment are folks with super deep pockets (Strider...).  By artificial, I'm referring to crazy requirements for any kind of improvement to the home.  Most folks that do this kind of renovation work move into the home and slowly do things over time as their finances allows.  The last thing they need is to keep going in front of a fussy historic board (potentially asking for bribes...) to get approval for each and every step.

Umm....JHPC is no more stringent than any other Municipal Historic Preservation Office.

[Jomar]

The thing that sucks is the empty lots.  Which far outnumber the infill construction.

That seems to be the recurring story in Jax - rather than do infill construction on already empty lots, still standing buildings are torn down for actual or potential new construction. Why not start with the empty lots first ?

As the market improves, so does infill.

There's 12+ new construction single family homes being built by 4+ different builders in SPR now, most are pre-sold. Assuming the housing market stays stable (a big assumption) it wouldn't surprise me if the vacant lots are cut in half within a few years. There's obviously demand in SPR, and a couple of the builders plan to develop aggressively.

On that note, it looks like one of those developers, JWB Real Estate Capital LLC, just scooped up at least five vacant lots for $31K apiece at the beginning of December.  My guess is that they have more infill development in mind for them.

10th & Drysdale
4th & Liberty
1st & Ionia
1st & Market
10th & Hubbard

[Gunnar]

The thing that sucks is the empty lots.  Which far outnumber the infill construction.

That seems to be the recurring story in Jax - rather than do infill construction on already empty lots, still standing buildings are torn down for actual or potential new construction. Why not start with the empty lots first ?

As the market improves, so does infill.

There's 12+ new construction single family homes being built by 4+ different builders in SPR now, most are pre-sold. Assuming the housing market stays stable (a big assumption) it wouldn't surprise me if the vacant lots are cut in half within a few years. There's obviously demand in SPR, and a couple of the builders plan to develop aggressively.

Infill is important.  But not as important as the historic housing stock.  Based on conversations with some of the builders, who are still struggling with SF values to some extent, it will take at least ten years at the current rate of build to cut the number of available empty lots in half.

The best way to make infill more attractive to more builders is to raise up the values of the existing historic homes.  The way to do that is to fix the ones that require it not tear them down to make more empty lots. The last wave of aggressive developers didn't get that and believed tearing down the historic houses was how to "fix" the Historic District.  We can not go back to those days as it gets us no where long term.  A couple of the new developers in Springfield get that.  I hope they all do or we will end up going no where in the end.

Good news and let's hope developments goes in this direction :-)

[strider]

The thing that sucks is the empty lots.  Which far outnumber the infill construction.

That seems to be the recurring story in Jax - rather than do infill construction on already empty lots, still standing buildings are torn down for actual or potential new construction. Why not start with the empty lots first ?

As the market improves, so does infill.

There's 12+ new construction single family homes being built by 4+ different builders in SPR now, most are pre-sold. Assuming the housing market stays stable (a big assumption) it wouldn't surprise me if the vacant lots are cut in half within a few years. There's obviously demand in SPR, and a couple of the builders plan to develop aggressively.

On that note, it looks like one of those developers, JWB Real Estate Capital LLC, just scooped up at least five vacant lots for $31K apiece at the beginning of December.  My guess is that they have more infill development in mind for them.

10th & Drysdale
4th & Liberty
1st & Ionia
1st & Market
10th & Hubbard

Actually this may not be good news.  This was nothing but one company transferring ownership of the lots purchased in a bundle from Jacks Meeks's company to another company essentially under the same ownership.  The increased value from the reportedly 11K each they were originally purchased for to 31K may or may not be justifiable.  Higher land values seem to work for infill developers but that does not always translate into what is best for the community.  Sometimes a transfer like this means they are ready to build on them but not always. Sometimes it is just a way to cash out some profit.

[JaxUnicorn]

Preservation SOS' appeal of this demolition approval will be heard by the LUZ Committee this afternoon at 4:00 pm in City Council Chambers. 

I ask all those who support preservation to please be there.