Reimagining the Springfield Warehouse District

[Metro Jacksonville]

Reimagining the Springfield Warehouse District



Courtesy of Emerging Design Professionals (EDP), Modern Cities takes a look inside a group of long abandoned Springfield warehouses, destined to anchor what could become Jacksonville's version of Miami's Wynwood Walls District: The proposed Jacksonville School for the Arts and the Phoenix Arts District.

Read More: http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2017-aug-reimagining-the-springfield-warehouse-district

[Gunnar]

Just love those old warehouses. Still think it's a shame they tore down the big ones next to Union Station.

BTW. Does anyone remember when they were torn down ? I recall seeing them (several actually) in the early nineties when going from downtown to Riverside / Five Points but when checking back some years later there was nothing there. Can't have been that wasted to imagine things...

[thelakelander]

Whatever was left by the 1990s came down as a part of the River City Renaissance plan during the mid-1990s. Here's an old article showing photographs of LaVilla in the early 1990s.



http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2015-mar-the-last-days-of-lavilla

[Jim]

Whatever was left by the 1990s came down as a part of the River City Renaissance plan during the mid-1990s. Here's an old article showing photographs of LaVilla in the early 1990s.



http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2015-mar-the-last-days-of-lavilla

Here is that same intersection and view today.

[Adam White]

Ooooh. "Street art".

[Bativac]

Vacant lots and desolation... but the public art on the side of a building sure helps, huh?

[Gunnar]

Thanks Lake!

I was actually thinking about the view in  the other direction, i.e. from that vantage point towards Prime Osborn / Union Station. I think the warehouses that most caught my attention were in the other direction.

But Mid 90's matches the time frame.

[thelakelander]

There's more images in that link. Here's two of West Bay in vicinity of the Prime Osborn:


901-927 West Bay


Bay and Lee

[Jim]

I'll post current views of those two later today.

[Adam White]

This is disgusting. How can anyone see a bunch of vacant lots as a worthwhile end result?

[Jim]

There's more images in that link. Here's two of West Bay in vicinity of the Prime Osborn:


901-927 West Bay


Bay and Lee

Today.

[Gunnar]

It's both nice and painful to look at those pictures.

The saddest part is the in all the old photos, Jax looks like a proper big city.

The warehouses I was thinking about are most likely the ones in the aerial below.


As I said - it's a bit hard to remember as this was 20+ years ago and I was driven home after partying downtown, so my memory is a bit fuzzy :-)

[Gunnar]

Another thing Lake: Do you know if there are any plans for the old Coca Cola bottling plant in Springfield and who owns it ?

[thelakelander]

It's both nice and painful to look at those pictures.

The saddest part is the in all the old photos, Jax looks like a proper big city.

The warehouses I was thinking about are most likely the ones in the aerial below.


As I said - it's a bit hard to remember as this was 20+ years ago and I was driven home after partying downtown, so my memory is a bit fuzzy :-)

The last two pics posted from the 1990s, show buildings at ground level, that are also in the black and white historic aerial.

[thelakelander]

I don't know of any plans for the main Coca Cola building.  However, they expanded into using at least 2 or 3 blocks of buildings in the district before constructing a larger modern bottling plant on the Westside.