Jones Brothers Building restoration

[jagsonville]

http://www.jacksonville.com/news/20180319/city-poised-to-help-restore-endangered-jones-bros-furniture-building

More residents and another historic rehab.

[KenFSU]

^Epic first post.

Amazing news, and another incredibly positive development for the downtown core.

We're really starting to see a bit of momentum.

Didn't realize the Downtown Historic Preservation and Revitalization Trust Fund still had $1.5 million left in it after the Trio.

Actually, I don't think it does, unless they quietly replenished it.

[jagsonville]

Looong time lurker. hopefully they structure the 1.5 mil in a similar fashion as the Barnett restoration.

[KenFSU]

Welcome friend!

Way to pick your spot

[jaxnyc79]

Is ongoing maintenance of historic building renovations pretty much the same as new construction?  I know the incentives help to get this off the ground, but do the buildings maintain the integrity of the renovations for a long while afterwards?  How have The Carling and 11E done?  Occupancy rates still high and people enjoy the buildings?  Reading reviews of 11E on Facebook and ratings appear to be all over the place.

[thelakelander]

As far as I know, the Carling and 11 East still stay full. Keeping residential buildings in downtown Jacksonville has not been a problem for restorations or new infill. The major problem has been the cost of construction or restoration in relation to the what the local market will pay for leasing or buying the finished product. This is where the incentives help balance things out.

[Tacachale]

I don't think really any downtown residential building has trouble with occupancy once they open. The issue I've heard is that people wouldn't pay the level of rent it would take to make the buildings a profitable investment. That's true of either new or remodeled buildings (there have never been many residences in downtown Jax since the Great Fire, so the rehabs are typically not residential buildings). And so most that has have come together have required incentives of some sort to make it work.

[bill]

Hionides? good luck unless the city is going to bankroll the entire cost

[jaxjaguar]

If they could somehow convince first Baptist to give up that ugly windowless building next to the Jones Bros building, that'd be the perfect spot for a ground floor retail with parking on top.
Also, if the old Federal reserve building next to Sweet Pete's ever gets redeveloped you'd have a whole, uninterrupted, row of restored buildings facing Hogan.

[FlaBoy]

So this does include the old Farah's Deli building?

[jagsonville]

It includes the jones brothers and old farah's deli building.

[KenFSU]

If they could somehow convince first Baptist to give up that ugly windowless building next to the Jones Bros building, that'd be the perfect spot for a ground floor retail with parking on top.
Also, if the old Federal reserve building next to Sweet Pete's ever gets redeveloped you'd have a whole, uninterrupted, row of restored buildings facing Hogan.

When walking around, I've noticed a handful of largely windowless buildings downtown, most notably the JEA Customer Care building.

Any idea what thought process went into designing buildings like this? Was it a short-lived design style? A cost-saving mechanism?

Seems like it'd be a horrible working environment, and also a death-trap in the event of a fire on the lower floors.

[Wacca Pilatka]

^ The JEA building used to have windows when it was Ivey's department store.  I don't know if bricking over the windows was an attempt to save costs or just eliminate distractions in a call center environment.

[KenFSU]

^ The JEA building used to have windows when it was Ivey's department store.  I don't know if bricking over the windows was an attempt to save costs or just eliminate distractions in a call center environment.

Thanks for the info!

Had no idea the building used to be a department store.

[thelakelander]

Wow! I definitely need to start rerunning archived articles:

https://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2011-sep-on-top-of-the-universal-marion-building