New to Cathedral District

[Chris Carson]

Hi everyone! Long time reader but never really had occasion to post until now. My dad, his wife, and myself run a law firm that is currently in the Blackstone Building. We simply ran out of space at our current office so we decided to start hunting around for a building that fit our needs. We looked at a few places near the courthouse, but nothing struck our fancy and most were too expensive to justify. So we expanded our search to some other areas of downtown that kept us close enough to the courthouse/SAO/jail. After a few months we found a pair of connected buildings in the Cathedral District spanning from Monroe to Duval. After quite a bit of back and forth with the owner, we closed last month and hope to move in sometime this summer. We are going to renovate the 3rd floor and common area of the Duval St. building first so we can move the firm. Once that's done we will probably shift over and do a bunch of work to the Monroe St. building. We are working with an awesome architect and designer and have some interesting plans for our new office. If anyone is interested, we would be glad to show you around the buildings. I will try to post regular updates here so you guys can see the build as it progresses. Here's the first batch of photos with descriptions @ link:

https://imgur.com/a/CwRy1BW

[downtownbrown]

Wow. Judging from that picture of you at your desk you must be the youngest lawyer in Jax. Or anywhere.

[KenFSU]

Love it!

Welcome to the hood, can't wait for the progress updates.

[Josh]

That's awesome. I drive past that building everyday and think it's such a cool looking building and deserves to be brought back to life.

[Chris Carson]

@ Josh: We weren't totally sold on the looks of the building at first but it has grown on us. We are about to get started on a bunch of stuff that will make it look much better from the outside.   

We have made some more progress since the last set of pics but I caught the flu so haven't been able to get over and snap any pics for the last few days. I will try to get up a new batch this week.

[heights unknown]

Welcome!

[Chris Carson]

Another small batch of pics is up. We are getting close to being through with demo. The real fun is about to begin.

https://imgur.com/a/8H6nnzX    Part II

[BridgeTroll]

Great stuff Chris... Welcome! 

[Pastor Eric Wester]

Wish you well with both your project and practice. A couple weeks back I learned about current development efforts at a forum convened by CathedralDistrict-JAX. The group has  done important planning and prep work in the neighborhood.  You may already know about their website and efforts.

All the best with your reno!

[Chris Carson]

@ Pastor Eric

We have met and spoken with Ginny Myrick over the last few months if that's the group you are talking about. I know there was a stakeholders meeting last week. I was planning on going until the flu wiped out my entire family. I will be at the next one.

[Pastor Eric Wester]

Ginny and the group she leads is who I had in mind. Glad you are connected. Our paths may very well cross.

[Chris Carson]

Part III: https://imgur.com/a/urtFWt7

We have been very busy lawyering and are waiting on some architectural and engineering plans to come back so it's been a slow last few weeks. However there has been some progress. After a bunch of discussion, we decided to go with polished concrete flooring. It should tie in well with the design aesthetic and was quite a bit cheaper than other options we looked at, so we collectively agreed it was the way to go. Some of the pics show the prep and beginnings of the concrete work. It should be finished early next week and I'll get some finished pics up soon. I also included some pics of the other building.   

[Charles Hunter]

Is that the old Willis and Veenstra (sp?) space?  I remember going there when JTA and the old Downtown Development Authority asked them to modify their model of the State Office Building (now part of the Hyatt) to include a People Mover (now Skyway) track, along the Water Street side.

[Steve]

Is that the old Willis and Veenstra (sp?) space?  I remember going there when JTA and the old Downtown Development Authority asked them to modify their model of the State Office Building (now part of the Hyatt) to include a People Mover (now Skyway) track, along the Water Street side.

Not to derail this post, but that's something I didn't know. How was it going to turn onto Water Street? I'm assuming this was designed around the Matra equipment (not bombardier)?

[thelakelander]

Here you go!



https://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2006-oct-downtown-frankenstein-the-skyway-screwing-up-the-idea-of-mass-transit