Lerner Shop at 118 Main to be demolished

[Doctor_K]

That's Morgan & Morgan.

But yes, yet another travesty here.  Sad.

[TheProfessor]

They even damaged the building facade of the adjacent building.  What jerks.  I hope you all write the Farahs some nice E-mails/letters letting them know your sentiments.

[Cliffs_Daughter]

Actually, that damaged facade is THEIR building I think.

[mtraininjax]

The Farah's own the 10 East Adams Building, North of the subject property. The building to the south is vacant, part of the old AHL facilities. There is a construction bond with the demo company, unless you saw Chuck or Eddie at the wheel of the dozer, I think they are covered on this with the bond.

Also, their tentative plan was to create a fenced in area for THEIR employees to go instead of in the front of the building, they plan to have an outdoor kitchen and I suspect will have a nice fence along Main Street to keep the homeless out. Probably be a fence at the other end of their property as well.

For all that love to read property appraiser data, http://apps.coj.net/pao_propertySearch/Basic/Detail.aspx?RE=0736900000

[coredumped]

mtraininjax wrote:
Can you hang out and help me park my car, or should we circle the block and hunt for a space? Come downtown for a butcher shop? Does anyone live downtown still?

You must have never left Jacksonville, but in most cities our size & larger there is retail downtown. Try to imagine it.

[mtraininjax]

You must have never left Jacksonville, but in most cities our size & larger there is retail downtown. Try to imagine it.

Thriving downtown is all about chicken and egg, which came first? Can't call it thriving without residents, but if residents have no businesses to support them, why stay downtown.

Imagine this, all of downtown jacksonville is surrounded by water, so you have a peninsula with a way out through Springfield. Do you think Jax downtown would thrive? Think San Fran, think NYC, but our problem with downtown is that in the 80s, the great flight just steamrolled downtown, nothing was done for 20 years to correct the flight out of downtown, so while you may poo-poo people who move out of downtown, you can't fix something overnight that was broken with years and years of neglect.

There is absolutely NO draw to downtown for people who live in Mandarin, the Beaches, or Southside to downtown, enough to call them residents of downtown. There is no new real estate going on and all projects to lure people downtown have come to a halt. There is no draw for downtown, and until there is a reason for people to be downtown, aquarium, transportation hub, (pick your poison), there is no need to live downtown.

[deathstar]

Not to sound like I'm starting a war here, but I-10, I think you just got owned 

You give a car enthusiast a rusted piece of junk, and about 6-8 months, it will not only be a brand new car, I'm willing to bet a few old pieces, hell, even the frame would be restored & re-used. Not only THAT, it'd have a purr to it so fine it'd make a leopard jealous, or a growl to it it'd make a lion jealous! I'm just rambling, but as the old saying goes...

One man's junk is another man's treasure. I believe lakelander proved that quite well in his demonstration.

[stephenc]

A buddy of mine just got an apartment in 11E Forsyth. He loves looking out his window and seeing an alley full of demloished bricks!!

[Ron Mexico]

This sucks!  Too bad, because I've walked past that a number of time and it could be a good building if it was able to be restored.  But, there are so many places downtown that could be fixed up if only there was enough demand for it.

[thelakelander]

There's demand to be downtown.  Unfortunately, due to decades of demolition, smaller buildings are in limited supply and the demand just isn't there for overpaying for deteriorated property.

[TREE4309]

Exactly...if a property owner wanted to sell some of these older smaller buildings at a reasonable price, I'm willing to bet several interested parties would come knocking.  I know I'm not the only one that has done some research on converting some of these buildings into live/work spaces.  It's a shame that there's an obvious lack of realistic pricing for those few buildings that are available as well as an apparent desire of downtown property owners to let these buildings deteriorate beyond reasonable repair, or worse yet, have them demolished.  How do we end this vicious cycle?

[Ron Mexico]

Probably.  If the buildings were in good shape, I am sure there are small law shops or other businesses that could use them.  I would rather own one than to pay a lease for a cube farm.

[jason_contentdg]

If you'd like to hear Content Design Group's thoughts on the demolition of 118, our second Urban Facelift project please follow the link:

http://www.contentdg.com/rip-118-main-urban-facelift-project2/

[TheProfessor]

Below are the Email addresses of some of the Farah Lawyers who you all should Email and let know your sentiments.  The first two being the Farah brothers.

efarah@farahandfarah.com

cfarah@farahandfarah.com

feifer@farahandfarah.com

bflaherty@farahandfarah.com

[Jerry Moran]

Please cut the crap out.  The building was found to be in terrible condition, and un-salvageable.  Eddie and crew had no choice.  I talked to him shortly after he bought the building about putting a restaurant there.  After having the building checked out, Eddie sadly told me that the building was in terrible structural condition, and that it would have to go.