Berkman Plaza 2

[Overstreet]

Modis building has two or three levels of basement below street level  siting on 90 foot caissons. You wouldn't see the bottom of the "pier" above water. You also wouldn't see the locomotive that is burried under the building. There is also the bulkhead at the river and also the remains of the bulkhead that ran on the Landing side of the Water street.

If that ever happened you'd be worring more about the loss of telephone and the influx of raw sewage. There is a rather large telephone duct bank and a 54" sanitary force main that would be washed away first.

The top of the river bulkhead seems to be either 5 or 6 ft msl. So most any real 9ft storm surge will be interesting. However I think a 4ft will flow into San Marco and take some of the pressure off of downtown for a short time.

[Dog Walker]

I think that a storm surge from the ocean would also put everything from the end of the Dames Point Bridge to Nassau Sound under water before downtown would fill up.

I don't remember any dramatic flooding from Dora.  I've seen worse during a Northeaster.

[heights unknown]

The Shipyards, adjacent to Berkman, has sat for 18 years (and counting).

Yeah but no "firm" buildings/development was ever seriously built on that property.

Heights Unknown

[Lunican]

Some work was started on the site, but no building was ever begun.



This is a pretty slick video from a couple years ago that shows the proposed buildings.

http://www.youtube.com/v/0ks7zVHEnDs

[Doctor_K]

Sad times that this stuff hasn't been built.  Would've significantly altered and benefitted the North Bank skyline.

I love the video though -  the dramatic epic-movie-trailer theme and all. 

[BridgeTroll]

The bulkhead or "seawall" along the riverbank was worked on and from as close as I have been able to get looks great.  I would like to see the area opened to public access until a new project to develop is found.

[tufsu1]

The bulkhead or "seawall" along the riverbank was worked on and from as close as I have been able to get looks great.  I would like to see the area opened to public access until a new project to develop is found.

that is expected to happen by summer 2010....assuming City Council doesn't cut the brick pavers and other features from the budget

[thelakelander]

I wonder could they live without brick pavers if it saves a few bucks?  No one walks less on the riverwalk in front of the TU center because its concrete instead of brick.  In any event, it will be good to get it open to the public.

[Seraphs]

Sad times that this stuff hasn't been built.  Would've significantly altered and benefitted the North Bank skyline.

I love the video though -  the dramatic epic-movie-trailer theme and all. 

Totally, I agree! 

[fsu813]

Berkman Plaza, 2 years later: A trail, and tale, of fatal errors
A downtown garage under construction collapsed at dawn, along with confidence it was built to last.

Concrete slabs were cracking. Beams were straining. Disaster was coming.

A young man would be dead soon, others hurt, and millions of dollars lost.

But the workers and managers at the Berkman Plaza 2 construction site in Jacksonville didn’t grasp the urgent danger inside the parking garage until its six stories collapsed around them before dawn on Dec. 6, 2007.

Building crews had reported trouble to their bosses for weeks.

“Before I saw my nephew get killed, we were telling them the problems. … They were going to fix them,” James Ferrell, a construction foreman whose nephew died in the rubble, recounted this year at a federal hearing on the collapse.

Searchers worked two days to find the body of Willie Edwards III, a construction worker and single father pulling extra hours to pay for Christmas presents.

The cause of the collapse is still in dispute, two years after more than 20 workers were caught in a tangle of slabs and steel cables that sprawled along East Bay Street.

A court case between developer Berkman Plaza 2 LLC and general contractor Choate Construction remains unsettled, as well as a lawsuit by the developer against subcontractors it blames for more than $36 million in losses. The garage was razed and construction is frozen on the 23-story condominium it was supposed to serve.

A subcontractor is also fighting $132,500 in federal fines tied to the collapse, challenging a government conclusion the collapse was caused by crews removing temporary supports on the building’s lower floors. Edwards’ family previously said they plan to sue, but his father, Willie Edwards Jr., declined to say Tuesday whether that is still planned. Ferrell and Edwards’ mother, Melanie Wesley, did not respond to messages left by phone and in person at home addresses.

But accounts of the construction project â€" offered in interviews, job-site records, legal testimony and government records â€" describe a cascade of errors and oversights by engineers, building crews and inspectors that, taken as a whole, undermined a building meant to stand for decades.

Those included: concrete supports designed too small for the job; a garage ramp built without essential steel reinforcements; and beams weakened by air pockets formed when concrete was poured.

Safety margin used up

Although a lifetime spent in buildings trains people to think otherwise, making any structure stand up is hard.

Building codes recognize that and expect that potentially ruinous defects will happen unnoticed. To compensate, standards are written to be far tougher than are really needed.

But if builders or engineers rely on that safety net to cut corners, they’re gambling that others on the job haven’t exhausted that margin already.

(full article at the link)


http://jacksonville.com/news/metro/2009-12-05/story/berkman_plaza_2_years_later_a_trail_and_tale_of_fatal_errors

[urbaknight]

That's what I was afraid of.  This might actually be worse than the Shipyards.

If the city planners have thier way, they will always think of the worse possible thing to waste valuble space.

[urbaknight]

 If anyone can tell me of the current status of the Berkman II, that would be great.

[Charles Hunter]

Seems I saw in the paper (or was it here?) a couple months ago that they have pretty much stopped the project.  The tower crane has been removed, and they need that for the construction work.

[fsu813]

yup.

[Charles Hunter]

just remembered - the sales office has been closed, too.