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Greenleaf Building: what's next?

bobliocatt

By bobliocatt
in Jacksonville

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bobliocatt City

bobliocatt

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Now that the Laura Place deal has died, this would be a good chance for the city to come up with a parking plan for that whole area (The Barnett, Greenleaf, Florida Life, & the Brisbee). The vacant lots on the SE corner of Laura & Adams Streets would be perfect for an infill building containing street retail, about 5 levels of parking, and office or residential space above the parking levels. A good sized garage there could ease the parking situation of all of those buildings in that area, as well as fill in a major piece of underutilized land.

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Urban_Legend Town

Urban_Legend

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Yeah, those vacant lots are really getting on my nerves. I like the Greenleaf building. It's very ornate at street level. I think that's the one with Jacob's Jewelers. But if they redo the whole building, I hope they'll get rid of that ugly mirrored-glass window thing on the back. It's kinda ugly, looking at it from Hemming Plaza. But the view from Adams St. is really spectacular!

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bobliocatt City

bobliocatt

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What would be interesting to see is, if ayone would be willing to finish constructing the building, since only half of it was built. If you look at the picture you can easily see that the large arched entrance was supposed to be in the middle, if the entire building was completed.

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bobliocatt City

bobliocatt

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^

There are still several older buildings with no plans for redevelopment in place. They include:

-Furgotts Department Store (corner of Adams/Hogan)

-a 7 story brick building across the street from the Ed Ball Building.

-a block or two of old retail & warehouse buildings, just south of the new courthouse site

-The 4 or 5 story old Florida Baptist Building on Church Street

-The 10 story BellSouth brick building on Church Street.

-several 2 -3 brick buildings along Broad and Beaver Streets.

-The 3 Laura Place Place buildings.

-Several old homes in the Cathedral District (north of Bay/east of Ocean)

-Several buildings, along State & Union Streets like the old Parkview Hotel.

There's a lot more out there, but these are the one's that quickly come to my mind. Hopefully, we will be able to save most of them.

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Urban_Legend Town

Urban_Legend

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I love all the historic buildings in Jacksonville. Not every city is lucky to have such a rich architectural history. Look at Miami, compared to Jax. Miami's building boom was later than Jacksonville's, producing a totally different age group of buildings.

I never noticed that the Greenleaf was halfway built. That's very interesting. Right now, I think the unfinished section is used as a balcony. You can see plants hanging over the railings. If this was to become a hotel/residential development, they might save that balcony area for a pool or something. So I doubt it'll ever be finished. It would be cool to see a history of this building, but since Laura Place never worked out, we still don't have an Architectural History Museum! Oh well...

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vicupstate Metropolitan Area

vicupstate

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I agree that the large expanse of glass on the North side of the building is horrible.

It would be wonderful if second half of the building was added, but the likelyhood is probably very remote. It would be difficult to find (and probably cost prohibitive) construction workers with experience in the style of construction used in the building.

I think Lakelander makes an excellent point about the need to use this opportunity to build enough common parking to serve the Barnett, Greenleaf and Laura Place buildings. If the parking issues were resolved, I am sure all of the building would be renovated in pretty short order. That would make Laura Street the real showplace of Downtown, and thereby spread redevelopment from the river toward State street.

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Urban_Legend Town

Urban_Legend

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Yeah, I think Laura is the best North-South corridor in downtown. First Baptist has improved their stretch of Laura, adding a new Children's Building. JMOMA and the New Library immediately follow First Baptist, adding more to Laura, along with Hemming Plaza. Then come the historic buildings between Monroe and Forsyth, with the (soon to be figured out?) Laura Place deal. Then you have the office buildings, all leading up to the Landing. Laura really is the best link from State St. to Water St.

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vicupstate Metropolitan Area

vicupstate

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Indeed, Laura is a great street, and getting better all the time. If the Landing project actually occurs, there would be an unobstructed view to the river. That would really top things off. Downtown This Week had a cover of Laura Street from the 10th floor of 100 N. Laura. It was a great pic. That was about two weeks ago.

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