5 Great Examples of Adaptive Reuse in Jacksonville

As cities age, they must figure out what to do with historic buildings that have outlived their original purpose.

For many years, Jacksonville’s most common solution to this dilemma was to just demolish the buildings. It’s why there are so many surface parking lots and parking garages downtown, and why LaVilla is full of empty lots rather than the historic buildings that once sat there.

But increasingly, over the past few decades, local historic properties have begun to receive the respect they deserve. Adaptive reuse projects – that is, projects wherein an existing building is repurposed after losing its original tenant – have sprung up across the city, from downtown to San Marco to Springfield and beyond.

These are just a few of the prime examples of what can happen when a developer is willing to put in the time, money, and patience required for an adaptive reuse project.

COWFORD CHOPHOUSE

Before the Klempf family purchased the property, the old Bostwick Building was close to falling apart.

The building, designed by J.H.W. Hawkins, was built in 1902 to house a bank. It cycled through a series of bank tenants before being taken over by William Bostwick, Jr., who had served as an executive at one of those banks. Bostwick turned it into an office building, which it operated as for several decades, but by the ‘80s the building was all but abandoned.

Almost nothing was done to maintain the building, which sustained roof damage and subsequent water intrusion that essentially ruined the interior. The Bostwick family tried to get the city to let them tear it down in 2012; the city instead declared the building a historic property and foreclosed on the Bostwicks.

Local restaurateur Jacques Klempf bought the building via city auction for $165,000 with plans to turn it into an upscale restaurant – but doing so would be no easy task.

The interior of the building had to be gutted, with its walls being propped up throughout much of the construction process as contractors built the interior from scratch. The $6 million construction effort was led by Danis Construction.

The result was an elegant, upscale steakhouse crafted out of the rotted remains of what was once one of downtown’s biggest eyesores.

ST. JAMES BUILDING

Not many cities have a city hall like the St. James Building.

The historic building, designed by Henry J. Klutho, was originally built as an old-school department store – namely, the Cohen Brothers department store. It was completed in 1912 on the site of the former St. James Hotel, which burned down in the Great Fire of 1901.

The store occupied the bottom two stories of the four-story building, with office space on the floors above.

In the ‘50s, Cohen Brothers became May-Cohens. But the suburban shopping mall craze would soon draw most shoppers out of downtown Jax, forcing May-Cohens to limp along until closing in the late ‘80s.

In the early ‘90s, then-Mayor Ed Austin proposed that the city purchase and renovate the building for use as a new city hall. The project cost $24 million and involved restoring some of the original details from Klutho’s design that had been removed in renovations over the years.

The building re-opened as the new city hall in 1997, and it still serves that role today.

THE BARNETT TOWER

Few buildings have endured as many “false starts” as The Barnett Tower.

The building, constructed in 1926, was once Jacksonville’s tallest building, but like many downtown Jax buildings, it wound up mostly empty by the ‘90s.

The building was supposed to be redeveloped – first by LB Jax Development which couldn’t get enough funding, then by Orlando developer Cameron Kuhn, who would remove many of the building’s architectural flourishes during demolition before going bankrupt, then by Capital City Partners who never got beyond offering a concept. Even Shad Khan’s Stache Investments briefly owned the building.

But now, after so many false starts, the building has been successfully redeveloped into apartments, a UNF annex campus, and – still under construction as of now – a Chase Bank branch location and Vagabond Coffee. The project, led by SouthEast Group, cost $43 million and is the first phase of the planned redevelopment of the nearby Laura Street Trio buildings.

PRIME OSBORN CONVENTION CENTER

Among the earliest examples of adaptive reuse in Jax, the Prime F. Osborn III Convention Center was originally built in 1919 as the new Union Terminal.

The building, which sits on the edge of LaVilla and Brooklyn, was the largest railroad station in the South when it opened. It was designed by Kenneth Murchison, who also designed Penn Station in Maryland. Part of the old terminal station, built in the 1890s, was retained alongside the new building.

The Union Terminal station shut down in the mid-‘70s, leaving the building without a purpose until Osborn, a CSX executive, spearheaded a movement to convert it into a new convention center for the city.

The Prime Osborn Convention Center opened in 1986 and has served as the city’s official convention center ever since – though a new convention center is expected to be built within the next five to ten years.

The building will then have to find a new purpose, but its proximity to the new Regional Transportation Center and new apartment and townhome developments could make that a relatively easy task. A possible path forward for the building can be seen in Denver, CO’s own redeveloped Union Station.

KINGDOM PLAZA

Prior to 2003, much of what was left of the old Normandy Mall was vacant and rotting away.

The mall had closed in the ‘90s, and part of the property had already been redeveloped into a shopping center.

Then along came Potter’s House Christian Fellowship with a bit of divine intervention.

The church bought the remains of the mall for $4 million and pumped an additional $7.5 million into renovating it. Part of the mall was torn down, splitting it into two separate buildings. A former anchor store within one half was converted into a new megachurch for Potter’s House.

The other half became a rebuilt mini-shopping mall, building upon the original structure of the Normandy Mall. This portion officially re-opened in 2007, with a collection of tenants including Soul Food Bistro, a large bowling alley and pro bowling shop, a fitness center, and several other small shops and amenities. The revamped mini-mall was given the name Kingdom Plaza.

Thanks to the work of Potter’s House, the old Normandy Mall still lives on after over fifty years.