Downtown Jacksonville has a shortage of hotels. It’s an issue that has existed for decades and even resulted in national ridicule for the city when it hosted the Super Bowl in 2005.
But there was a time, several years ago, when downtown Jax boasted over two dozen hotels. It was back in the heyday of the area, when theaters, restaurants, and streetcars lined its streets rather than empty buildings and skyscrapers.
Most of those hotels were demolished long ago. The rest have either been adapted for another use or continue to sit unused.
We’ve chosen a handful of these historic hotels to highlight; this is by no means a comprehensive list, but it’s a good sampling of the type of hotels that once graced downtown Jax.
The Windsor Hotel, located next to Hemming Park, actually had two different incarnations.
The first Windsor was built in 1875 and was among multiple hotels surrounding the city’s first park. It thrived during Jacksonville’s tourism boom in the late 1800s, but unfortunately the building was burned to the ground in the Great Fire of 1901.
Undeterred, the building’s owners not only rebuilt the Windsor in 1902 but also bought the land formerly occupied by its chief rival, the St. James Hotel. That property was later sold to the Cohen Brothers, who developed a department store on the land.
The new hotel was built with grand architectural features both inside and out, which it used as a major selling point in its marketing brochures. Its balcony dining room overlooked Hemming Park, which at the time consisted mostly of trees and open grass fields.
At some point, the hotel was under the management of hotelier Robert Meyer – which would, ironically, later occupy the property in a different capacity. (Refer to the next entry on this list for more on that.)
The Windsor played a large role in establishing the trend of decadent downtown hotels, but that trend would also prove to be its downfall. It faced stiff competition from other, more modern options, and by the late 1940s, it was no longer financially viable. The hotel was demolished in 1950.
Originally converted to a surface parking lot, the Windsor’s former property now serves as the front lawn for the Bryan Simpson United States Courthouse.
