by Mike Sharkey
Staff Writer
When the Vestcor Companies eyed downtown as a possible development area several years ago, they set their sights on two of Jacksonville’s oldest buildings — the old American Heritage Life building and the Roosevelt Hotel.
Once it was determined the historically significant buildings could be secured, a simple strategic plan involving several complicated components was developed: obtain purchasing and developing incentives, remodel the AHL building into 11 E. Forsyth — 126 market-rate apartments with first floor retail space — prove the rental market exists and move forward with plans to renovate the Roosevelt into The Carlington — 100 market-rate apartments with 15,000 square feet of retail space.
Consider the plan well executed. In fact, per the original development/incentive agreement signed on Sept. 28, 2001 with the Jacksonville Economic Development Commission, Vestcor is well ahead of schedule. Under the agreement, Vestcor (which purchased the two buildings with City assistance for $5 million) had 24 months to begin renovations at the Roosevelt or forfeit the building to the City.
Who needs two years? Not Vestcor. With last week’s Downtown Development Authority approval, Vestcor is about two months away from getting the full nod on what will become The Carlington.
“We are one-third of the way,” said Mark Farrell, Vestcor vice president. “I think we will be on the May 8 JEDC agenda.”
Provided there are no snags — and it’s very rare a DDA-approved project is rejected by the JEDC — Farrell figures the project could be read into the record at the May 13 City Council meeting. After the usual six-week Council process, Vestcor will be able to begin initial demolition of a building that is crumbling daily.
“Each passing day, the property deteriorates,” said Farrell. “The roof leaks, windows are open and we’ve had some failure with bricks. Each day the condition gets worse. We have to make a decision on whether to move forward or, candidly, knock it down. It’s not in good condition.”
Farrell stressed that demolition is certainly the last option on a long list. But the fact remains: the building is Vestcor’s and if the City ultimately decides renovating is cost-prohibitive, there may not be another choice.
“Our preference, and that of a majority of the folks downtown, is we want to preserve the building,” stressed Farrell. “Is that [demolition] an option? Yes. Do we want to do that? Absolutely not. It’s part of the city’s fabric and and we want to keep that and restore the building. Demolition is not a good option.
“You can remodel anything, that’s not the issue. The reason we’d tear it down is if the City was not interested in moving forward with remodeling and the property continued to deteriorate and become a safety hazard.”
Demolition talk aside, Farrell said Vestcor has developed a plan to begin on The Carlington as soon all the formalities have been addressed.
“There’s nothing immediate to do today or we’d be doing it,” explained Farrell. “Initially, we’ll take down the parking structure; chunks of concrete are falling off. Then, we’ll start the abatement of the hazardous materials, the lead paint and the asbestos. We still have to finalize all the architectural and engineering plans and get the permitting. We estimate it will be the fourth quarter of this year before we start construction.”
According to Farrell, Vestcor is ahead of the agreement schedule but right where they expected to be from their perspective.
“We always thought 11 E. would be successful,” he said. “To date, 11 E. has been well-received and it’s doing extremely well. Once we finished 11 E. and showed positive momentum in leasing, it was possible to show the City we did what we said we were going to do.”