by Mike Sharkey
Staff Writer
Barring a setback in bid packaging plans, the City plans to start demolition work at the new main library site sometime in May. Library project manager Rex Holmlin indicated that he hopes to have a four-part demolition bid package available for RFP’s (Request For Proposal) by March 18.
In an e-mail to Audrey Moran, Mayor John Delaney’s chief of staff, Holmlin said he was shooting for a bid opening date of April 17.
“It appears demolition will start in May,” said Holmlin.
The new $95 million main library is going on the block directly east of Hemming Plaza and diagonally across from City Hall. The demolition work will be both awarded and done in four parts.
Phase I is the demolition of the old Rhodes Building, which the City and representatives from the Historical Preservation Society spent months trying to figure out how to either incorporate into the design of the new library or save and move to another location.
Phase II involves taking down the low-rise buildings at the western edge of the block, while saving the old Western Telegraph Building which now houses the Jacksonville Museum of Modern Art.
Phase III is the demolition of the buildings on the site designated for the library’s parking garage and the last phase involves removal of the concrete and asphalt from the remaining area of the block.
However, not everything will get the wrecking ball. According to Holmlin, the bid package “provides for the salvage of select elements of the facades of the two LaRose Buildings and the cornice work on the Rhodes building.”
Moran said the demolition work won’t take long.
“I think we will be completely done within a week,” she said, adding that weather is the only real hindrance to meeting that goal. “We hope to accomplish the demolition fairly quickly and get on with construction after that.”
Once the demolition is done, work will begin on the Robert A.M. Stern architectural firm design as soon as possible.
“We are still in the design phase and are negotiating with Stern,” said Moran. “Once the site is ready, it’s really up to the architects as to how soon we get started.”
Although the new library won’t be finished until December of 2004, Better Jacksonville Plan officials plan to have a dedication ceremony shortly before Delaney steps down from office on June 30, 2003.
If this schedule for the library holds true, within six months three of the four major projects within the Better Jacksonville Plan — construction on the $25 million baseball park will begin soon and construction on the $125 million arena has started — will be well underway. Considering that all three projects will need dozens of workers on a daily basis, finding qualified help may be an issue. Not so, says Moran.
“We are confident that we will be able to use a tremendous amount of local, as well as out-of-town, workers,” said Moran, adding that finding the workers is not the City’s problem. “We are leaving that up to the program managers.”