by Michele Newbern Gillis
Staff Writer
When the Duval County Courthouse moves to its new location, the City Hall Annex is going up for sale.
“Our long range call has always been to sell the City Hall Annex and move government offices off of the river,” said Sharon Ashton, Mayor John Delaney’s press secretary. “This will be easier to accomplish once the courthouse moves to its new location because the courthouse is currently using a number of offices in the annex.”
The City Hall Annex is located at 220 E. Bay St. near the Duval County Courthouse.
“It will be a prime piece of property because we will have the county courthouse and the City Hall Annex up for sale,” said Ashton. “It will be prime space for a private investor to go into and develop waterfront property.”
Originally built in 1960 as the City Hall building, the Annex has 15 floors, totaling 227,799 square feet. Only 150,000 square feet can be occupied by tenants.
When the St. James Building was renovated and became home to City Hall in 1996, the building became the City Hall Annex.
Currently, the building houses about 300 City employees, including the Building Inspection Department, Public Works, including Public Buildings, Engineering, Streets and Drainage, the director’s office for Real Estate, Foster Care Review Board, Communication Services, Teen Court, Municipal Code Enforcement Board, Jacksonville Economic Development Commission and Sports Development storage, JEDC offices, state attorney offices and meeting chambers.
“The state attorneys are state employees, but the City is required by law to give them space,” said Bill Watson, division chief of public buildings for the City.
The tenants occupy 115,584 square feet and there are two floors in the building that are vacant.
“We did move some functions over to the City Hall Annex as a group to alleviate the overcrowding at the Duval County Courthouse” said Ashton. “It will of course be a temporary move because our goal is to sell that building.”
Even though there is vacant space in the building, the City does not lease the space; it is for City employees only.
“The building does not have a sprinkler system and there is still some asbestos in the ceilings, so we have an agreement with the fire department not to lease the building,” said Watson. “It has to meet certain standards in order to get somebody in there. All I know is when they moved out of it, we weren’t going to put anybody else back in there because of the expense of redecorating, asbestos abatement and the sprinkler system.”
Amenities in the building include a snack shop, security guards and an information desk.
Watson oversees the maintenance on the building, but said there haven’t been any major renovations in the last few years.
“You are always touching up something or fixing up something, just general maintenance,” said Watson. “There hasn’t been any remodeling. We have gone in and cleaned the place and painted, but that’s just maintenance.”
Watson takes care of whatever the building needs to operate, including air conditioning, roofing, painting, carpets, flooring, janitorial services and landscaping.
When the building is sold, Watson says it would be ideal for office space.
“There’s really nothing else you could use it for, except an office building, because of the way it’s laid out,” said Watson. “It’s on Bay Street, so it’s good property. It’s not riverfront anymore since the Adam’s Mark was built, but it’s still a good piece of property.”