by Mike Sharkey
Staff Writer
As Phase I of the $860 million Shipyards project unfolds over the next couple of years, what was once an abandoned blight will see a major renovation that is just one piece of a 10-year puzzle. Scheduled to be completed by late 2004, Phase I will include The Sheds waterfront condos, a public park and an extension of the Northbank Riverwalk.
Once the 2005 Super Bowl is over, work will begin on the second phase, which promises more residential housing, twin office towers with one million square feet of space, 150 boat slips, a 350-room hotel, almost 4,000 on-site parking spaces, nearly 200,000 square feet of retail/commercial space and more public access parks.
For Jeff Spence, CEO of TriLegacy (the development company that’s driving the Shipyards project), the project is a dream come true. However, he has one little problem and he just may have to live with it.
Smack in the middle of the eastern half of the development is a parcel of land that Spence wasn’t able to acquire and he may never be able to purchase. It’s approximately 800 square feet and it represents only a fraction the 44.7-acre development. Its purpose? To serve as one of three anchor sites for Ch. 12/25’s tower, which reaches 1,000 feet toward the stratosphere.
Spence would like nothing more than to remove the unsightly mass of cable and connectors, but because of the number of players involved, the process is quite complicated and may prove impossible. But Spence, and other members of his TriLegacy team, are actively seeking a solution that would satisfy all involved parties.
“We entered negotiations with Ch. 12 a number of months ago about the property,” said Cleve Farnell of TriLegacy. “It was about a year ago and we have left it alone.”
Spence admitted the tower anchor isn’t a major priority right now simply because of the development’s construction schedule. But, that doesn’t mean he isn’t interested in getting it resolved as soon as possible.
“I don’t see it as a hurdle, not in One Shipyard Place” said Spence. “Later, when we want to put a building there, it might not make the tower work well.”
However, the matter is complicated. Consider: Spence owns The Shipyards property, while Ch. 12/25 owns the property where all three anchors sit, but not the tower, which is owned by Big League Tower, which signed a 99-year lease on the tower in 1988. Ch. 12/25 doesn’t use the tower for broadcast purposes anymore, but two local radio stations do. Ch. 12/25 does have several microwave dishes attached to the tower, which happens to span the Hart Bridge Expressway — further complicating any procedure that would involve moving the tower to a new location or spinning it to move one anchor off The Shipyards property, which would be tough because all of the land around the television station is spoken for.
Despite its appearance, the tower is not an oversized erector set that can be dismantled and rebuilt. That, however, is not stopping Spence from trying everything possible to get the anchor site off his property.
“We would like to get it moved,” said Farnell, who is working with representatives from Ch. 12/25, including General Manager Ken Tonning, who said spinning the anchors is not out of the question, but several factors would have to be taken into consideration.
Tonning doesn’t believe that Big League Tower would be willing to move the tower to another location while retaining the radio stations as clients. Taking the tower down would be both costly and very tricky and reassembling it somewhere else wouldn’t be cheap, either. And, because the tower is centrally located to the area listenership, it’s in an ideal location to provide the optimum signal. Tonning said the only way the tower could be spun would be if a land swap deal could be worked out between several entities — the City, the Jacksonville Jaguars and the TV station. If such a deal could be negotiated, spinning the tower could become one of Jacksonville’s engineering marvels.
“From a technical standpoint, can you realign the guide wires?” said Tonning. “It would mean moving all three at the same time. If the land was available, that could happen as long as they remain equal distant from the tower and each other.”
Tonning acknowledged that the station had equipment on the tower that could be mounted elsewhere, but their Towercam is positioned 600 feet up the tower. Still, Tonning maintains that doing anything other than leaving the tower where it is would present problems.
“It would be really difficult,” said Tonning of spinning the tower. “You’d have to reengineer the whole tower. Could it be done? On a scale of one to 10, with 10 being the hardest, I’d probably say it’s about an eight.”
Spence said he will continue to pursue the matter, but it isn’t paramount to The Shipyards project as a whole. Buildings can be reconfigured and the area can be landscaped in such a way that the anchor site will be virtually hidden.
“It is not an issue in the next year to 18 months,” said Spence. “It’s not something you do in a hurry.”
Farnell said future Shipyards residents, workers and visitors may just have to accept the anchor site as part of being downtown, similar to the Maxwell House Coffee plant and its aromas.
“We don’t have to move it. We could just leave it where it is,” said Farnell. “It may just part of the urban experience. I have talked to enough people to know that it is not easy to move.”