by Bradley Parsons
Staff Writer
The City is preparing to offer $22.6 million to buy the Ed Ball Building on Hogan Street. But the City also expects to spend another $10 million to make the building good enough for government work.
City Public Works Director Alan Mosley said Monday he expects renovations on the 11-story, 400,000-square-foot building to cost “about $1 million per floor.” That would run the City’s bill to about $33 million to convert the office building into City offices.
The costs largely will be covered by $25 million in City bonds. The City’s Building Inspection Division is contributing $1.75 million to renovate the building’s first two floors, which it will then occupy. The Public Defender’s Office is chipping in $3.78 million for its space on the sixth and seventh floors. And $4.6 million is expected from City funds set aside to build and outfit the new County Courthouse.
That will leave $3 million in renovations unfunded. The City currently expects to have only $2 million of the projected $5 million cost to renovate the fifth and sixth floors for its Information Technology Department.
The City has time to find a funding source. Current tenant Wachovia is expected to stay in the building until Sept. 2007.
Pending the City’s purchase from Pennsylvania-based American Financial Realty Trust, major renovations will start when Wachovia leaves. But the City will start work early on the unoccupied 10th floor. That’s the future home of the City’s Public Works Department’s administrative offices.
Public Works is clearing out of the City Hall Annex on Bay Street to make way for the State Attorney’s Office, which is leaving the Duval County Courthouse to clear space for two new courtrooms.
The Ball Building is a centerpiece of the City’s plan to create a “government square” surrounding Hemming Plaza and City Hall. The plan would concentrate City offices while allowing the City to vacate its Annex, which sits on valuable Bay Street property just two blocks from the river. The City plans to sell the Annex, using the proceeds to pay down debt from the Ball Building purchase.
The plan continues former mayor John Delaney’s vision to get the government off the riverfront, putting that property back on the tax rolls. The same rationale applied when the City chose to move the County Courthouse from Bay Street to LaVilla.
The plan has largely been supported by the City Council, which holds the City’s purse-strings. But not everyone there is convinced that the Ed Ball purchase makes sense.
Council member Suzanne Jenkins, whose district includes the building, would like to see it in private, tax-paying hands. She suggested at Monday’s Finance Committee meeting that the City could save $22 million by substituting the vacant Haydon Burns Library for the Ball Building.
Mosley responded that the Hogan Street building was a perfect fit for the “government square” concept. He was concerned that delays now to consider another course of action could scuttle the City’s deal with AFRT. After nearly a year of negotiations, the City whittled the trust’s $32 million asking price down to $22.6 million. The City must declare its intent to buy the building by Dec. 31, he said, or else let the deal go.