by Bradley Parsons
Staff Writer
The City will start filling in its Downtown “government square ” in September when it starts moving the Jacksonville Economic Development Commission and Public Works Department from the City Hall Annex to the Ed Ball Building.
The move will begin the City’s consolidation of its administrative offices. The plan calls for the City to eventually vacate public buildings near the river, putting the valuable land underneath on the private market.
Delays in building the new County Courthouse have slowed down those plans. The JEDC and Public Works are clearing out to make way for the State Attorney’s Office instead of a private developer. But the City’s plans to fill up the Ed Ball Building, just one block south of City Hall, are proceeding on budget and on schedule, said Dave Schneider, senior project manager for the Better Jacksonville Plan.
“Getting the Annex emptied out for the State Attorney’s Office is really what’s driving things now,” said Schneider. “They’re eventually going to need that whole building, so we’re trying to get City offices out of the Annex and into the Ed Ball.”
The SAO is vacating the Duval County Courthouse to make way for additional judges’ chambers and courtrooms.
Schneider expects the Ball Building’s 10th floor to be ready by September for Public Works. The JEDC should follow quickly. The City is accepting bids now for construction work on the 10th floor. The eighth and ninth floors should follow the 10th by a couple months, said Schneider.
Schneider expects the first two floors to be ready by early next year. Design and construction on the middle floors will follow that work, he said.
As estimated last December by Chief Operating Officer Alan Mosley, the Ball renovation will cost the City about $1 million per floor. Schneider said the finished offices would be similar to the offices in City Hall.
Mosley said in March that renovations to the building should be done by September 2007. He said the Ball building has 388,000 square feet available.
Other than the JEDC and Public Works, which are already ticketed for the Ball building, the City is also looking at moving in its building inspections and permitting divisions, the Supervisor of Elections’ Downtown offices and the Office of the Public Defender.
Schneider said the City will make it a priority to fill the offices with departments currently paying rent in other, non City-owned buildings, such as the Florida Theatre, where the City leases space for its Planning Department.
“The idea is to get them out of buildings where the City has to pay for leases and get them into City-owned assets,” he said.
Wachovia is the last major private tenant still inside the Ed Ball Building. The bank’s lease expires in September. After Wachovia clears out, the building will be almost entirely filled with government offices other than some ground floor retail, said Schneider.