Demolition will raze old Ford auto plant that gave Jacksonville a slice of Motor City

Jacksonville is the River City but a century ago, it had some Motor City running through it as well.

The Ford Motor Company assembly plant cranked out the Model T automobile and then the Model A between 1924 and 1932 when it was one of the biggest automobile assembly plants in the Southeast, producing 200 cars in an eight-hour day.

The red-brick building still stands just north of the Mathews Bridge on the Talleyrand side of the St. Johns River, but it's been deteriorating for years even though the city designated it as a local landmark deserving preservation in 2003.

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Jacksonville City Council unanimously agreed Tuesday with the owner of the building that it's reached the stage where the best way forward will be to demolish it and open up the riverfront land for new development such as a ship repair facility that fits today's industrial waterfront.

“Once this structure is down, you will see opportunity and you will see jobs created," City Council member Reggie Gaffney said.

He said those will be jobs that can employ people from the north side of the city, particularly the nearby Eastside neighborhood.

The Jacksonville Historic Preservation Commission previously denied Amkin Hill Street LLC's application to tear down the building that's been a fixture on the waterfront, visible to motorists crossing the Mathews Bridge on the way toward downtown.

Amkin Hill appealed the decision to the council's Land Use and Zoning Committee that voted last week in favor of reversing the preservation commission's decision.

The full City Council voted unanimously Tuesday for the Land Use and Zoning Committee's recommendation.

"It was fairly clear that this was not a salvageable facility," City Council member Michael Boylan said of the committee's decision. "It was the right thing to do."

Amkin is part of the real estate holdings of Ramon Llorens, who is based in Miami and also owns the 30-story TIAA Bank Center tower in downtown Jacksonville.

“He’s invested in Jacksonville and is very excited about going forward on this project," said Cindy Laquidara, an attorney representing Amkin.

The Jacksonville Historical Society, a nonprofit dedicated to preserving historic buildings, had urged denial of the demolition permit.

"Not every old building can be saved and not all of them should be," Alan Bliss, CEO of the historical society, told the Land Use and Zoning Committee last week. "The Jacksonville Ford Motor Company Assembly Plant should be."

Bliss said his group has listed the old Ford plant on its list of the city's most endangered buildings for several years.

"We've been aware that it's a tempting redevelopment opportunity and that puts any aging and underutilized building at risk," he said.

He said the historical society supports partial demolition of the building that would take down the part closest to the waterfront that Bliss said was built on dredged and backfilled soil.

He said that would still enable preservation of the rest of the building that was constructed on the original uplands. He said that part of the building could have a financially viable future while also maintaining a connection to Jacksonville's identity as Florida's major industrial city.

Amkin said in its appeal to City Council that a structural engineer and an architect who assessed the building determined structural damage throughout the building makes rehabilitation of it impossible, whether it's the entire building or part of it.

"Millions have been invested in this property, including in the analysis of the ability to rehabilitate the building," the appeal said. "It cannot be done. The property cannot be economically developed without the demolition of the building."

The appeal said the owner's "intended use" of the property will add 300 jobs but it cannot move forward on that redevelopment until it repairs failing bulkheads, and the work on the bulkheads would cause a collapse of the building.

Gaffney said Jacksonville has "lost about five opportunities working with international companies to move" to the site because the building conflicted with how they would use the site.

Another LLC connected to Llorens previously purchased the old Greyhound bus station on Pearl Street in downtown and demolished it after Greyhound moved to a new station built in the LaVilla neighborhood of downtown.

Amkin floated a plan in 2019 to build a 54-story tower on that site but it's been a surface parking lot since the old Greyhound station was razed.

While the building where automobile workers built Model Ts and Model As is headed for demolition, City Council member Danny Becton worked out an arrangement between the historical society and Amkin for a photographer to take detailed phots of the building, including with drone technology.

The photos will go into a narrative history of the building that will be archived as a "lasting record of this building which is a venue for a lot of significant Jacksonville stories," Bliss told City Council on Tuesday.

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Ford automobile assembly plant in Jacksonville will be torn down