Supervisor of Elections to Park View Inn?

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Supervisor of Elections looking for location

Supervisor of Elections Jerry Holland said this morning he has three primary real estate recommendations — Downtown, Southside and Arlington — for the City to consider in the event operations are pulled from the Gateway Town Center.

Holland said he was waiting to hear today whether developer Carlton Jones has arranged a deal to keep the Gateway Town Center in Northside from foreclosure.

Jones said late Wednesday that he was working with the center’s attorney and had no comment.

Jones said a news release might be issued “once we have something to announce.”

“Tomorrow is the day Carlton Jones said he would have his financial partners in place and do away with the foreclosure issue,” Holland said Wednesday afternoon.

The elections office operates an election center and branch office at Gateway and its lease becomes month-by-month now that it’s March.

Holland said the 52,000-square-foot center handles poll worker training, a call center, equipment and testing in addition to vote tabulation on election night.

“That’s where our activity moves on Election Day,” he said.

Holland said his office does not want to continue on a monthly rental. He said Jones said the rent payments could be lowered with a new lease, although Holland said that depends on who owns the structure.

Holland also said the City needs to decide whether it is more cost-effective to own property or to lease.

“With new owners, you don’t know what direction they want to go with Gateway,” Holland said of the possible foreclosure.

Holland said City Council wants options for the office to relocate, including owning rather than renting.

“Gateway is not out of the question if he works out his foreclosure issue,” Holland said.

He said that in working with the City real estate division, his recommendations are:

• The former Park View Inn site at Main and State streets. Holland said it would cost $7.5 million to buy and renovate the property into a 72,000-square-foot office. It would combine the existing Downtown main elections office at 105 E. Monroe St. and the Gateway operations.

• The former State Farm building at 6400 Atlantic Blvd. in Southside. Holland said that space, about 110,000 square feet, would combine the Downtown main office and the Gateway operations and also could handle traffic court and the traffic division of the Clerk of Courts. Holland said that would save the City $350,000 a year. He said that the negative factor would be leaving Downtown, although early voting would be available at the Main Library.

• A design-build development along the Arlington Expressway where a shopping center was torn down and a roundabout built. Holland said that $6 million, 56,000-square-foot project would accommodate the functions now at Gateway and that the main office would remain Downtown.

“It’s really a decision now in the Council and mayor’s hands,” he said.

More here: http://www.jaxdailyrecord.com/showstory ... _id=535802

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What might be . . .

[Debbie Thompson]

Would be nice if they could restore the facade of the old Cadillac Building in the process. The State Farm office makes sense too. Hopefully they'd want to stay downtown.

[fsu813]

Looks like part of the parking garage would be scrapped for a small green space. Besides the dimensions, the two buildings are barely recognizable. I'm surprised & pleased that COJ would consider a renivation on this scale.

If the Mayor sticks to his "downtown" guns, this will happen. But the price tag, I guess about $1.5 mill over the next option, is the scary part in this political/economic climate.

It's a historic building.......I wonder if Jax Hist Society would put up some of it's historic renovation pot-of-cash for this project?

[CityLife]

It isn't truly $1.5 million more than the Arlington site. In fact it may be cheaper over the long term.

As proposed the SOE would keep the downtown office open if they go with the Arlington site. That means they would have additional operational costs with that option. Plus the sale of the old SOE site could offset some of the $1.5 million difference. There is no way they go with that option over the Park View.

The competition would be the Southside site. I'll reserve judgement until I hear more about it, but in theory I don't like it.