J Magazine Winter 2017

One of them is Genovar’s Hall. Built in 1895, it was at the heart of
a thriving African-American community in LaVilla.
Jazz greats Louis Armstrong and Billie Holiday played there.
The building has been vacant since the mid-1980s. It’s now just a
graffiti-stained, empty shell.
In 1998, an African-American fraternity tried to restore the building.
After years of effort and almost $1 million in state and city money,
the city took ownership of the property in 2009.
And there it sits today — an eyesore.
On the same city-owned lot, there are three shotgun houses that
were built in 1903.
They were originally located on Lee Street, but after being barely
saved from demolition as most of LaVilla was razed during the River
City Renaissance, the city moved them to Jefferson Street.
They have been there since 1999, slowly falling apart — another
eyesore.
The idea had been a good one. The restored Genovar’s Hall and
shotgun houses would anchor a block that would serve as an active
museum recreating the vibrant life that LaVilla had enjoyed before it
was destroyed for modern development.
It was a good intention that has gone unrealized for two decades.
Mayor Lenny Curry correctly pressured the private owners of the
Berkman Plaza tower that has sat unfinished for years on the riverfront
into taking action to move that project forward.
That’s a little bit like telling someone to take a speck out of their
eye when you have a log in your own.
Owner: The City of Jacksonville
Barriers: Many. But historians say what remains
of the buildings is structurally sound.
Florida Baptist Convention Building
Just down the street from the marvelously restored Seminole
Club — now Sweet Pete’s — is the last building in downtown Jacksonville
designed by famed architect Henry Klutho.
Once the structure at 218 Church St. bustled with activity as the
tan brick building served as the denominational offices of the Florida
Baptist Convention. Today, it’s sadly decaying.
Behind the plywood that covers its front entrance, rooms are
gutted, plaster is falling from the ceiling and decades of debris litter
the floor
A possible savior had appeared in 2014 when Marcus Lemonis,
the billionaire reality-show “shark” who footed much of the bill for
Sweet Pete’s, bought the building.
But plans to create first a park then a college dormitory within its
five stories stuttered and died.
It’s sold several times since then. Atrium Properties bought it in
early 2017 and has no plans yet to redevelop it.
Owner: Atrium Properties LLC
Old Federal Reserve building
This building completes the “forgotten” block of structures
bounded by Hogan, Church and Julia streets. It is the only building
on the list that’s not vacant.
Now known as the Physician and Surgeon Building, the bank
at 424 N. Hogan St. was opened in 1924 in the heart of the city’s
central business district.
It was where the bankers banked.
It was designed by the city’s first female architect Henrietta Dozier,
who was born in Fernandina Beach and graduated from the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1899. She was the first
Southern woman to be accepted by the American Institute of Ar-
86 J MAGAZINE | WINTER 2017-18