Jacksonville: unbuilt skyscrapers

[bobliocatt]

A couple of weeks ago I found some photos of planned skyscrapers, in the early 20th century that were never built in Jacksonville. Here they are.

S.A. Lynch Building

Architect Henry Klutho's design for the Lnych Building. Well to make a long story short, it lost to the present building, which was recently renovated into an upsacle apartment tower now named 11E Forsyth

The Dodge Skyscraper

This building, proposed by Judge Dodge in 1912, is said to have been an extortion scheme. The developer threatened to building this 15 story building on the south side of the 15 story Heard Building, which was then under construction. If built, it would have placed a solid block wall against all of the Heard's south windows, thus cutting out the building's view and ventilation. Since Heard was already under construction, its owners had no choice but to pay Dodge not to build his skyscraper.

This illustration shows the location of the Dodge & Heard Buildings

Masonic Temple

originally announced as an 11 story building in 1912 on the corner of Main & Monroe St. It was built as a six story building and today its site is a surface parking lot.

City Hall

City Hall proposal by Klutho on the waterworks site at Confedrate Park on Main St.

This proposal would have also rerouted traffic on a grand landscaped boulevard at Kings Rd that would have ended at city hall

W.R. Carter Building 1924

a proposal designed by Klutho, for The Metropolis (an investment company), but never built.

[UK_D]

Theres some nice scrapers in there.

btw was the Dodge Skyscraper meant to be slanted, or is it just my eyes?

[bobliocatt]

^no just a bad scan on my part.

[Urban_Legend]

WOW! I love historical stuff like that. I wonder what the Confederate Park area would look like now, had City Hall been built there...

[Spartan]

The Dodge buliding would have been an interesting landmark...

[bobliocatt]

Out of all of these unbuilt projects, the city hall, with the long landscaped Boulevard (new Kings Avenue) terminating at it, would have been the most interesting and unique. The look of the city hall tower, reminds me of Buffalo, NY's city hall. Even in a decayed condition, it would have looked better than whats there now.

[Urban_Legend]

It would be better than the current condition of that area. But I still like the St. James in the Hemming Plaza area.

[bobliocatt]

Yeah, the St. James is nice, I went in to see the 4 story Atrium a couple of weeks ago. But it was one of the largest department stores in the country when the proposal for city hall was made. Its quite possible, Jax could have had both.

Anyway, I hope the city, some day, adds a little retail to the St. James, facing Hemming Plaza or Laura Street. That would just about complete the resurrection of that space.