by Max Marbut
Staff Writer
CSX building turns 50
The day after Independence Day in 1960, the mass move of 960 new residents began to arrive in Jacksonville from Wilmington, N.C. They were executives and employees from the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad and they were coming to work in the company’s new headquarters building Downtown on the Northbank of the St. Johns River.
While the technology behind running the railroad has changed over the years, the building itself retains most of the design it had the day it opened half a century ago.
Originally, the building was home to ACL and several other tenants who leased space including the structure’s architects, Kemp, Bunch and Jackson (now KBJ).
The first floor was devoted at that time to retail that was open to the public, including a barber shop, women’s hair salon and a jewelry store. On the second floor was the Signal Terrace Cafe, also open to the public.
Seven years later, the Atlantic Coast Line and Seaboard Air Line railroads merged to form Seaboard Coast Line, which merged with the Chessie System to become CSX Corp. in 1980. CSX Corp. headquarters were established in Richmond, Va., a neutral site for Chessie, based in Cleveland, and Seaboard, based in Jacksonville.
Seaboard System Railroad became CSX Transportation in 1986. The CSX Corp. corporate headquarters moved to Jacksonville in 2003.
“The building hasn’t changed much,” said Peter Trolle, CSX director of corporate services. He said today the entire building is occupied by CSX executives and employees. The company also has the same number of employees, about 900.
So how did the company have space to rent in its headquarters building 50 years ago?
“Back then there were open floors and seas of desks. Vice presidents sat in the corners,” explained Trolle.
The biggest change in the building was a refurbishment of the exterior in 2005. Trolle said the original blue and green tiles began falling off the sides, probably due to years of thermal stress in the hot Jacksonville sun. One option was to paint the tiles, but that would have cost about $1 million and wouldn’t have been a permanent solution, so a plan was devised to “re-skin” the building at a cost of about $6 million.
Another change was when the locomotive that was on display in front of the building when it opened was relocated to the new convention center when it opened and was named after Prime F. Osborn III, the general counsel for Atlantic Coast Line and the first chairman of CSX Corp. Tracks were laid down Bay Street between the two buildings for the move.
Ray Bullard, now retired, was the assistant director of public relations and advertising when the company moved to Jacksonville. He said the city didn’t just roll out the welcome mat, it sent the welcome wagon to Wilmington.
“The Cohen Brothers and Furchgott’s department stores sent people to Wilmington to sign our employees up for credit cards and the banks sent people to help our employees open accounts,” he recalled. “Realtors went up there to show properties. ACL had overnight service from Wilmington to Jacksonville, so people could leave Friday and spend the weekend looking at houses.”
Bullard said one of his fondest memories is the time a delegation of Russian transportation officials toured the building in the early 1960s at the height of the Cold War.
“They all had cameras, but we wouldn’t let them take any pictures of our operations,” he said. “They were fascinated by the step stools in the law library, the kind with the casters on springs that made the wheels retract when you step on it. I guess they didn’t have anything like that in Russia.”
As the tour was leaving, the official who was the equivalent of the U.S. Secretary of Transportation asked about the floor and pillars in the lobby, Bullard said.
“Are they made of plastic?” he asked through his interpreter. No, he was told, they are made of Italian marble.
“When we take over the United States, I want this to be my headquarters,” declared the visiting official.
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