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Efforts to gain a spot for LaVilla on the National Register of Historic Places have entered a new phase, which if successful would help free up federal tax credits revive buildings in the district.
Mayor Donna Deegan, LaVilla Preservation and partners announced March 18 that they had begun developing a formal National Register nomination after substantially completing a first phase that involved providing an inventory of properties with historic, cultural, architectural and archaeological significance.
LaVilla comprises the northwest quadrant of Downtown’s eight districts and also extends west of Interstate 95.
Deegan said a leading goal of the National Register designation was to raise awareness of LaVilla’s historical significance. The neighborhood, which dates to the 1960s during the Reconstruction Era, was home to a large African-American community and to an immigrant population that included Arabs, Cubans, Chinese, Eastern European Jews, Greeks and Italians.
Deegan called LaVilla “the city’s first melting pot.”
Beyond helping educate people about LaVilla’s history, Deegan said the designation would have economic benefits. According to LaVilla Preservation, the nomination is expected to be completed in winter 2025.
“It opens up opportunities and funding for so many things if you’re designated historic,” she said.
“So it’s something we’re looking forward to going after. And having that collaboration between the business community and the nonprofit community and government and all of us pushing toward that end, I think we can maximize the dollars that we can get for LaVilla in that effort.”
According to a news release from LaVilla Preservation, the organization’s partners include the Downtown Investment Authority, Community First Credit Union, Corner Lot, Community Planning Collaborative, FaverGray, Gateway Jax and the Brookins Brown Blodgett Corporation.
LaVilla, the oldest neighborhood in Jacksonville, became an epicenter for Black culture, music and the arts before much of it was demolished in the 1990s in a failed urban renewal effort.
LaVilla community leader Adrian Swanigan said that while large portions of LaVilla were razed, there are numerous historic structures west of Interstate 95 that would be candidates for preservation. They include movie studio buildings and industrial structures.
The National Register designation would help unlock a 20% tax credit available for the rehabilitation of buildings that are determined by the federal government to be “certified historic structures.”
Such tax credits were used to partially fund the $73 million adaptive reuse of the Union Terminal Warehouse, which opened March 6. The building, constructed in 1913, was resurrected with mixed-income housing, offices and retail units.
Several private and public developments were recently completed or are nearing completion in LaVilla, including Lift Ev’ry Voice and Sing Park, the LaVilla Link of the Emerald Trail and the $23 million Johnson Commons town homes.
In December 2024, the University of Florida chose LaVilla as the site of its proposed graduate center campus in Jacksonville. Plans call for the campus to be built on and around the Prime F. Osborn III Convention Center site, where the newer portion of the convention center would be demolished to make way for educational buildings.
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