A.G. Gancarski
Progress on the eventual re-development of the Jacksonville Shipyards likely will be measured in months, if not years, if a Wednesday meeting of the Jacksonville City Council’s Finance Committee is any indication.
Back in 2014, an ordinance was passed by the same legislative body to fund cleanup of the Shipyards in advance of a sale to the developer; that cleanup was to be funded by a $13.4 million bankruptcy settlement from a previous would-be developer in 2014
Optimism ran high in the chattering classes thereafter. But the Florida Department of Environmental Protection had other ideas.
The FDEP’s Site Assessment Report asserted that the Shipyards site needed additional assessment to facilitate semi-annual groundwater monitoring, remediation of what is called “tar-like material” on one part of the site, and contingency funds for other tasks, including still more assessment.
With those needs in mind, more money is needed. And to that end, Finance was the third committee to mull and approve a measure re-appropriating $175,000 from reserve funds into operational funds, to facilitate groundwater monitoring and to add fencing to block away potential hazard areas.
In that discussion, however, it was revealed that the eventual usage of the Shipyards property on Jacksonville’s Northbank may be considerably less compelling and less immediate than the conceptually dazzling “mojo in action” vision articulated by Shad Khan in 2015, which was to be an antidote to the “boulevard of broken dreams”, a “front door to downtown Jacksonville with no porch light and no welcome mat.”
As John Pappas of the Jacksonville Public Works department said Wednesday, the immediate need is to ensure that “contamination” is “adequately assessed.”
That assessment is a precondition to FDEP approval of a “remedial action plan,” the scope of which will be determined by the eventual development on the site.
Pappas asserted that there are “some things you can do with development and cleanup needs to reduce costs on remedial action.”
And the time frame is anyone’s guess, Pappas added. It could take “months, then it goes back to DEP for approval.”
“We’re really just focused on the assessment,” Pappas added. “I don’t know what’s in play for trying to identify future uses.”
Councilman Bill Gulliford noted that if the city keeps the shipyard property, some type of “passive development” may be in order.
The assessment is the non-negotiable piece of the whole deal, and it’s the only thing with certainty at this point.
Post assessment, the “challenges,” said Pappas, will “have to be incorporated into the remedial action plan.”
