JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 The reopening of the Jacksonville Fire Museum has hit another setback, adding to years of delays that have already cost taxpayers millions of dollars.<\/p>\n
Last month, Action News Jax\u2019s Ben Becker exposed structural problems with the building<\/b><\/a>. <\/p>\n >>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n Now, an Action News Jax investigation has uncovered a failed historic preservation review, Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) compliance questions, and the reason the museum lost its historic designation in the first place.<\/p>\n Historic designation lost after building relocation<\/b><\/p>\n The Jacksonville Fire Museum<\/b><\/a> is intended to anchor a museum district at the Shipyards with the USS Orleck and MOSH (Museum of Science and History).<\/p>\n Action News Jax has learned the building recently failed to regain a spot on the National Register of Historic Places, a designation that could have helped reopen the museum for the first time since 2015.<\/p>\n Wayne Wood, a Jacksonville historian and former Fire Museum board member, remains optimistic.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have chance to have a world class museum, we just have to overcome this hurdle,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n [SIGN UP: <\/b>Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/b><\/a>] <\/b><\/p>\n Nearly 1,000 pages of documents obtained by Action News Jax show, among other discoveries, the 124-year-old building was stripped of its historic designation in a 2023 letter.<\/p>\n The designation was removed because the City of Jacksonville relocated the building from Catherine Street to the Shipyards in 2022<\/b><\/a> \u201cwithout prior approval from the National Park Service.\u201d<\/p>\n The relocation, combined with maintenance, repairs, and other expenses over the past decade, has cost more than $5 million. Despite that investment, the city has nothing to show for it, and the building is still considered unsafe for the public to visit.<\/p>\n Wood said it is difficult to determine the full extent of the project\u2019s problems.<\/p>\n \u201cHow much was this botched?\u201d Becker asked. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s hard to know,\u201d Wood said.<\/p>\n City officials disagree over historic designation and ADA requirements<\/b><\/p>\n Emails obtained by Action News Jax reveal disagreement among city officials over whether regaining the historic designation and ADA compliance is necessary before reopening the museum.<\/p>\n In May, the museum\u2019s curator wrote that the museum \u201cdid not pass\u201d a previous review to regain its historic status.<\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: <\/b>Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/b><\/a>]<\/b><\/p>\n The curator also wrote that the historic designation is critical for an ADA exception and identified possible ADA issues, including \u201cbathrooms\u201d and \u201caccess to the second floor.\u201d<\/p>\n However, the city\u2019s Planning Services Manager disagreed, writing:<\/p>\n \u201cADA compliance work that needs to be done does not have any impact on the National Register application. As such, your team is free to reopen the museum at any time.\u201d<\/p>\n Structural issues continue to delay reopening<\/b><\/p>\n The latest findings come after engineers discovered major structural problems and termites inside the building as Becker first reported in June.<\/p>\n While the museum remains closed, its collections continue to be stored in climate-controlled facilities.<\/p>\n Those storage costs for taxpayers have already exceeded $26,000 this year alone. Annual storage expenses ranged from roughly $60,000 to more than $71,000 between 2023 and 2025.<\/p>\n City says application is being revised<\/b><\/p>\n Action News Jax reached out to the Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department multiple times, but JFRD said Chief Percy Golden was unavailable for an interview but provided a statement saying:<\/p>\n \u201cThe historic preservation application is being revised based on input from the state. It was not rejected…\u201d<\/p>\n The statement added:<\/p>\n \u201c…the city plans to submit the revised application this month based on the state\u2019s feedback.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite the setbacks, Wood believes the museum is salvageable.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s too important to tear down and can\u2019t leave it the way it is, so we have to do something,\u201d Wood said.<\/p>\n What\u2019s next<\/b><\/p>\n The Florida Historical Commission\u2019s next meeting is scheduled for August. However, because applications must be submitted 60 days in advance, JFRD\u2019s request will not be reviewed until November, a full year after the building was originally expected to reopen as a museum honoring Jacksonville firefighters.<\/p>\n Click here<\/b><\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, <\/b>click here<\/b><\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and <\/b>click here<\/b><\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/b><\/p>\n Action News Jax Top Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 The reopening of the Jacksonville Fire Museum has hit another setback, adding to years of…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":953085,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5136],"tags":[15619,13030,42410,5229,13816,383554,10082,3188,723,383557,7310,383551,12179,425,383555,383556,383552,50132,28496,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,383553,5953],"class_list":["post-953084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-action_news_jack","tag-action_news_jacks","tag-ada","tag-america","tag-ben_becker","tag-catherine_street","tag-chief","tag-fl","tag-florida","tag-florida_historical_commission","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville_fire_museum","tag-jfrd","tag-local","tag-national_park_service","tag-national_register","tag-national_register_of_historic_places","tag-percy_gordon","tag-tanika_hughes","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-wayne_wood","tag-wood"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/953084","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=953084"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/953084\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/953085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=953084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=953084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=953084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}