A heavy-duty construction zone on the downtown riverfront will be crammed with barricades and temporary fences and bulldozers and cranes on barges for several months longer because of delays in the pace of the work.
WJCT News partner The Florida Times-Union reports the area between the Hyatt Regency hotel and Berkman Plaza has been a mix of construction and demolition — mostly demolition — as two different projects overlapped in a tightly packed area that’s being transformed from how it had looked since the 1960s.
The demolition of the old county courthouse and City Hall annex was supposed to be done this month, but crews won’t won’t wrap up on those sites until July, according to the revised timeline.
The reconstruction of Liberty Street and Coastline Drive, removal of the parking deck behind the old courthouse and construction of new sections of the riverwalk is a project that started in late 2016 and was supposed to be done in July 2018.
The city pushed that date back twice, extending the completion date to March 2019 and then again to January 2020 for the $25.9 million project.
An expanded version of this story that explores the reasons for the delays is at Jacksonville.com.
