JSO Opens New Headquarters at 532 Riverside Ave.: 346,000 Square Feet, 11 Floors and More Than $20 Million

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - The Jacksonville Sheriff's Office cut the ribbon Tuesday, Oct. 20, on a new headquarters at 532 Riverside Ave. in the Brooklyn neighborhood, moving out of a downtown building that opened in 1974. Sheriff T.K. Waters, Mayor Donna Deegan and City Council President Nick Howland attended, and former sheriffs Jim McMillan, Nat Glover and John Rutherford watched from the audience. McMillan served from 1986 to 1995, Glover from 1995 to 2003 and Rutherford from 2003 to 2015.

The building by the numbers

The new headquarters is in the former Florida Blue office building, which has 346,000 square feet and 19 floors. The Sheriff's Office occupies 11 of them. A parking garage sits next door, and the building has a large cafeteria.

Administrators, detectives, 911 dispatchers and other operations are housed there, along with the Real Time Crime Center. The space is about twice what the agency had in its old home. Leasing and renovating part of the building cost more than $20 million, according to Jacksonville Today, and Deegan called it an investment in public safety.

Why the sheriff moved

The Police Memorial Building was designed by architect William N. Morgan and has rooftop landscaping, a helipad and 215 underground parking spaces. As the department grew, 184 employees ended up working in more than 73,000 square feet of space elsewhere, according to the Jacksonville Daily Record. The old building was described as very old, expensive to maintain and full of windowless offices.

Waters said the Sheriff's Office looked at 17 buildings before choosing this one, saying "this one was the most practical." He said it is "very difficult to work in a place that is depressing and dark," and that morale has been "tremendous since we moved to this place." Deegan said the old building "served us well for decades, but we have simply outgrown it."

Better access for victims and witnesses

The new space gives detectives more room to work with crime victims and witnesses. It also offers better access to I-95, I-10 and I-295, which matters for a department that covers all of Duval County. The Real Time Crime Center is also housed in the building.

What happens to the old building

In July, Waters said the East Bay Street building "will be left up to the city" for reuse or demolition. Jacksonville Today did not report any decision or schedule for the site. The article also did not list any upcoming public events at the new headquarters.

Source: Jacksonville Today (Dan Scanlan), reviewed by Jax Times.