Daily Record Financial News &
Wednesday, November 18, 2015
Vol. 103, No. 003 • Two Sections
35¢ www.jaxdailyrecord.com
Emotions flare as few get to speak
Step-by-step, brick-by-brick
First public forum was more listening than conversation
By David Chapman Staff Writer
Three years of pent-up emotion nearly turned a community conversation into community chaos. Both sides of the local Human Rights Ordinance issue were asked to show civility Tuesday during Mayor Lenny Curry’s first community conversation on discrimination. The standing-room-only crowd of close to 400 — 100 or so without seats — was asked to listen openly to all ideas, experiences and perspectives. A panel featured six people who spoke on topics of discrimination relating to children and families. Enthusiastic applause followed many of comments coming from pro-expansion panelists. Many of those same comments garnered shaking heads from opponents. Still, mostly everyone kept their cool during the 90-minute meeting until near the end. Until it was announced the public question-and-answer portion of the forum would conclude at speaker No. 9 because of time constraints. “This is a sham,” said a standing Marshall Wood, founder of religious-based Crossover Jacksonville. His dark blue, block-lettered “Protect Civil Liberties” tag showed what side he was on. Blue was for the opponents. The orange, sunshine-laden Jacksonville Coalition for Equality stickers on supporters far outnumbered them in the room. “This is a sham,” Wood repeated. All nine of the public speakers had been HRO supporters. Wood wanted to speak and have the opposing viewpoints heard. He didn’t sit down, interjecting when the speaker at the microphone began. He wasn’t giving up. Moderator Michael Boylan tried to keep the peace and said he’d give Wood a chance to speak before the forum ended. It was a suggestion that caused tensions to nearly boil over. “No!” several people shouted. “Sit down!” said another. “I want a chance to speak, too,” a man from the crowd yelled.
The Bostwick Building is being dismantled one brick at a time as part of the renovation for the future site of the Cowford Chophouse, being opened by Jacques Klempf, below right.
Workers methodically renovating Bostwick Only the second half of the name, The Guaranty Trust and Savings Bank, remains on one of Jacksonville’s most prominent Downtown buildings. The other half disappears at a gaping opening, where the southwest corner has been removed. The demolition is making way for a renovation of the historic Bostwick Building. It hasn’t been so much a demolition, though, as a painstaking disassembly. Workers chiseled the gray-pressed bricks from the building’s face one by one, stacked
them in alternating directions atop wood pallets and then shrink-wrapped each bundle. Decorative limestone blocks were letter-, number- and color-coded, so they could be placed like puzzle pieces in exactly the same spots from which they’d been removed. “They’re taking it down brick-by-brick and then rebuilding it,” one observer said. Not quite, but almost. One of the strangest things about the restoration is, once completed, very little of the building will remain except the exterior skin. Bostwick continued on Page A-6
Photos by Carole Hawkins
By Carole Hawkins chawkins@realty-builder.com
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OptumRx files plans to expand at Flagler Center OptumRx filed plans to expand its Flagler Center customer service center, which opened two years ago with the intent to grow into a 350-job inbound call center. OptumRx is UnitedHealthcare Group’s free-standing pharmacy care services business. OptumRx applied for a permit to build-out vacant office space next to the 53,000 square feet it leases at 7159 Corklan Drive. The expansion, shown at 13,800 square feet, would boost the lease to more than 66,000 square feet, filling out the ground level of
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the two-story building in South Jacksonville. Plans show space for open office, training, conference and gathering areas. They indicate seating for more than 130 employees. No contractor is listed on the permit, which shows a job cost of $720,000. The pharmacy benefits management group held a grand opening at the Corklan office in September 2013. At the time, it said it would employ up to 350 customer ser-
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vice representatives by the end of that year. It operates around the clock and primarily serves Medicare and retiree consumers, handling more than 750,000 calls a month from nationwide customers. In March, OptumRx announced UnitedHealthcare would buy
Catamaran Corp., a pharmacy benefit manager, and that Optum and Catamaran would combine. A spokeswoman for UnitedHealthcare said by email the company did not have an update about the OptumRx local operations nor did she have the number of employees.
Prominence adding even more parking
Crocker Partners wants to build a 220-space parking lot in the Prominence office park across the
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street from the building where Digital Risk LLC will relocate 320 employees. Digital Risk will move the employees in January into Building 100 at the Baymeadows-area office park, which Crocker Partners bought three years ago. It will lease about a third of the building. It’s the second parking lot Crocker Partners plans to build at Prominence. Crocker Partners also wants to develop a 182-space parking lot Mathis continued on Page A-2
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