JEA is putting its former headquarters campus up for sale including the 19-story tower topped by a disc-shaped room that used to be a rotating restaurant called The Embers .
The passage of time has long since extinguished The Embers and that part of the building no longer revolves, but it still offers some birds-eye views of downtown.
At some point, the JEA logo on the Church Street building will come down, just as other tall buildings like the former Wells Fargo Tower have had their names removed in the changing downtown skyline.
The JEA board voted Tuesday to declare the complex of buildings and parking along Church Street as surplus property. That clears the way for JEA to seek a buyer for the building, which the Jacksonville Historical Society has called one of the most endangered in Jacksonville because the longer it’s vacant, the greater the chances become for demolition.
What is the history of the buildings?
The 19-story building was the tallest on the Northbank of downtown when it was built in 1963, according to the Jacksonville Historical Society. The building’s first major tenant was Universal Marion Company of Miami and it had retail on two bottom floors for Ivey’s Department Store.