JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — At long last, the dismantling of The Jacksonville Landing has begun, but so far it’s not happening with a bang or a crash.
“Interior demolition of the two buildings closest to the St. Johns River is underway,” a spokesman with the City of Jacksonville confirmed to First Coast News on Monday.
Despite a deluge of rain, workers indeed were using heavy equipment to dismantle and remove so-called “soft materials” – bar tops, booths, dance floors, signs, etc. – ahead of leveling the structure of the buildings themselves, which the city says is expected to begin later in October or November.
But not all of those materials are going on the trash heap. We learned that many items are being salvaged for resale – to collectors, connoisseurs and other businesses. One such item is the bar top from Hooters, one of the businesses tracing its roots to the earliest days of the Landing in 1987.
“It’s thick, it’s built well, it’s unique, so when I saw it I was like, ‘Oh, I’ve got to get that’” Andy Hornski, owner of Hornski’s Vinyl Lounge in St. Augustine, told First Coast News.
“I thought the look was good, you know?" he said. "See the surfboard?" Hornski pointed to a board hanging from the ceiling, creatively repurposed as a wine glass rack. “It matches that!”
Hornski, who comes to Jacksonville once a month for Guard duty, said his only other must-do during his visits is to visit Eco Relics, an architectural salvage company where he’s found many artifacts to decorate Hornski’s lounge.
“I think the salvaging is good,” Hornski said.
He added that he saw the bar top online and had no idea that it specifically had come from Hooters, but the surface, featuring a semi-authentic overhead beach scene, gave him ideas.
“[Hooters] was a beach bar on a river, now the beach bar has come down to [Anastasia] island,” he said, asserting that the bar top is more apropos in its new home than it ever was in the old one.
Hornski’s is a cozy and eclectic combination of bar and used record store, where patrons can sip local craft beers all while listening to vintage albums – all on vinyl – whether to enjoy just the once or purchase for their home collections.
“This bar is actually built out of speakers,” Hornski said of his current layout. The new bar top from the old Hooters will be used when Hornski’s lounge moves from its current 106 Anastasia Boulevard address, to just a few doors away at 100 Anastasia, some time in the next year.
As for the future of the land where the Landing stands, the city told First Coast News, “The substantial completion date for the entire project is May/June 2020 … The Downtown Investment Authority (DIA) will be issuing a request for proposals (RFP) for development of the site.”