JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — On Tuesday night, Jacksonville City Council voted 16-1 in favor of purchasing a Brentwood liquor store to turn it into a community center.
Neighbors have been fighting the opening of the store that's built across the street from KIPP Voice Academy since finding out about it earlier this year.
"Definitely is a win because he could still be there selling alcohol, but he’s not selling alcohol, that’s not going to be a liquor store," Lydia Bell of the Metro Gardens Neighborhood Association told First Coast News. "It could be a community center and that’s what we want it to be, a community center."
The city will purchase the store for $1.8 million, a number it got a from an appraiser it hired. The store was approved by the planning commission in 2020, against the recommendation of the planning department.
"We applaud Mayor Deegan and the City Council for correcting this abominable situation by purchasing the property and trust that the City will never again make another similar costly mistake that insults the Black community," The Northside Coalition of Jacksonville, Inc. told First Coast News in a release. "NCOJ will continue to show up and speak out against all forms of social, racial and economic injustice."
Councilmember Tyrona Clark-Murray was the only member of city council to vote against the bill.
“The city is having to sacrifice $1.8 million for a liquor store that never should have been there," Clark-Murray said. “They should have considered the people more than the applicant and the applicant’s representative."
Clark-Murray disagreed with the sale for 1.8 million, but is for the neighborhood's fight against the store.
Bell says she will now focus her attention on the city's new Medical Examiner's Office, which is being built behind the liquor store. She said it's another thing that doesn't belong in her neighborhood.