The second floor of a 1904-era building collapsed at East 1st and Walnut streets on Wednesday, Aug. 30, 2023. | Dan Scanlan, WJCT News 89.9
Published on August 30, 2023 at 5:20 pm
A condemned building partly collapsed Wednesday during the height of Hurricane Idalia’s wind and rain assault on Jacksonville.
The former store at East 1st and Walnut streets in Springfield had already been sagging on one side, according to neighbors.
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About 1:30 p.m., neighbor Tiffany Pitts said she heard a creak, then part of the second floor fell.
“(For) a long time, we have been trying to get them to do something with this building,” Pitts said. “I hope this building gets demolished because if a car was passing by, someone could have seriously gotten hurt. And then probably about a minute or two before the building fell, a lady was riding by on her bicycle. So if she was just a minute or two later, she could have been under those rocks.”
Part of the building fell on Walnut Street. City crews bulldozed the bricks and wooden remains of the structure off the road before fencing and cordoning off the rubble.
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Neighbors said the building dates to 1904 and was slated for redevelopment until the city condemned it.
They also said they had been waiting for about six months for its demolition. The building’s south side sagging so much it had to be braced to prevent collapse, they said.
