Jacksonville debates parkland deal near Revolutionary War battlefield
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Near a Revolutionary War battlefield on Jacksonville’s Northside sits a piece of Florida’s past that could be preserved, if the price is right.
City Council members are weighing a plan to pool about $5 million in federal and local cash to buy 288 acres of forest and waterfront close to locale of the Battle of Thomas Creek, the southern boundary of the War of Independence.
“It’s a great opportunity,” said Councilman Ray Holt, who introduced legislation (Bill 2011-692) authorizing the deal last month.
That opportunity rests on being able to pay for most of the land from funds the city normally can’t use — and doesn’t raise from taxpayers.
“For about $200,000 of actual city dollars, we’re going to end up getting about $5 million in land,” Holt said.
The deal, championed by the nonprofit Trust for Public Land, involves property north of Pecan Park Road and east of Jacksonville National Cemetery, just below the Nassau county line.
Protecting that as parkland would connect the city- and state-managed Thomas Creek Conservation Area to the Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve.
Upscale new homes had been planned before the housing bubble burst, but the Trust negotiated purchase options and looked for money to buy the site, said Susan Grandin, director of the nonprofit’s Jacksonville office.
The actual battle site on Thomas Creek is in doubt, but property owner Mitchell Montgomery said an archaeological team located buttons they identified as British and from the 18th century.
He said researchers dug where they expected to find an encampment — in high ground looking over a creek.
“There lies the value for housing. Being on dry land and having a great view,” he said.
The same qualities could well have been needed by American troops centuries ago.
In May 1777, Georgia militiamen on horseback had entered British-controlled Florida, expecting to join Continental Army units traveling by boat.
Before the rendezvous could happen, the militiamen fought with American Indians and encamped at the creek to wait and watch for the delayed Continental forces.
On May 17, British fighters ambushed the militiamen, fatally wounding some and letting Indians kill some of the captured Georgians in retaliation for an earlier grievance, according to a draft National Park Service report about the battle site.
The battle is recalled in a marker where U.S. 1 crosses the creek, west of Montgomery’s land. Plans for how to use new parkland or commemorate the skirmish haven’t been finalized.
The offer to Montgomery is part of a succession of efforts to conserve land around Thomas Creek.
If the council approves the package, most of the money — about $3.5 million — would come from the U.S. Forest Service, which gives money to preserve forests it considers important to the country’s heritage. Thomas Creek was the last of 11 sites it agreed to fund nationally.
Another $1.3 million would come from a conservation fund set up about 20 years ago by AES Cedar Bay as a concession for operating a cogeneration plant on the Northside. That money has to be spent protecting ecologically sensitive land in or near the Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve, which borders the creek.
The last piece of the package — Holt’s “city dollars” — would be $200,000 taken from a city park construction project that had depended on getting an outside grant. The grant was never approved and the project has been stalled without it.
Grandin said a number of council members have supported the plan.
But Councilman Richard Clark, who chairs the Finance Committee, said he’s concerned the city could be vastly overpaying. The deal is working out to cost more than $17,000 an acre he said, arguing that other timberland can be bought for about a tenth as much.
Grandin says the property is unique, with lots of big hardwood trees, abundant birds and wildlife. Beyond that, she said, the amount of federal money on the line shows the council should approve the deal. If the Thomas Creek site isn’t bought, she said, the Forest Service money will go to the next site on that agency’s priority list — a project in New York.
Montgomery said he’d like to see the property become parkland, but he’s not ready to run a fire sale.
“It all gets down to: I’m a developer,” Montgomery said, “and it’s worth a heck of a lot of money.”
steve.patterson@jacksonville.com, (904) 359-4263
Read more at Jacksonville.com: http://jacksonville.com/news/florida/2011-11-16/story/jacksonville-debates-parkland-deal-near-revolutionary-war-battlefield#ixzz1e0R5dN1Q
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