'Corners were cut': New Medical Examiner's Office built in neighborhood that fought it

Ruth Spencer considers Brentwood her home base. 

Her parents, together for 50 years, raised her in their first, and only, house on Castlewood Drive West. Her family became intertwined in the fabric of their neighborhood — to the point she considered the Ramseys next-door as grandparents. And, when she returned from college in 2001, Spencer bought her first house on the same block.

She continued to invest in the neighborhood even after she moved to Arlington in 2017 and rented the other homes she owned for below market value to seniors who cared about the neighborhood. 

Spencer watched her part of Brentwood stay mostly the same, with limited exception for one piece of land close to I-95. 

The former Holiday Inn on Golfair Boulevard had closed and devolved into a "nine-story eyesore," according to a 1998 Times-Union story. Finally, the city tore down the once-vibrant hotel, and Spencer, who had grown up looking up at the building, heard rumors for years that the bit of land could become a park or even an extension of her neighborhood for more families to move nearby.  

Instead, the four acres sat vacant for more than a decade.

Then, last year, Spencer, 47, received a call from her mom, Katrina Spencer, asking if she received anything in the mail indicating that the city was going to build there. The rumor was that the city was planning a new morgue.

"I told her I had not, and the first thing I asked her was 'Were they changing the zoning?'" Ruth Spencer recalled. "And that's how I learned that they were using the loopholes from that old hotel that had been torn down when I was a kid to make this happen."

While residents speculated, records show the public works and planning departments knew prior to the groundbreaking of the Medical Examiner's Office that the property would go before the City Council to be rezoned, but did not immediately submit the application — deferring the step that triggers mandatory community involvement.

Katrina Spencer was on the city's list to receive a mailed notification of the land's proposed zoning change in early June 2023, but she said she never received it. Instead, she found out when she saw a posted sign alerting the public to zoning hearings.  

By then, plans were already in motion.

Since that call, Ruth Spencer has watched her mother, 70, attend community meetings, picket in the summer heat and protest against both the office and a planned drive-thru liquor store directly beside the former hotel lot and across the street from KIPP Voice Academy, an elementary school.

"Now, imagine a wife who had been with her husband since the seventh grade, who lost him, and then is seeing something happen to the community that she has built an entire life and family in," Ruth Spencer said. "And now she has to fight for it."

Duval County has needed a new Medical Examiner's Office since at least 2016 as the current space on North Jefferson Street is outdated and limited in size, in part because it also serves other growing nearby counties. Residents have said in City Council and community meetings that they are not against the project, but are opposed to the location being so close to a residential area as the office will be used in part for autopsies.

City officials told both residents and the City Council during zoning hearings last year that if they halted construction, it could cost the city upwards of $10 million and five more years of planning. Yet the typical steps that would alert residents to significant changes in their neighborhoods before that point — community meetings or a vote to rezone the property — didn't happen until site clearing and construction were already underway. 

For the neighborhood association, $10 million would be a small price for what they believe to be a detriment to their homes. The Metro Gardens Neighborhood Association, along with Katrina Spencer and 16 others, filed a lawsuit in June that alleges the city ignored its own community protection enforcements by not providing proper notice to residents prior to groundbreaking.

Now, the community can only glimpse details of the selection process through a slog of emails the Times-Union acquired through public records requests and testimony in meetings as construction of the facility began.

The Florida Times-Union asked the city for all documents and reports from the public works real estate division and all emails from the Medical Examiner's Office relating to the site review and selection for the new facility, as well as meeting notes, memorandums or transcripts from key officials in the site selection process. 

After reviewing the records given to the paper, significant questions remain: 

How did the Brentwood location become available? And why weren't residents notified of the addition to their neighborhood before costly construction began? 

The decision to put the office in Brentwood came from a private effort between the Public Works Department, Medical Examiner's Office, hired consultants and the former mayoral administration, according to a review of records by the Times-Union. 

Dozens of email chains given to the paper appear to show gaps in written communication. The city's public information officer said no notes, memorandums or transcriptions existed between primary decision-makers in the real estate division.  

The Times-Union asked to interview public works and medical examiner officials involved with the site selection, but the city declined to comment, citing the active lawsuit. 

When the city hosted the first official community meeting on the project Sept. 18, 2023, former General Counsel Jason Teal said the city "dropped the ball" on the project, according to a video from News4Jax . Council members the next day at a zoning committee meeting said they were disappointed in the outcome.

Council member Ju'Coby Pittman became the area's representative in July 2023. She said in a statement to the Times-Union that she understood the community's concerns but also stressed the advantages of the projects.

"I feel so bad because the elders and the mothers of my community are really fighting this, and I'm trying to help them as best I can, but knowing what I know is that the city is going to steamroll them," Ruth Spencer said. "And it's just a bad faith effort on the city's part. It feels very disrespectful to let them know that they just don't care."

Emails show industrial sites were considered

Last year, the neighborhood association said the city provided them with a list with 26 sites officials considered for the Medical Examiner's Office. 

"Golfair wasn't on the list," Katrina Spencer said.

The property was evaluated in 2017, complete with a proposed site plan, according to records.

However, two years later, Tim Crutchfield, the director of operations for the medical examiner, said in an email that the property was unavailable because it was encumbered in other plans.

Crutchfield did not specify the plans in the emails provided, but the city's engineer manager questioned if it was too far from the courthouse for a medical examiner's facility anyway.

Officials restarted their search for sites.

A member of the Public Works division sent a list of nine properties, five of special interest to the medical examiner, on May 1, 2020. A longer list of potential properties were later sent to City Council members.

Many locations, unlike the one being protested in Brentwood, were in existing industrial areas, but some "very likely would have some area of contaminant concern," an environmental programs manager, said at the time.

Over the next three months, the city considered buying at least three of the properties, all on industrial sites east of the Eastside neighborhood: 1737 Jessie St., 1751 Marshall St. and 1754 East 7th St. 

The owners of the Jessie and Marshall street locations decided not to sell to the city. The Jessie Street site representative said she had been open to a proposal, but it had "progressed to the point it is disruptive to [her] employees and [her] business."  

One of the city's consultants offered the owners of the East 7th Street location $900,000 — they countered at $1.25 million. The city balked at the price. 

Crutchfield, of the Medical Examiner's Office, argued in a July 2020 email that the need for the new facility was "paramount" and the office would be forced to restart the search process if the property was not acquired. The medical examiner would be willing to explain the excess cost to the City Council, if necessary.

"If our budget supports offering an acceptable amount above the appraised value, then I believe that we should consider doing so," Crutchfield said. "Of course, I would have to defer to your expertise to set the maximum limit."

The emails provided to the Times-Union do not explain why the 7th Street sale did not occur. 

Two months later, the former director of public works said he had met with Brian Hughes, the former chief operating officer, and the Medical Examiner's Office and received the "go-ahead" with the Golfair Boulevard location — including the clearance to pursue the purchase of three adjoining lots.

The records provided do not explain how the Brentwood location became an option again.

A fact sheet provided to residents at the first community meeting in September 2023 lists several advantages of the property: it was already owned by the city with easy access to Interstate 95 and Interstate 10 to reach the surrounding counties it served. It was also west of the St. Johns River and near UF Health Jacksonville and the courthouse.

Officials later assured residents that the wall surrounding the facility would block pedestrian view of vehicles, and they would never see decedents.

Brentwood finds out and fights back

Lydia Bell, a Brentwood resident, heard rumors of a morgue entering the neighborhood in April 2023. They were confirmed in May — after the project's groundbreaking when she saw construction workers on site and talked to one of them

"I asked the man, 'Sir, what are you building?'" Bell recalled. He told her it was the new Medical Examiner's Office. When asked if it went through the planning department, the man responded, "Ma'am, I'm just the builder."

"...That's all we get in Brentwood," Bell said "'I'm just the builder.'"

Bell, a matriarch of the area and president of The Metro Gardens Neighborhood Association, was protesting alongside Katrina Spencer against the adjacent liquor store at the time. They had become accustomed to advocating for the community in City Council meetings. 

She and her neighbors took their concerns to the body they thought could still stop the project: the Planning Commission.  

Katrina Spencer told the commission in June 2023 that when she first moved to Golfair Manor in 1974, her neighbors were predominantly white. They received city notices for everything. 

"Now that it's Black, we're not getting no notice," Katrina Spencer said, according to a transcript of the meeting. "They just popping up and then sending something after the fact."

The neighbors implored the commission to consider the history of Brentwood: How would the morgue affect their property values? Why is it planned a mere few feet from a single family home? Would they want this near their kids or near a school?

Instead, one commissioner said making their concerns on the basis of race was "disgusting" and doing "the community a disservice." Another said he "wouldn't have a problem" with it in his backyard. 

Race did not play a factor in the decision, the former chief of planning Folks Huxford said at the meeting. It's standard, he said, to send notices to residences near new builds. 

"I can't guarantee somebody reads the mail or even gets it in their mailbox," Huxford said. "...We prepare the notice, and we do mail it out."

After opposing the drive-thru liquor store for so long, the community once again felt disregarded, an attorney and former City Council member told the Times-Union. Jack Webb helped Bell and the neighborhood association write letters to city attorneys in an attempt to stop the opening of the liquor store before learning of the medical examiner's office. 

Webb did not think the decision was made because of the neighbors' race. It had more to do with political influence, he said. He had never heard of a city project of such magnitude that did not seek community feedback prior to construction. 

"It was once again, I think, a feeling that the community was being put upon," Webb said. "...No one communicated with the community. 'We're the dumping ground. We're the last resort for these types of projects.'"

The feeling does not negate the potential significance of the project itself, Webb said, because it could be considered an upgrade to the current vacant lot. However, by waiting to correct the zoning on the property made matters worse, he said. 

"When all the approvals, contracts were signed and everything was moving forward, was ginned up, and the money was allocated to move forward with the project, the zoning was not correct," Webb said. "So the city had to go back mid-step."

City knew the property had to be rezoned and waited

Before zoning changes happen — whether for housing developments near protected land , self-storage units or a restaurant like Chick-fil-A — the city posts a sign on the property telling passersby of the upcoming City Council hearings and sends notices to all residents within a 350-foot radius of the affected property. Property owners rarely begin construction before getting the zoning approved to avoid wasted funds if the proposal is denied.

Emails between the planning department and public works show that they originally did not believe the site would need to be rezoned in 2021 because the former hotel zoning code also allowed for funeral homes and similar structures. 

However, a zoning administrator corrected the plans in January 2023: The property needed to be zoned to allow a public building. 

"We do not want the rezoning process to halt any site plan reviews or permits along the way, so this email serves to allow plans, permits, and construction to continue forward," Huxford said in an email to public works. "...There will be no charge for the rezoning, just the paperwork."

In this case, council approved the $68 million for construction on the building in early April, but the zoning change did not come before the Planning Commission for months. When addressing the funding, the mayor's administration never directly said the address of the new facility, nor did the bill itself. 

The groundbreaking followed in May 2023.

Only before the legislation to change the zoning was filed in June did the city send notices to the neighbors — though many said they never received it.By then, officials told both the Planning Commission and City Council that changing the plans would be costly. 

The records obtained by the Times-Union do not explain why the zoning legislation was not immediately filed.

Even if the zoning notices had reached every resident, the idea that the residents could have gone on to stop the project was "illogical" because of the circumstances, a University of Florida law professor told the Times-Union. 

Michael Wolf has taught at the UF Levin College of Law since 2003 and taught a class on the ongoing effects of environmental racism and redlining after 2020. The fact that groundbreaking on the project occurred, followed by notification to the residents, meant they did not have time to actually voice concerns, he said. 

"The higher the level of government, the less likely it is going to be subject to zoning at all," Wolf told the Times-Union. "...Is there a double standard? Yes, it is easier for local government to develop its property than it is for individual citizens to develop their property. That's just a simple fact."

Brittany Norris, the director of intergovernmental affairs, told council that though neighbors were rightly concerned about construction already being underway, the previous administration had acted legally.

"Just to clarify, no policies, ordinances or procedures have been violated," Norris told council in June. "I understand how this looks to the neighbors…As we said, this zoning change puts us in the best posture as a city property on city-owned land."

Still, there is a difference between legislative, political and administrative decisions, Wolf said. 

Experts in the Medical Examiner's Office and Public Works deciding on aspects such as the height and needs in the building is expected, he said. However, City Council or the elected body would traditionally have a role in deciding on a public project's location or cost. 

"What I'm suggesting is that if a local government that's followed all of its normal procedures and respected the Neighborhood Bill of Rights could very well have come to the same conclusion," Wolf said. "... It's unfortunate that it does appear that some corners were cut in this case, which has led to bad feelings and a lawsuit."

The community continues to look for its voice

When looking out Ruth Spencer's childhood bedroom window, now her mother's, they can see the lights of the nearby construction. 

They know it's possible to stop such projects because of a previous, similar situation in Broward County: the county planned to put the Medical Examiner's Office in a historically Black neighborhood, but residents successfully rallied against it. 

Like in Brentwood, Fort Lauderdale residents told officials they would rather have a grocery store, urgent care or pharmacy, according to local station WLRN .

"The difference is they knew about it," Katrina Spencer said. "We didn't."

Ruth Spencer is not a listed defendant on the lawsuit, but she plans to help her mother and the association — whether by looking through old stacks of mail or going to City Hall. 

"Jacksonville is a gem, and it's very hard for me to continue to stay on the path of my love for my city and then have to say 'yes, and' or 'yes, but'" Ruth Spencer said. "And I get that two things can be true, but we all have to speak up and do our part. And we need our community. So we need all of Jacksonville's voice if we want to change our reputation together, and this is one of those things that's pivotal."

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Jacksonville medical examiner office site spurs Brentwood lawsuit