The Lynch Building (11 East Forsyth)
11 East Forsyth Street
Year Completed: 1926 Height: 200 feet / 17 stories
11 East Forsyth (formerly the Lynch Building) is a 17-story, mixed use building originally constructed in 1926. The Chicago School style tower was designed by Pringle & Smith for film pioneer Stephen Andrew Lynch. Prior to the building’s development, Lynch owned his own theater chain and controlled Paramount’s South Florida theater operations. After the sale of his theatres, Lynch became a real estate developer during the Florida Land Boom. The Lynch Building was one of several projects he developed in Jacksonville, Miami, and Atlanta. He also developed the Sunset Islands in Miami-Dade County. In 1962, the building was renovated for use as the home office of the American Heritage Life Insurance Company. The Vestcor Companies renovated the structure in 2003, converting office space into 127 apartment units, ground floor retail space and a newly-constructed, attached six-story parking garage. Today, early food truck pioneers Super Food and Brew operate a gastropub on the ground floor.
Barnett National Bank Building
112 West Adams Street
Year Completed: 1926 Height: 224 feet / 18 stories
With seven buildings of ten stories or more starting construction, changing the city’s skyline overnight, 1926 would become known as the year of the skyscraper. The Barnett National Bank was the tallest building completed in 1926. The Barnett Bank story began fifty years earlier on May 7, 1877, when William Boyd Barnett opened the Bank of Jacksonville. Barnett grew to become a Fortune 500 company before being acquired by Nations Bank in 1997. At the time, it was the largest banking merger in American history. In recent years, the building was renovated by the SouthEast Development Group to include apartments, office space and a ground floor bank branch.
Greenleaf & Crosby Building
208 North Laura Street
Year Completed: 1926 Height: 138 feet / 10 stories
The Greenleaf & Crosby Building was design by architects Marsh & Saxelbye and built in 1926 for the Greenleaf & Crosby Company. Founded by Damon Greenleaf and J.H. Crosby in 1880, the Greenleaf & Crosby Company owned one of the city’s earliest jewelry stores. The jewelry business was renamed to Jacobs Jewelry after it was acquired by V.E. Jacobs in 1930. Considered one of Jacksonville’s oldest continuously operated businesses, the store closed in 2023 with the retirement of its last owners, Roy and Delorise Thomas. Under construction during the bust of the Florida Land Boom, only one half of the ten story building was completed. In 2022, the building was purchased by JWB Real Estate Capital for $6.95 million.
Park Lane Condominium
1846 Margaret Street
Year Completed: 1926 Height: 173 feet / 16 stories
For many years the Park Lane was Jacksonville’s third tallest building. It was originally built as co-op apartments, a novel idea in those days, which the developer Francis Mason brought back from a trip to New York. The Park Lane was the forerunner of Florida’s high-rise condominiums. It was also the first tall building in Jacksonville to use “setback” construction, permitting the apartments in the upper stories to have open terraces and sun parlors.