JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A collapsed building caused road closures Monday evening near Jacksonville’s Urban Core, according to the Jacksonville Fire Rescue Department.
Crews are working a partial building collapse on Main Street at 14th street…the road is closed in both directions at this time…avoid the area.
— THEJFRD (@THEJFRD) March 17, 2025
JFRD said its crews are at the site of the collapsed building on Main Street at 14th Street and that the roadway is closed in both directions.
JFRD also said no one required transportation to a hospital.
Drivers are asked to seek alternate routes and avoid the area.
JEA crews were at the scene to remove the partially collapsed building’s service lines for safety reasons, adding that the building did not have any active service due to non-payment.
JFRD Chief Keith Powers gave an update around 6:30 p.m. on the situation, which you can watch below.
In the update, Powers said JFRD received calls about the building collapse around 5 p.m.
Upon arrival, and with the help of the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office drone team, crews assessed the area and determined that the roof’s structure had rotted and collapsed, leaving the rest of the structure vulnerable.
He added that the street will remain closed until a city engineer can provide the next steps on how to proceed with the structure.
“The largest pile of debris kind of fell out into main street, but there’s debris all the way across to the other side of Main Street,” Chief Powers said. “We just can’t take a chance of somebody driving by getting hit should it collapse, so we’ll keep it closed until they render the building safe.”
Powers did not provide any information on how long the building had been abandoned or what function the building served before its collapse.
While he couldn’t share what caused the building to collapse he did provide insight about what crews were seeing.
“Looking at what the drone shows us from above, it looks like a lot of the roof structure had rotted and already collapsed,” Powers explained. “And when you get that, then you don’t have a lot of stability in the wall. So it doesn’t take a lot of, wind or anything else forces to push that down.”
Powers also shared that they notified the railroad to close the train tracks near the building.
