Jacksonville Council to consider demolition of Profile Mill

May 7—The Jacksonville City Council may vote Monday to tear down what's left of the Profile Mill, the century-old textile mill that was once the working-class backbone of the city.

Council members say they've run out of options for the mill, after years of trying to find a developer to repurpose it.

"We're at the end of our rope here," said council president Tony Taylor.

According to the agenda for the next council meeting, the council on Monday will consider authorizing Mayor Johnny Smith to enter into an agreement with Ohatchee-based MC Haulers and K & D Adventures of Wellington to tear down the mill and haul away the debris.

No dollar amount is mentioned in the agenda, but council members say the demolition companies will pay the city to salvage the site — rather than the city paying them for demolition.

"There's a lot of heavy timber and brick in there that they want to sell," Taylor said.

Built in the first decade of the 20th century, the red-brick mill complex on Alexandria Road was for decades the core of Jacksonville's industrial side. The city's Mill Village neighborhood, sometimes known as Frogtown, grew up around the mill. At various stages in its existence, it was known as the Profile Mill, the Ide Mill, or the Union Yarn Mill.

"You go back 100 years or so and that mill was salvation for a lot of people at some of the darkest times in history," said Rick Bragg, the Pulitzer-winning reporter who penned critically-acclaimed books about the mill and its workers. Bragg said that for rural Appalachian people from the hills around the city, the mill offered more opportunity than they'd known before.

"It didn't pay much and it worked people to death," he said. "It was no paradise, but it was salvation."

The mill survived until 2001, outlasting many of the other Southern textile mills that went out of business in the 1990s. In its final years, the mill spun cotton into yarn for use in Fruit of the Loom underwear.

The city bought the property in 2003, and since then has struggled to find a use for it. One of the buildings on the site was sold for scrap. Some city leaders pushed to renovate the rest and turn it into a new City Hall, but that never came to pass. An Atlanta-based company in 2019 proposed turning the remaining buildings into apartments, but the biggest buildings on the site remain empty.

Calderys, a company that makes heat-resistant refractory materials for use in heavy industry, owns part of the site, but Taylor said the company's buildings aren't part of the demolition proposal.

"It's been here a really long time, and every deal has fallen through," said councilman Coty Galloway. "It's in bad shape."

David Schneider, owner of the Anniston consulting firm Schneider Historic Preservation, emailed council members earlier this week urging them to put any proposed demolition on hold.

"Right now a building like that is the hottest commodity going," Schneider said. The ongoing real estate boom, combined with federal and state historic income tax credits, have developers looking at large, small-town buildings they might have passed by in earlier years.

Schneider said he has spoken to developers about the site and knows of at least one that is interested.

The construction boom may well be a force behind the new demolition plan. Developers in recent months have reported a steep rise in the price of building materials. Taylor, the councilman, said that years ago the city contemplated paying $140,000 for demolition for the site — though the current proposal would be a money-maker for the city.

Taylor said he didn't know if the rise in construction material costs was a factor in the new demolition offer. Kevin Steward, owner of K & D Adventures, declined to discuss the proposed demolition in a telephone interview Friday.

The council held off on a proposed demolition in 2017, after Schneider asked them to wait. Taylor said he's open to any option for the site, including redevelopment. But any new offer has got to be solid, he said, and it has to come soon.

"I'm torn," he said. "I've hoped that someone would come along and actually do what they say they're going to do."

Bragg said he hopes something will remain to honor the memory of the workers.

"I understand the practicalities, I do," he said. "But in a perfect world, this is a shrine and it seems like you should be able to preserve some part of a shrine. But then, the people who had their hair snatched off their heads, the clothing ripped off their bodies, by these machines, they never had a lot of political clout."

Capitol & statewide reporter Tim Lockette: 256-294-4193. On Twitter @TLockette_Star.