Jacksonville Salvation Army Considers Options for Citadel

By Jeremy Coumbes on September 11, 2019 at 1:41pm

No final plans have been made at this time, but Salvation Army Major Charles Pinkston said they are currently working with an architect on various options.

“We are speaking with an architect now to see if they are willing to work with us on this project. Once they commit then we will start the paperwork to get them approved and start the planning process. We will share with them what we use our existing rooms for currently, and what we would like to see in new plans. We’ve had a building assessment to know what in our current building needs updated, and there are other things that we would like to see in the building.”

A campaign for funding a new building has been ongoing for many years now. Pinkston said that they have had many hurdles along the way to overcome in their efforts to get to this point in the process.

“They started the campaign about eleven years ago, I believe around 2006 or 2007, which was prior to our arrival, and we have been here five years trying to push it forward. When we were first sent here, they had some plans that they had already looked at and started with. We tried moving those forward toward completion and found out we were not anywhere near the revenue needed to complete that building. So then our Territorial Headquarters gave us another option, some prototypes they had put together, which ended up in a dead end as well.”

Pinkston said they hope to have an agreement with an architect and a plan moving forward in September. An announcement will be planned at that time, along with updated information on the approaching Christmas Kettle season.