St. James Building (City Hall) in Jacksonville, Florida

The St. James Building is Jacksonville City Hall, the four-story Prairie School block that fills the north side of Hemming Plaza at 117 W. Duval St. It was not built for government. The University of North Florida George Lansing Taylor collection records that architect Henry John Klutho designed it, that it went up in 1911 and 1912 on the former site of the St. James Hotel, and that it housed the Cohen Brothers department store from 1912 to 1958 and May Cohens from 1958 to 1987 before becoming City Hall in 1997.

It is the building most often named as Klutho's masterwork. The Jax Daily Record reported in 2012 that with more than 3 million cubic feet of space it is the largest Prairie School-style building in the world. The National Park Service lists the St. James Building in the National Register of Historic Places under NRIS number 76000594, citing architecture as its area of significance and 1912 as its significant year.

The name came from a hotel. The Coastal reports that the block was once occupied by the St. James Hotel, built shortly after the Civil War, with a restaurant, barber shop and wine room, at a time when Jacksonville drew traveling northerners for the winter. The hotel burned in the Great Fire of 1901. A competitor bought the property to make sure no new hotel went up in its place, and it was eventually sold to Morris and Jacob Cohen, who planned a department store.

The fire also brought the architect. According to The Coastal, Klutho, born in Breese, Illinois, in 1873 and trained in St. Louis and New York, read about the Jacksonville fire in The New York Times in 1901 and moved south, designing the Dyal-Upchurch Building within a year. During his first decade in the city he designed the Morocco Temple, the Seminole Hotel, a city hall and the Carnegie Library. After befriending Frank Lloyd Wright, he took up the Prairie School style, with its strong horizontal lines and open plans.

Klutho pushed the Cohens to think bigger than a store on Duval Street. The Jax Daily Record reports that he was commissioned in 1910, considered the brothers' plan for a two-story store uninspired, and submitted a four-story design that covered the entire block. Small privately owned shops ringed the first floor, a large department store filled the center of the first floor and all of the second, and two floors of rentable office space sat above. The Coastal adds that Klutho also served as construction manager and rented an office in the building himself.

The center of the Cohen Brothers store was a light well. The Coastal describes a giant glass dome over an interior that resembled the center court of a shopping mall, decades before suburban malls spread. JaxPsychoGeo reports that the octagonal dome spans 75 feet, its beams held up at the corners by eight statues of bald, bearded strongmen carrying the beams on their backs.

The result made national news. When it opened in 1912 it was the largest building in Jacksonville and the 9th-largest department store in the United States, according to the Jax Daily Record, and the building and Klutho were featured in the 1914 edition of The Western Architect. The Florida Life Building on North Laura Street, another Klutho design, was finished the same year a short walk away. Both buildings made the Florida AIA Top 100 list in 2012, a century after they were finished, according to the Jax Daily Record, which noted that the Florida Life Building was started two months after the St. James but completed two months before it.

The dome over the Cohen Brothers floor was the first casualty. JaxPsychoGeo reports that in 1926 the owners removed the glass dome to gain commercial space, and that Klutho, who still kept his offices in the building, moved out in protest. The Coastal, citing historian Wayne Wood, says Klutho ended his office lease over the remodel.

The store itself lasted three quarters of a century. Cohen Brothers ran it until May Department Stores bought the business in 1958 and renamed it May Cohens, according to The Coastal and UNF. May then built stores in suburban shopping malls, and the downtown Jacksonville store closed in 1987, The Coastal reports. The Jax Daily Record notes it had been the first of four May Cohens stores in the area. After 1987 the St. James Building stood largely empty on Hemming Park for several years.

The city bought it. The Coastal reports that in 1993, as part of the River City Renaissance plan, Mayor Ed Austin proposed that Jacksonville purchase and restore the St. James Building as its new City Hall, at a cost of $24 million. The work included rebuilding Klutho's glass dome, adding access for people with disabilities, energy-efficiency upgrades and reversing many later renovations. JaxPsychoGeo reports that the dome was rebuilt in the 1990s, the strongmen statues were recreated, and the terracotta scrollwork capitals were restored.

The St. James Building was dedicated as City Hall on Dec. 12, 1997, according to the Jax Daily Record, which quoted the Jacksonville Historical Society calling the restored building one of the most beautiful city halls in America. In 2012 the Florida chapter of the American Institute of Architects put it on its Top 100 buildings list for the state, alongside the Florida Life Building.

City business happens under the old store dome. According to the City of Jacksonville, the 19 members of the Jacksonville City Council, elected to four-year terms, meet as a full Council on the second and fourth Tuesday of each month at 5 p.m. in the Council Chamber in City Hall, and the five standing committees meet there in the first and third weeks of the month. The Office of the Mayor site identifies Donna Deegan as mayor. Last verified: October 9, 2026, on the City of Jacksonville website.

Much of Klutho's Jacksonville is gone, which makes City Hall stand out. The Coastal (2018) reports that many of his buildings were torn down or critically altered, and that his work gained real appreciation only after his death in 1964. JaxPsychoGeo notes that the Seminole Hotel, where Klutho first merged Louis Sullivan's skyscraper frame with Wright's Prairie School, was demolished in 1974 for a parking lot.

Several survivors are protected. The Coastal lists the Dyal-Upchurch Building, the St. James Building, the Carnegie-Bedell Building and two-thirds of the Laura Street Trio among Klutho works on the National Register of Historic Places, and notes that Klutho Park in Springfield, which he helped design, is named for him. JaxPsychoGeo traces his Prairie Style cross motif from the St. James to the Florida Life Building on Laura Street and the Morocco Temple on North Newnan Street.