Second story additions in San Marco

San Marco has the same 1920s bones as Jacksonville's other riverfront neighborhoods — the Mediterranean and Colonial Revival stock around the Square, the oaks, the streets in Colonial Manor and Granada that have not changed shape in ninety years. What it does not have is room. Lots here were platted for a smaller era, and families who love the Square, the schools, and the ten-minute hop over the river to downtown eventually hit the same wall: the house ran out of bedrooms before the family ran out of reasons to stay.

Here is the part most San Marco homeowners are surprised to learn: unlike Riverside Avondale, San Marco is not one of Jacksonville's three locally designated historic districts. There is no Certificate of Appropriateness, no preservation-commission calendar — a second story addition here goes straight through the City of Jacksonville's normal building permit. You get the historic character without the historic review, which makes San Marco one of the most straightforward places in the urban core to take a house up a level.

Straightforward permitting does not mean casual engineering. A San Marco second story is still designed to Florida Building Code wind requirements — a 130 mph ultimate design speed, with uplift connections carrying a continuous load path from the new roof to the existing foundation — and blocks close to the river sit in mapped flood zones, which Brackish Builders checks before design so there are no surprises at review. The build uses the weatherproof-above-the-roof sequence: the new level is framed and sealed above your existing roof first, so the house below stays dry and lived-in from the first day to the last.

Neighborhoods we serve in San Marco

ZIP codes served: 32207