Normandy Village

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article needs additional citations for verification.
Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (January 2007)

Normandy Village is a Westside residential neighborhood of Jacksonville, Florida. It comprises 1,472 single-family homes, and was built in 1957 on un-incorporated forestland, on the west side of Duval County, Florida.

[edit] History

Prior to 1957, nothing but farms existed to the west of Cassat Avenue except NAS Cecil Field. Cassat Avenue was the western boundary road of the Town of Murray Hill.

The village was privately built to provide off-base housing for the military families stationed at the nearby Master Jetbase of NAS Cecil Field. It was built in the woods, 5 miles west of Cassat Avenue, and 9 miles east of NAS Cecil Field. At the time, the Normandy Village project was the most expensive residential neighborhood to ever be built in Duval County, given that it came complete with its own utilites and schools.

The Village was built in 3 phases, and is situated between Normandy Blvd on the north, Wilson Avenue on the south, with the pre-village road called Lindsey Road on the west. There was no existing road to the east in 1957, however, in 1971, I-295 was built a half-mile to the east, with a forested buffer-zone in between I-295 and the Village.

Construction began in 1957, and finished in 1958. Given its self-sufficient utility, the schools, and its large lots, no expense was spared in the construction of Normandy Village, and it was hailed at the time as "the future of housing projects in Florida".^{[citation needed]}

Normandy Village was a small pocket of habitation in the forest, halfway between NAS Cecil Field, and the established town of Murray Hill, and the larger city of Jacksonville beyond to the east. There were no water lines or sewer lines that far out on the Westside at that time, so a fully-functional water & sewer plant (Normandy Village Utilities) was constructed as part of the project. Normandy Village Utilities is a private utility, whose owners are the 1,472 homeowners of Normandy Village. Each Home has One Share of Stock in the Company.

As part of the Normandy Village project, the Duval County School Board was brought on board, which over time resulted in the construction of a complete set of schools to service the Village and the surrounding growth that followed it.

Normandy Village Elementary (1962)^[1]
Joseph Stilwell Junior High (1962)^[2]
Edward H. White Senior High (1971)

The village never incorporated as a separate town, and in 1968 was annexed by the City of Jacksonville as part of a county-wide, voter-originated consolidation.