Live in Durkeeville
A historic Black neighborhood west of Interstate 95 that holds Edward Waters University, Stanton College Preparatory and the 1912 ballpark Hank Aaron played in, where two homes in three are rented, Zillow's ZIP value is about $106,000, and part of the ground was an incinerator's ash field.
Durkeeville takes its name from Joseph H. Durkee, a Union officer who settled in Jacksonville after the Civil War and on whose land the ballpark now called J. P. Small Memorial Stadium was built in 1912; his son's land became home to Black professionals and the Durkeeville housing project, which the Public Works Administration finished with 215 units in 1937. This guide takes the area the Durkeeville Neighborhood Association filed with the City as its boundary, 742 acres between Kings Road and the Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway, where the 2020 census counted 6,392 residents, up from 5,420 on about the same ground in 2010, and owners lived in a third of the occupied homes. About 420 of those residents are on two blocks beside Edward Waters University with almost no housing units, probably its residence halls, which no source read here confirms. Zillow's typical value for ZIP code 32209 was $106,323 in August 2026, down 5.1% on the year, but that ZIP held nearly six times as many people and is not a Durkeeville price.
A neighborhood built for Black Jacksonville's middle class, with its institutions still standing and its houses mostly rented
The area the Durkeeville Neighborhood Association filed on the City of Jacksonville's Neighborhood Associations layer (OBJECTID 534; Good Neighbor M.A.N.I.A., OBJECTID 45, filed the same ground), about 742 acres. The City has no district of the name and the layer does not say the City checks the lines. Traced against the Census Bureau's road file: the Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway on the north, Interstate 95 on the east, Kings Road on the south and south-west, and Spires Avenue on the west, with the Norfolk Southern line at the north-west corner. The National Register's Durkee Gardens Historic District, roughly Myrtle Avenue, 13th Street West, Payne Avenue and 8th Street West, is inside, with 543 residents on 46 acres, and the City's Kings Road/Beaver Street action plan area shares 3,410 of the 6,392. UF Health Jacksonville is about 360 m east, across the interstate. Almost all of it is in City Council District 7 (47 residents are in District 10), and all of it in Duval County Public Schools; none of it is a City local historic district.
Durkeeville is named for Joseph H. Durkee, a Union officer who settled in Jacksonville after the Civil War. A ballpark went up on his land in 1912; the City bought it in 1926 and called it Durkee Field, and it is now J. P. Small Memorial Stadium, where the Jacksonville Red Caps played in the Negro American League and a teenage Hank Aaron played in 1953. Edward Waters, founded by the AME Church in 1866, had moved to Kings Road by 1904. In the 1930s Jay Durkee's land became Durkee Gardens, platted for Black professionals shut out of white neighborhoods, and in 1937 the Public Works Administration finished the 215-unit Durkeeville housing project. Interstate 95 took neighboring Sugar Hill in the late 1950s.
This guide's line is one an association drew. The City has no Durkeeville district; the Durkeeville Neighborhood Association filed 742 acres on the City's layer, from Kings Road up to the Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway and from Spires Avenue to Interstate 95. The 2020 census counted 6,392 people inside, up from 5,420 in 2010. About 420 of them are on two blocks beside Edward Waters with almost no homes, probably residence halls. Owners lived in a third of the 2,500 occupied homes; 1,685 were rented and nearly one home in five stood empty.
The ground has a history a buyer should read. The City's 5th and Cleveland incinerator stood where Emmett Reed Park is now, and the ground is part of the Jacksonville Ash Site, a Superfund cleanup whose 5th and Cleveland area covers about 520 acres; the site's listed address is the park. EPA reported some 1,600 properties cleaned across the site by 2010 and says it will place restrictions on certain digging on some of them; Jacksonville Today reported in 2024 that the ash in the soil helped stall the neighborhood's last big redevelopment. Which parcels were cleaned is in EPA's records, not in anything read here, so ask the seller and EPA about the specific lot.
The institutions are the draw. Edward Waters University, 23 acres and about 1,200 students, is inside the line, and so is Stanton College Preparatory, the application-only magnet graded A for 2026, 2025 and 2024. J. P. Small Park reopened in January 2025 after a $9.6 million renovation, home field for both schools' baseball. The Durkee Gardens Historic District, listed in 2020, holds 543 of the residents, but the National Register brings no City review; only the fifteen parcels the City has made landmarks, Centennial Hall among them, need a certificate of appropriateness. In July 2024 the mayor signed $200,000 for a revitalization study.
No price index follows the line. Almost every resident is in ZIP code 32209, where Zillow's typical value was $106,323 in August 2026, down 5.1% on the year, but the ZIP held nearly six times as many people. A homestead at that figure owes about $1,158 a year on the 2025 general services millage of 17.7412; a landlord, about $1,886. Save Our Homes resets on sale, so the seller's bill understates yours, and no community development district boundary could be checked, so read that bill for non-ad valorem lines. The arithmetic is on the Jacksonville page.
- Ask EPA's site team and the seller whether the parcel was sampled or cleaned, and whether a digging restriction applies
- Check the City's landmarks layer before planning exterior work
- Read the seller's last tax bill, and file for homestead by 1 March
- Run the address through Duval County Public Schools' locator and read its magnet priorities
How Durkeeville got here
- 1904Edward Waters College, founded by the African Methodist Episcopal Church in 1866, starts building on new land on Kings Road after the Great Fire of 1901 destroyed its first campus.
- 1912Barrs Field, Jacksonville's first municipal recreation field, is built on land owned by Joseph H. Durkee, a former Union officer.
- 1916Centennial Hall is built at Edward Waters, designed by Richard Lewis Brown, Jacksonville's first known Black architect.
- 1926The City signs a binder on 13 March to buy the ballpark and renames it Durkee Field; it completes the purchase in 1932.
- 1934Durkee Gardens begins to be platted, on Dr. Jay H. Durkee's land, for Black professionals and businessmen shut out of white neighborhoods; platting runs to 1944.
- 1937The Public Works Administration completes the 215-unit Durkeeville housing project south of West 8th Street, and the City rebuilds Durkee Field after a fire the year before.
- 1938The Jacksonville Red Caps play a Negro American League season at Durkee Field; they return for 1941 and part of 1942.
- 1953Hank Aaron is one of three Black players who join the Jacksonville Braves at Durkee Field, and the new Stanton Senior High School opens on West 13th Street.
- 1950sThe construction of Interstate 95 in the late 1950s destroys Sugar Hill, the neighborhood on Durkeeville's eastern side.
- 1981Stanton becomes Duval County's first magnet school, Stanton College Preparatory.
- 1996A $21.5 million federal housing grant for the neighborhood is secured; later redevelopment stalls over tax credits and incinerator ash in the soil.
- 2008The S-Line Urban Greenway opens on the abandoned rail line through Durkeeville, Jacksonville's first dedicated urban multi-use trail.
- 2013The Joseph H. Durkee Athletic Field, now J. P. Small Memorial Stadium, is listed on the National Register in July.
- 2020The National Register lists the Durkee Gardens Historic District on 16 March; the census counts 6,392 residents inside the line.
- 2022The Edward Waters College Historic District is listed on the National Register on 8 August, a year after the college became Edward Waters University.
- 2024The mayor signs $200,000 for a Durkeeville revitalization study on 1 July.
- 2025The City cuts the ribbon on 24 January on a $9.6 million renovation of J. P. Small Park and Hank Aaron Field, home field for Edward Waters and Stanton baseball.
A historic ballpark and a park on an incinerator site, a few blocks apart
J. P. Small Park, 4.6 acres on Myrtle Avenue, is the ballpark, a museum of Black baseball under the stands and the new turf of Hank Aaron Field. Emmett Reed Park, 12.5 acres on West 6th Street, has the community center, gym, summer pool, playground and the MaliVai Washington tennis center. The S-Line Urban Greenway, a 4.8-mile trail on an old rail line, runs through the neighborhood.
What the map does not show: Emmett Reed Park is the old 5th and Cleveland incinerator site and the Superfund cleanup's listed address. FEMA, by contrast, puts none of the guide in its 1% or 0.2% flood zones, and no resident is in a JaxReady evacuation zone. No mapped stream runs inside the line: Moncrief Creek passes about 200 meters to the west, and which way a given street drains was not traced. A homeowners policy does not cover flood.
Elsewhere in Jacksonville, not Durkeeville
21 places, with real drive times
Road-adjusted distance and drive time from the centre of the community to each destination, nearest first. Filter by category.
Showing 1–12 of 21 places, nearest first.
Method: distances are straight lines from the population-weighted center of the guide's census blocks, west of Myrtle Avenue, multiplied by a road factor, with a tiered speed model for the drive: honest ranges, not routed times.
Every gym within reach
The City's Emmett Reed Community Center has a gymnasium inside the line, and Joe James Community Center on Grunthal Street is the nearest center on the City's layer. The nearest YMCA is the Johnson Family YMCA on Cleveland Road, with a year-round pool.
- Emmett Reed Community Center: about 1.2 km, gymnasium
- Joe James Community Center: about 0.7 km, call for hours
- Johnson Family YMCA: about 5.5 km, closed Sunday
| Facility | What it is | Drive |
|---|---|---|
| Emmett Reed Community Center open | The City's community center, gymnasium and park at 1093 West 6th Street, inside the line, with a summer pool and the MaliVai Washington tennis center on the same ground. | 3–5 min |
| Joe James Community Center open | The nearest Parks-division center on the City's layer, at 2229 Grunthal Street, inside the line; the City's reservation page lists it and gives no hours, so call (904) 255-6893. | 3–4 min |
| Emmett Reed Park Pool open | The City pool at Emmett Reed Park: outdoor and summer only, 23 May to 2 August in 2026, 1 to 7 p.m. on weekdays in the regular season. | 3–5 min |
| Johnson Family YMCA open | The First Coast YMCA's branch at 5700 Cleveland Road: a pool, fitness center, indoor basketball gymnasium and a teen center; open 5:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday to Thursday, to 7 p.m. Friday and 8 a.m. to noon Saturday, closed Sunday. | 8–12 min |
The free option is the S-Line Urban Greenway for walking, running and cycling, and the public tennis courts at Emmett Reed Park.
Zoned schools across town, and a top magnet inside the line that zones no one
Every block is in Duval County Public Schools. At the reference point, and for 5,179 of the residents, the zones are Smart Pope Livingston Elementary, graded C for 2026; Lake Shore Middle, about 9.5 km south-west on the Westside, C; and William M. Raines High, B. The other 1,213 residents are zoned to Northwestern Legends Elementary and Matthew Gilbert Middle.
| School | Board | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Smart Pope Livingston Elementary School | Duval County Public Schools | 1128 Barber Street, just beyond the south-west corner, prekindergarten to grade 5. On the district's 2026-27 and 2027-28 boundary layers it is the zone at the reference point and for 5,179 of the 6,392 residents; the other 1,213 are zoned to Northwestern Legends Elementary. Graded C for 2026 by the Florida Department of Education, in the state file as News4JAX republished it, with no grade for 2025 or 2024. |
| Lake Shore Middle School | Duval County Public Schools | 2519 Bayview Road on the Westside, about 9.5 km south-west in a straight line, grades 6 to 8: the middle school zone for the same 5,179 residents in both years; the other 1,213 are zoned to Matthew Gilbert Middle. Graded C for 2026, B for 2025 and C for 2024. |
| William M. Raines High School | Duval County Public Schools | 3663 Raines Avenue, grades 9 to 12: the high school zone for every block in 2026-27 and 2027-28. Graded B for 2026, 2025 and 2024. |
| Stanton College Preparatory School | Duval County Public Schools | 1149 West 13th Street, inside the line: an application-only magnet with the International Baccalaureate, graded A for 2026, 2025 and 2024. It zones no one. The district's locator gives the reference point a priority for admission to Stanton, R. L. Brown, James Weldon Johnson College Preparatory Middle and Jacksonville STEM Academy; a priority is not a place, so read the magnet rules and run your own address. |
Confirm your own address in the district's Neighborhood School Locator. At the reference point it shows a priority for Stanton, R. L. Brown, James Weldon Johnson and Jacksonville STEM Academy; a priority is not a seat, so read each magnet's admission rules.
Month by month, what living here looks like
Not a highlights reel: the actual annual rhythm, including the dates residents have to remember.
- Highs near 19 °C and lows near 6 °C at Jacksonville International on the 1991 to 2020 normal, with about six nights at or below freezing
- The Duval County Property Appraiser values every property as of 1 January
- Edward Waters baseball opens its season at J. P. Small Park in late January; it was 31 January in 2025
- File for the homestead exemption with the property appraiser by 1 March of the year after you buy; it is not automatic on purchase
- Highs near 21 °C and about 73 mm of rain
- The Gate River Run, the 15-kilometer road race downtown, is on 6 March 2027
- Highs near 24 °C and lows near 10 °C; Stanton and Edward Waters play their home games on Hank Aaron Field
- Highs near 27 °C and about 74 mm of rain, with only about four days of measurable rain
- A good month to have the roof, gutters and any tree over the house looked at before hurricane season
- The Jacksonville Jazz Festival fills downtown over Memorial Day weekend with free stages; the 2027 dates are not posted
- City pools open on Memorial Day weekend; the nearest is at Emmett Reed Park
- Highs near 30 °C, and about eight days reach 32 °C
- The Atlantic hurricane season runs from 1 June to 30 November
- The wettest month on the normal, 193 mm, mostly in afternoon thunderstorms; highs near 32 °C
- Check the flood policy: a homeowners policy covers wind, not rising water
- Highs near 33 °C and lows near 23 °C, with about 24 days reaching 32 °C
- About 10 days with measurable rain, most of it in afternoon storms
- The property appraiser mails the TRIM notice of proposed taxes in mid to late August; it was 14 August in 2026
- A petition to the Value Adjustment Board is due on the 25th day after the mailing: 8 September in 2026
- Edward Waters students return to Kings Road for the fall semester; City pools close for the season, on 2 August in 2026
- The hurricane season peaks around 10 September; Irma's river flood came on 11 September 2017
- The second-wettest month, about 192 mm; nor'easters brought tidal flooding to the St. Johns basin in September and October 2025
- Highs near 27 °C and lows near 16 °C as the humidity breaks
- First Wednesday Art Walk downtown on 7 October 2026
- The Florida-Georgia game, normally in Jacksonville, is in Atlanta on 31 October 2026 and in Tampa in 2027
- JTA moves most routes to a Saturday schedule on weekdays from 2 November 2026; route 3 drops to every 30 minutes
- Jaguars home games downtown on 1 and 29 November 2026; the Jacksonville Light Boat Parade on the St. Johns on 28 November
- The hurricane season ends on 30 November
- Highs near 20 °C and lows near 8 °C, with about four freezing nights on the normal
- The driest stretch of the year begins: November's normal is 51 mm and December's 71 mm
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About these photographs. Openly licensed images geotagged in or near Durkeeville, found on Wikimedia Commons and served from there with full attribution. Inline photos elsewhere on the page may still come from the site's shared Jacksonville library.