Live in Moncrief

The name is older than the neighborhood. A spring on Moncrief Creek drew a pleasure park in 1874, with bathhouses, a dancing pavilion and a mile-long racetrack, and in 1909 a group of Jacksonville businessmen built a new track there that drew between 9,000 and 10,000 people on opening day. The last race was run on 1 April 1911, after the Legislature banned professional racing, and in 1914 the grounds became a subdivision called Moncrief Park. The resort later became a segregated swimming place for Black residents. By Wikipedia's coordinates the springs sit just inside this guide's southern edge, by the railroad; the Moncrief Park the City's names map labels is south of it.

This guide is the City Council's line, not the whole name. It takes the 45th and Moncrief neighborhood action plan the Council adopted in 2004, about 1,190 acres between the CSX railroad, Interstate 95, Lem Turner Road, Edgewood Avenue West and Avenue B. It holds every resident of the area the Moncrief Improvement Association filed with the City and most of Royal Terrace, whose own plan dates from 1994. Moncrief Road runs on south through Durkeeville. An action plan is not a historic district: what it does is make the Planning Department read any development application here for consistency with the plan. Two City landmarks are inside, Mount Olive Cemetery and the Youth Recreation Center, the Eartha Mary Magdalene White Museum building, and exterior work on a landmark needs a certificate of appropriateness.

The census found a neighborhood holding still. It counted 5,151 residents in 2020 against 5,177 on about the same ground in 2010. Owners lived in 45% of the 1,947 occupied homes and 1,077 were rented; 276 of the 2,223 homes, 12%, stood vacant. Half the residents live in ZIP code 32208, where Zillow's typical value was $149,376 in August 2026, down 1.8% on the year; the other half are in 32209, at $106,323, down 5.1%. Both ZIPs are far larger than the plan area.

Cheap houses make the fixed charges loom large. Every address pays the same four levies as the rest of the consolidated city, 17.7412 mills for 2025. A homesteaded buyer at the 32208 figure owes about $1,922 a year on the base exemption amounts; a landlord owes about $2,650 on the same house. The City's solid waste and stormwater fees, about $414 a year for a house in 2026, come on the same bill and no exemption reduces them. Save Our Homes caps a homestead's assessed value at 3% a year and drops on a sale, so a long-time owner's bill understates yours. The arithmetic is on the Jacksonville page.

Moncrief Road is the street the City keeps promising. In December 2024 legislation moved $2.5 million into rebuilding it between 34th and 45th streets, with a roundabout at 45th, crosswalks, a multi-use path and lighting; construction was expected from early 2026, and in July 2026 the City was still pursuing the roundabout while residents named crime and missing crosswalks as the problems. JTA Route 3 stops 270 m from the reference point, every 20 minutes at the weekday peaks now and every 30 from 2 November 2026; the First Coast Flyer Green Line on Lem Turner Road keeps its 20. Moncrief Creek crosses the plan area: FEMA puts 6.6% of it in the 1% annual chance zone but only 20 residents, and JaxReady puts 2,373 residents in hurricane evacuation zones C and D, though the reference point is in none. A homeowners policy does not cover rising water.