The move of the USS Orleck to her new home is delayed again

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The look of downtown Jacksonville is ready to change again.

The USS Orleck will be moving to its final home, but not as quickly as the city had hoped.

A year ago this week, the USS Orleck moved downtown in front of the Hyatt Regency, and there has always been some controversy over the location.

The USS Orleck will now be relocated to a pier across from the Sheriff’s Office. Eventually, the area will become the Museum Quarter, also known as Shipyards West, but work is still in progress.

The USS Orleck was scheduled to move to her new home on Friday, but that’s not happening. According to director of the Orleck Museum Dan Bean. A group of volunteers have been working at the site, but now Bean said Friday morning’s tides wouldn’t work to tow the giant ship, but added that everything else is ready, at least for now.

Near the new home of the USS Orleck is the Fire Museum, which was moved there last year but has not yet opened. Eventually, the Museum of Science and History (MOSH) will also move to the area.

Over 35,000 people toured the USS Orleck and there were visitors like Robert Noyes on Wednesday afternoon.

“I was on an aircraft carrier, but walking around brings back memories,” he said.

The Orleck volunteers hope that visitors will continue to visit the new site, but it will not happen immediately. It could be a week or two before it’s ready for reopening, and when it does, there’s not much in the area to lure people.

‘It’s not quite ready down there, no. The city has promised to upgrade the road down there. There will be a roundabout, no roundabout, at the curve of the courtyard to allow for that, and that’s a year later, so we do have some accessibility concerns, yes,” Bean said.

But eventually that could change with the opening of the New Four Seasons Hotel near the stadium and other planned attractions that could happen in the next two to three years.