The new owner of one of downtown’s most historically significant structures says his purchase of the Dyal-Upchurch Building fulfills a 40-year dream to help revitalize downtown.

Jack Hanania, owner of more than a dozen car dealerships,insists he’ll do what he can to rent out the vacant space in the six-story building at 4 E. Bay St.

The city signed a contract for the Dyal-Upchurch Building just two months after the Great Fire of 1901 burned through downtown. Henry John Klutho, an architect from New York, agreed to build it.

Work on the building was completed just a year after the fire, opening the Beaux-Arts-style office block to a Georgia investment firm. The building set the tone for Klutho, who would stake his career on Jacksonville and rebuild much of downtown according to his own vision.

Wayne Wood, a Jacksonville architectural historian, said just two years after the fire, the city had built more new buildings than had been destroyed.

The Dyal-Upchurch Building, he said, was "emblematic of Jacksonville’s renaissance after the fire. To have a building like that under contract two months after the fire was pretty significant. It showed that Jacksonville was going to make a comeback."

Hanania, a Jacksonville native, said he’s wanted to buy property downtown for 40 years. The Dyal-Upchurch Building houses law firms, staffing agencies, a production studio and an advertising firm. Hanania said he wants to keep the current tenants and find new ones to occupy the about 10,000 square feet that are vacant.

He said he plans to spend nearly a half-million dollars renovating the building’s elevators, but he said he hasn’t considered raising rents. "I want to do what’s fair," he said.

Hanania said, "I purchased it because it’s a beautiful-looking building."

A. Duda & Sons, an Oviedo-based company, sold the building to Ten-H Investments LLC, a new company started by Hanania and Joe Hassan, for $2.8 million.

Hanania said that being a local offers him an advantage that Duda & Sons didn’t have. "We just need to get things moving downtown. It’s important we get things starting to move in this good strong economy."

Hanania added he’s looking to purchase another building downtown so he can move his own corporate headquarters there from Blanding Boulevard.

Because the building is historic, any improvements Hanania’s company pays for to preserve the building could qualify for a 20-percent tax credit, according to Wood. That means if the company spends $100,000, it could get back $20,000 when filing taxes.

Wood said historic buildings — not new projects — are dominating development plans downtown for office space.

"Historic buildings are leading the renaissance," he said.