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A new jazz club under construction on Bay Street in Downtown Jacksonville is named Eclate, a variation of the French word eclat meaning brilliant performance.
And that's just what Rink Reynolds Diamond Fisher Wilson designers Larry Wilson and Duane Kozachenko, have accomplished in the ultra modern transformation of a former bail bonds office across from the Duval County Courthouse.
With only about 3,500 square feet to work with, Wilson designed the club to be reminiscent of the old, great jazz clubs in Chicago that were housed in warehouses at the fringe of the city.
He and Kozachenko worked with owner Vince O'Rourke to use the existing concrete structure in what was originally a historic warehouse constructed in 1902 after the great fire. The result is a trendy club that will feature an LED lighting system capable of generating 16 million color combinations and a performance stage equipped with a state-of-the-art sound system.
"I tend to like oddball space - I love the challenge," Wilson said. "I noticed the concrete structure and thought that we should strip this down and express the structural system. The idea was to keep it very pure and pristine...