Abandoned ice factory in Florida

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On December 20, 1926, work began on the Florida Power & Light Company of Miami Ice Plant on Dixie Highway in Melbourne by its construction subsidiary, the Phoenix Utility Company. The steel frame, tile block and stucco building was to cost $25,000. The additional equipment, of which the first car load arrived earlier in July, would bring the total investment to almost $100,000. The property was purchased from Phoebe B. Green and Lillian M. Barnum, both of Melbourne, for an undisclosed amount. Test holes drilled by the Phoenix Utility Co. indicated dry, hard-packed sand to 6 feet.

At the time Melbourne was a small town of approximately 5,000 consisting mainly of houses, a few small hotels, a downtown area, and a large cypress sawmill west of town. Some retirees had moved down from the North, but the land boom was not near the scale of Miami's. Most residents operated small businesses, worked at the sawmill or were involved in agriculture and fishing. The new 50-ton ice plant would benefit all; especially the local fishing industry which shipped its catch in wooden barrels of chipped ice. It would be the newest, most modern and one of the last ice plants to be constructed by the then young Florida Power & Light Company.

It was earlier in 1926 that FP&L incorporated at the height of the South Florida land boom. FP&L was a conglomerate of 58 assorted power, ice, gas, and transportation ventures and was organized by American Power & Light Company whose parent company was the Electric Bond & Share Company of the General Electric Company. In 1926, ice and electric power intertwined throughout the state. Many of the small power companies FP&L bought were also producing ice. Ice could be made without electricity but became more efficient with the use of electric compressors. While it was the initial intention of most ice companies to provide electric power exclusively for their own use, they soon developed a surplus and began selling power to the growing communities. The greater availability of lights and appliances placed an ever increasing demand on ice companies to sell more power to more customers and generating electricity became more profitable than ice.

The ice produced at a plant such as this is a much higher quality than what is made at home. It could stay frozen much longer and was crystal clear because it was aireated. during the freezing process which allowed gases and impurities to escape making the ice more compact.

All went as well as could be expected as South Florida weathered several devastating hurricanes, a real estate bust and a depression. In 1935 Congress passed the Wheeler-Rayburne Bill also known as the Public Utility Act. It was aimed at breaking up the utility conglomerates like FP&L and its chain of parent companies. The bill was also designed to break the total control of utilities in a community by a single company.

In Miami, FP&L owned the ice, power, gas, water, and trolley line. The Government, realizing the potential of electricity, was forcing FP&L and others to give up all but the production and distribution of electric power. Work on the reorganization of FP&L started in 1935 and a plan was approved in 1944, after 9 years in the making.

The plan called for all existing FP&L ice production facilities to be leased to the City Ice & Fuel Company of Chicago later to be known as City Products Corporation which began leasing the Melbourne plant in 1941. They purchased the property in 1951 and continued its operation until 1977 at which time the plant was closed and abandoned.

At the Melbourne plant the change in management meant very little to the operation of the facility. All of the employees were retained and the daily icing routine continued. On the average, 25 northbound produce trucks were iced each night with sales to the community and fishermen during the day. Occasionally, during peak times, ice was shipped by rail in 300 pound blocks as far north as the Carolinas. An employee, Russel F. Vann, Jr., who started work as an operator in 1933, made $80 a month. By 1940 he was earning $100 a month and he retired as plant supervisor in 1975.

In 1951, the year City Products Corporation purchased the plant, the facilities estimated sales value was $37,000 and had fire insurance coverage of $105,000. That same year an analysis of the FP&L leased ice production facilities by FP&L revealed that ice prices had not increased over 35% during the past 10 years due to competitive refrigeration. During the same period, labor and all operating costs increased over 75% and the cost of construction and maintenance increased over 100% This, along with City Products Corporation's failure to efficiently and properly maintain each facility, greater competition, and sales changing to more processed (cubed, chipped and crushed) ice with its increased labor demands, would inhibit all plants under 50-tons to continue operating at a profit. It also hinted that in the distant future all ice plants utilizing 1920's and 1930's technology would be unable to operate competitively.

Building Description

At the time of construction the building had a modern appearance and was of similar exterior design to other FP&L buildings built at this time. Specifically, its outward appearance and decorative stucco detailing directly relates to Ft. Pierce substation and dispatching office, and a generating plant on the West Coast at Punta Gorda completed in the spring of 1927. The exterior colors were similar to the Miami Ice Plant No. 2 with all rough stucco to be natural shade broom dash. The smooth stucco was the same natural shade except the coping and cornice on the main and secondary structure, penthouse, pilaster caps and indentations were to be Italian sienna color, smooth finish. The building was designed as a modular type system so that the first 50-ton capacity could be easily expanded to meet the city's growing needs. The functional criteria pertinent to the manufacture of ice have generated a well-balanced building with each function individually expressed and collectively unified.

The plant, situated on a major highway connecting the far north with the far south, has somewhat of a fortified base which separates the lighter structure of the main activity above, from the street below. This fortification is achieved by thick walls of tile block and stucco insulated for cold storage with asphalt and 10 inches of cork. The entrance to this section was originally on the east side facing the street and was changed to the north side in 1955. The floor was slatted wood over four feet of gravel and sand to allow the water from the slowly melting ice to percolate back into the soil. A wooden stairway is at the west end of this floor and allows access to the harvesting floor on the next open level. There are two loading docks, one on the east street side of the building and the other on the north side. Both are 34 feet above ground level and access was originally by steps between them at the corner of the building. In 1955 the east dock was cut in half with the southern half lowered, to allow for automatic ice dispensing to the public, and steps installed up to the dock level. The original steps were removed and both docks were extended to the corner.

Directly above the first floor refrigerated storage area is a steel frame grid floor supporting a steel freezing tank measuring 30' x 70' x 44' and a 6' x 24" x 4½' forecooling tank. The forecooling tank was intended to chill the water before filling the freezing cans but was never used. This intermediate area is expressed by an overhang penetrating the facade at the street side and north loading dock. The overhang and its sturdy supports also adds to the fortified base of the main structure.

Above this intermediate level is the harvesting floor where the 300 pound cans of ice, once frozen by immersion in' the ammonia-chilled brine water freezing tank and the wooden covers removed, were lifted out three cans at a time by a one-ton overhead traveling crane. They were then taken to the west end of the room, dipped in warm water to release the ice from the cans, then placed on the lowerator/can-filler in the southwest corner then lowered to the first floor for storage and processing. The steel freezing cans remaining on the can-filler portion of the lowerator were refilled and placed back in the chilled brine water. The average temperature of the brine solution was about 20F and it took approximately 48 hours to freeze the ice. The east end of the brine tank contained the ammonia coils and a 3 HP agitator in each corner. The northwest corner of the room had two 84 HP aireator/blowers, two core pumps and the auxiliary electrical panel.

The 96' X 31' harvesting floor is an open space with a 19 foot ceiling height which when added to the four foot cornice gives an exterior dimension of 22 feet. This dimension exceeds the 18 foot total dimension of the base components (loading dock, cold storage, freezing section). The pilasters, which divide the main rectangular portion of the building into a 2 by 6 bay structure, emphasize the main steel columns and continue uninterrupted from the base through the cornice. Strong corners are also provided by the pilasters at the meeting of each facade. The windows, two per bay, are 3 by 9 light fixed pane except one above the rear door and two above the penthouse which are 3 by 4 light, all have equally sized mullions (no rails) so that the verticality will not be interrupted. Directly below each window is a vent with a steel hood. At the rear of this top section is a door with a steel beam above for hoisting large equipment to and from this floor. Also at the rear on the ground level is an attached concrete shelter for transformers which were later moved into the compressor room.

Adjacent to the north of the main structure, set back two bays and extending beyond one bay, is the office, restrooms (originally separate ones for blacks and whites) and compressor room. This five-bay section is of the same exterior design as the main portion of the building with their steel frame works being totally independent of each other. The office on the east end of this section, is 14' X 22' with a ceiling height of 135 feet. There is a restroom in the southwest corner and cement steps leading up to the loading dock door in the southeast corner. The fenestration consists of three 3 by 4 light windows with the center 6 lights pivoting, two are on the east side and one iS on the north. Entrance is through a door on the east side from the loading dock or a door on the north side at ground level. The door on the north side is steel and glass with a window above, together they have the same light arrangement as the windows with the lower 6 lights on the door. The door from the loading dock is the same without the windows above.

The next two rooms are the white and black restrooms. Both have a steel and glass door with a two light window above and four lights below the door. Each is paired with a window having the same light arrangements with the upper six lights pivoting and all are on north side. The white restroom is 9' X 19' and the one for blacks measures 7' X 14', both having the same ceiling height as the office.

Next is the compressor room which is 48' X 22'. It contains the ammonia compressors, as well as the water pumps and electrical panels. The compressors were not new and came from an ice plant in Ft. Lauderdale. The original compressors were a York 9" X 9", 15-ton driven by a General Electric 50 HP synchronous motor and a York 11" X 13", 40-ton driven by a General Electric 125 HP synchronous motor. A smaller York 74" X 74" driven by a General Electric 30 HP induction motor added in 1941, came from a plant in Columbus, Ohio. All three remain in the building. There are three 9KW General Electric exciters for the compressors along the north wall of the room. The two water pumps, a 5HP-30 GPM and a 7 HP 5-GPM and a 7 HP-500 GPM, were located along the west wall and an Ingersoll Rand air compressor was in the north corner. At the east end was the control panel with the switches, power meters and breakers for the compressors. Directly behind the panel were the transformers and oil contactors. The windows in this room have the same light arrangement as the office windows with two windows per bay, four on the north side, two on the south and three on the end facing west. There are two steel and glass doors paired on the north side with the same arrangement of lights, although having fixed panes, as the windows.

In the southwest corner of the compressor room is a steel stairway leading up to the ice harvesting floor through a penthouse on the roof of this section. The penthouse fenstration consists of two 3 by 3 light fixed pane windows. A door was made on the east side in 1942 to allow access to the roof.

Directly west of the secondary section is a water cooling tower added in 1955 and taken from a plant in Live Oak, Florida, a horizontal steel ammonia receiving tank and two vertical ammonia condensing tanks, and the water treatment facility. The water treatment facility consisted of a sand filter, water softener, clear well, and sump all under cover of an open wood roof. As the quality of municipal water improved, the system was no longer needed and was removed in the early 1960's.

East Elevation (date unknown)

East Elevation (1981)

East and North Elevations (1981)

West Elevation (1981)