With San Marco Preservation Society’s 50th anniversary approaching next year, Resident News is launching a series of vignettes featuring SMPS past presidents and celebrating the leaders who helped shape the organization responsible for preserving and protecting the historical fabric and character of the San Marco community. Look for this monthly feature in the coming months, highlighting more familiar faces behind the preservation society.
San Marco Preservation Society has always been a fixture in Linzee Ott’s life, growing up, as she did, in Miramar.
“I don’t think I ever heard about the SMPS as much as I grew up seeing it around the neighborhood,” she said.
After returning to the neighborhood as an adult and settling in North San Marco, she was challenged by fellow past president Bryan Mickler to be a force for change to address the needs she spotted in the community and, at age 25, Ott joined the organization’s board of directors.
When Ott first became involved with SMPS, San Marco was in the infancy stage of the growth and development it has experienced in recent years and Ott recognized the crucial balance the community needed to maintain between preservation and progress.
“You have to have both for a vibrant, authentic place,” she said. “Unequivocally. And the SMPS plays a major
role in helping steward that vision and that balance.”
In 2019, Ott became the youngest president in SMPS history, serving a one-year term that involved navigating a controversial development – The Hendricks at San Marco, formerly known as Park Place – and ended with the early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Hendricks at San Marco was first introduced as the Park Place development and was met with strong neighborhood opposition. Through community involvement, including conversations between the development team, SMPS, Right Size San Marco, South Jacksonville Presbyterian Church and the San Marco Merchants Association, the project advanced toward compromise and improvement.
Through all of that, Ott was at the helm of the preservation society.
“Navigating a contentious development at the heart of the neighborhood taught me a lot about urban planning, the value of research and doing your homework, the importance of considering all perspectives, and leadership in general,” Ott said.
The final three months of her presidency was derailed by the pandemic and subsequent shutdowns, forcing Ott to pivot from other goals she had for the organization
and the community.
“But I did get to experience the really beautiful power of neighbors coming together to support local and protect the neighborhood in a new way,” she added.
Ott remains heavily involved in SMPS today, currently serving as chair for the governance and Preservation Hall committee. At the 2025 SMPS Annual Meeting, she was honored with the title of director emeritus, which has been bestowed upon only six others in the organization’s nearly 50 years: Zim Boulos, Lori Boyer, Suzanne Perritt, Robin Robinson, Rob Smith and Mary Toomey.
Ott said that of all she accomplished during her presidency, the relationships she cultivated are her proudest achievements.
“We have some incredible people in our community,” she said. “Getting to know and working with so many remarkable people in San Marco and in this city changed the trajectory of my life and exposed me to some of my most cherished connections.”
