Current Courthouse

[thelakelander]

Get where I'm going with this? What's the point in putting a $10k stereo into a car that doesn't run? The convention center and all of the similar ideas that are floated here locally are a moot point, because we have a dead downtown. These kind of things will never work until the city is functional by itself first.

To create a functional city, you have to locate things in a manner that breed that type of environment.  Our downtown doesn't work because of a lack of connectivity and clustering complementing uses together in a compact setting.  Part of relocating the convention center to the current courthouse site is the act of clustering and putting complementing uses together to create synergy and foot traffic (the things essential for a vibrant downtown).  A convention center hotel (Hyatt), entertainment (Bay Street/Florida Theater/river), retail/dining (Landing) are all uses that an exhibition hall could complement.  Considering the current courthouse site is within immediate walking distance of these existing subsidized uses, it makes sense to arrange them in a manner to where they can truly feed off each other and generate foot traffic.  The other side of this discussion is that the transportation element.  To properly revive this economic engine in downtown, the convention center needs to vacate the Prime Osborn site.  So this puts us in an either/or position.  (A) Relocate in a manner that better utilizes our existing investments, events and urban context, which allows for the return of transportation downtown or  (B) call it quits and get out the convention game altogether, thus potentially ruining the other struggling investments we're already subsidizing.

I don't think calling it quits on the convention business would have any effect on anything else, it's not like we have any convention visitors to speak of anyway, is it? And regarding clustering, you and I totally agree. My point here is that you can cluster 5 buggy-whip factories, 10 Asbestos plants, maybe throw in a couple aluminum cookware factories and a snake oil store, and then tie it all together with some restaurants serving calf's brains and Beondegi (edible silkworms) and hell you could even throw in a streetcar, and it won't accomplish anything except wasting money.

On the other hand, if you cluster light/medium industrial employers, supporting commercial activity, residents, infrastructure, and affordable housing and transportation, well that's a whole different story. I understand the concept of clustering, but it only goes so far if the underlying things being clustered don't work in the local environment.

As long as you're employing a ton of people in a compact setting, you'll create a decent district with both examples.  One may not be upscale but the foot traffic generated will create business opportunities for complementing and supporting uses.

We need to work on regenerating a sustainable and functional organic local economy in our dead downtown before a convention center or any of these other stale pies in the sky are ever going to work down there. Lake, people want something to do when they get here. "Build it and they will come" doesn't work unless there's some reason for them to come aside from just a building. Nobody will ride in a broken car, no matter how nice the stereo is. The real problems need to be addressed first.

I agree.  We need to do a lot of things.  However, we aren't starting from scratch.  Your car might be broken because your tires are sitting on the other side of the garage.  So a solution might be to properly install the tires and enjoy the stereo.  Many things will have to be done in conjunction with one another, giving the current landscape.  The key is having and following an overall plan/vision and getting creative to take advantage of all opportunities when they present themselves.

[ChriswUfGator]

Today, we have a subsidized convention center hotel over a mile away from the exhibition hall, which happens to be in a train station.  In short, we've replaced urbanism with suburbanism in DT and wonder why things don't work despite the hundreds of millions we've spent in the area.  We've screwed up things on so many levels over the years, we could make a bestseller on how to destroy a city without nuclear warfare.  No matter what the subject is (ex. convention center, parks, mass transit, etc.), we're going to have to make the concepts of connectivity, complementing and clustering within a compact setting the top priority.

+1

I know this is heresy to you planners, but I agree with your assessment of how downtown died, we de-clustered everything and ran off the economic engines that employed people (shipping, industrial supply and manufacturing, corporate employers, destroyed all the housing stock within miles of downtown, removed most public transit, etc., etc., ad nauseum) frankly it would have been stupefying if our downtown HADN'T died.

But now that we are where we are, the money needs to be spent on reinjecting affordable housing, enticing corporate and industrial employers to relocate there, and rebuilding public transit connectivity. In short, we need to focus resources on getting people back down there, and the commercial infrastructure (restaurants, drycleaners, stores, etc.) that go where people are. That is priority #1.

Until that is all accomplished, all this convention center amounts to is putting a $10k stereo in a broken car instead of rebuilding the engine. Dog Walker is 110% correct, we don't have a snowball's chance in hell of anything like that working here until out downtown is no longer a broken car sitting on 4 flat tires. It isn't very complicated, and actually boils back down to my allegorical example that I'll repeat one more time; Nobody will ride in a broken car, no matter how nice the stereo is.

[ChriswUfGator]

Get where I'm going with this? What's the point in putting a $10k stereo into a car that doesn't run? The convention center and all of the similar ideas that are floated here locally are a moot point, because we have a dead downtown. These kind of things will never work until the city is functional by itself first.

To create a functional city, you have to locate things in a manner that breed that type of environment.  Our downtown doesn't work because of a lack of connectivity and clustering complementing uses together in a compact setting.  Part of relocating the convention center to the current courthouse site is the act of clustering and putting complementing uses together to create synergy and foot traffic (the things essential for a vibrant downtown).  A convention center hotel (Hyatt), entertainment (Bay Street/Florida Theater/river), retail/dining (Landing) are all uses that an exhibition hall could complement.  Considering the current courthouse site is within immediate walking distance of these existing subsidized uses, it makes sense to arrange them in a manner to where they can truly feed off each other and generate foot traffic.  The other side of this discussion is that the transportation element.  To properly revive this economic engine in downtown, the convention center needs to vacate the Prime Osborn site.  So this puts us in an either/or position.  (A) Relocate in a manner that better utilizes our existing investments, events and urban context, which allows for the return of transportation downtown or  (B) call it quits and get out the convention game altogether, thus potentially ruining the other struggling investments we're already subsidizing.

I don't think calling it quits on the convention business would have any effect on anything else, it's not like we have any convention visitors to speak of anyway, is it? And regarding clustering, you and I totally agree. My point here is that you can cluster 5 buggy-whip factories, 10 Asbestos plants, maybe throw in a couple aluminum cookware factories and a snake oil store, and then tie it all together with some restaurants serving calf's brains and Beondegi (edible silkworms) and hell you could even throw in a streetcar, and it won't accomplish anything except wasting money.

On the other hand, if you cluster light/medium industrial employers, supporting commercial activity, residents, infrastructure, and affordable housing and transportation, well that's a whole different story. I understand the concept of clustering, but it only goes so far if the underlying things being clustered don't work in the local environment.

As long as you're employing a ton of people in a compact setting, you'll create a decent district with both examples.  One may not be upscale but the foot traffic generated will create business opportunities for complementing and supporting uses.

We need to work on regenerating a sustainable and functional organic local economy in our dead downtown before a convention center or any of these other stale pies in the sky are ever going to work down there. Lake, people want something to do when they get here. "Build it and they will come" doesn't work unless there's some reason for them to come aside from just a building. Nobody will ride in a broken car, no matter how nice the stereo is. The real problems need to be addressed first.

I agree.  We need to do a lot of things.  However, we aren't starting from scratch.  Your car might be broken because your tires are sitting on the other side of the garage.  So a solution might be to properly install the tires and enjoy the stereo.  Many things will have to be done in conjunction with one another, giving the current landscape.  The key is having and following an overall plan/vision and getting creative to take advantage of all opportunities when they present themselves.

That sounds nice, but we don't the money to fix the car at once, and in this case the car can't be fixed overnight. Rebuilding a functioning economy in our dead downtown will probably take 5+ years if we started today. Which considering the current administration, we're not starting today.

Do you disagree that, in the current state of downtown, a convention center is not the best use of funds, or that the convention center is about 99.99999% likely to be another total failure without all of the aforementioned pieces that are necessary to attract visitors to that facility? If you and I agree that conventions don't want to visit a dead city and that the economy needs to be rebuilt downtown before that will ever be successful, then I'm not understanding why we don't agree that whatever funds we're discussing spending on a hundred-million-dollar stereo for our broken car needs to be spent on fixing the engine and we can revisit the stereo later. Nobody will ride in a broken car, no matter how nice the stereo is. The problem is really exactly that simple.

[thelakelander]

Instead of subsidizing affordable housing and tricking employers to relocate, we need to stop looking at DT as an isolated environment and market/build it up with the urban core in general.  With that in mind, the key to affordability is to reconnect the DT core with surrounding core neighborhoods.  For example, a Brooklyn, LaVilla or New Springfield can become districts where market rate affordable housing opportunities can exist with residents being connected to the rest of the city via reliable fixed mass transit (think DC's version of Columbia Heights).  Outside of that, focus should be giving to taking better advantage of what is already in DT, building around anchors that won't relocate (ex. medical, education) and bringing elements of the transportation and maritime related industries back within a compact setting.  If we can do these things, we'll find that many issues discussed here will take care of themselves.

[Ralph W]

Looking at the design of WWII military bases might give some insight to what you have just said.  A core function, the particular military mission, was surrounded or at least developed as a crescent, by the infrastructure to support the mission. It included everything possible and kept it as compact as possible. If you wanted a supermarket - there it was; a bowling ally - there it was; a restaurant or bistro or two (not the chow hall) - there it was; entertainment - there it was.

[thelakelander]

That sounds nice, but we don't the money to fix the car at once, and in this case the car can't be fixed overnight. Rebuilding a functioning economy in our dead downtown will probably take 5+ years if we started today. Which considering the current administration, we're not starting today.

Long term rebuilding will take +10 if we started today.  However, we're still not starting from scratch.  With a little connectivity, things that don't work today can work overnight.  Also, we can rebuild without immediately spending millions.  Things like eliminating hostile policy changes don't require much capital.  Also, taking advantage of public/private partnerships is a great way to move forward on many items we assume can only happen with 100% public capital.

Do you disagree that, in the current state of downtown, a convention center is not the best use of funds, or that the convention center is about 99.99999% likely to be another total failure without all of the aforementioned pieces that are necessary to attract visitors to that facility?

Orlando, Vegas, Mobile, Birmingham aside, I see there being a benefit to the vibrancy of the Northbank area if we just picked up the Prime Osborn in its current state today and dropped it next to the Hyatt.  That benefit is connectivity and clustering compact uses within a compact setting.  I see such a move as a great positive for places like the Landing, Hyatt, Northbank Riverwalk and Bay Street because of the synergy generated by connectivity.  

With that said, a new convention center would not be my top priority but I see no harm in finding public/private opportunities to get it relocated to the courthouse site, which would then free up the old terminal to be used for what it was originally built for.

If you and I agree that conventions don't want to visit a dead city and that the economy needs to be rebuilt downtown before that will ever be successful, then I'm not understanding why we don't agree that whatever funds we're discussing spending on a hundred-million-dollar stereo for our broken car needs to be spent on fixing the engine and we can revisit the stereo later. Nobody will ride in a broken car, no matter how nice the stereo is. The problem is really exactly that simple.

My point with DT is even in its current state, it has assets.  What's considered dead now can easily turn around overnight when the proper complementing uses are placed adjacent to it.  So over all, I agree that it will take decades to truly transform DT.  However, pockets of vibrant street life can be created fairly quickly if the right uses are placed next to others.

[thelakelander]

The transportation issue adds an extra element to the discussion.  You can't discuss the convention situation locally without including it.

9. What is more important to the future of Jacksonville, the Prime Osborn as a convention center or a transportation center?

10. Assuming bringing transportation back to the Jacksonville terminal is more important, how does that impact the convention center discussion/timing?

[ChriswUfGator]

Instead of subsidizing affordable housing and tricking employers to relocate, we need to stop looking at DT as an isolated environment and market/build it up with the urban core in general.  With that in mind, the key to affordability is to reconnect the DT core with surrounding core neighborhoods.  For example, a Brooklyn, LaVilla or New Springfield can become districts where market rate affordable housing opportunities can exist with residents being connected to the rest of the city via reliable fixed mass transit (think DC's version of Columbia Heights).  Outside of that, focus should be giving to taking better advantage of what is already in DT, building around anchors that won't relocate (ex. medical, education) and bringing elements of the transportation and maritime related industries back within a compact setting.  If we can do these things, we'll find that many issues discussed here will take care of themselves.

Well, yeah, that's really the problem here. We demolished LaVilla, Brooklyn, Sugar Hill, etc., we basically got rid of all affordable housing within a couple miles of downtown. We also ran off most of the industrial and large commercial tenants, and all the smaller commerce pulled up their tents and left after there were no longer any people down there to serve. Naturally, the hardly-surprising result is that it's completely dead and all we have to show for it is some pretty looking empty buildings. The last thing we need is another one.

I don't see what a convention center is going to do to correct that problem. Why not a Uranium mine instead? I mean, if we're just going to build random business-related structures to serve industries that we can't compete in, then why stop at a convention center? Hell, maybe we can cluster the Uranium mine next to Dog Walker's snow-removal company.

Wouldn't it be a better idea to take the same money and redevelop Brooklyn, LaVilla, Sugar Hill, etc., into affordable housing and connect downtown via streetcar with Riverside, Springfield, and San Marco? After watching the courthouse odyssey, we could probably do all that and have a couple hundred mil left over vs. what it would take for us to build a convention center.

A convention center will be a flop, because it does nothing to address these problems, which aren't fixable through architecture. It's a business problem. The convention center won't do anything one way or the other to address any of this, and it will fail because nobody wants to attend conventions in a dead city where they roll up the sidewalks at 2pm. Again, we need to fix the engine before we bother dumping a hundred-million-dollar stereo into this broken car. If it can't go from point-A to point-B, nobody is going to use it regardless of how nice the stereo is.

[ChriswUfGator]

The transportation issue adds an extra element to the discussion.  You can't discuss the convention situation locally without including it.

9. What is more important to the future of Jacksonville, the Prime Osborn as a convention center or a transportation center?

10. Assuming bringing transportation back to the Jacksonville terminal is more important, how does that impact the convention center discussion/timing?

Of course it impacts it, this is all tied together because there is only so much appetite for taxpayer-funded projects, especially when they so regularly turn into disasters. There is only so much money to go around. In this case, taking the convention center money and instead using it to bring passenger rail back to the Terminal would be a far better use that would actually address some of the root problems downtown by bringing people back down there on a regular basis.

One-trick ponies like convention centers don't stimulate the same type of development as a rail-station does because every business owner knows you can't base your success on visitors that are here for a day or two and leave, unless you're something like Orlando or Vegas which we will never be. There is such a long history of faulure with convention centers across the country, that I bet we won't gain a single new business as a result of building one here, excepting whatever catering or restaurant concessions we have to subsidize inside the building as taxpayers.

No business owner is dumb enough to ignore the question about what happens the other 364 days a year after the convention leaves, when there is still no functioning economy downtown. A train station is a different animal, because it brings people in on regular schedules, day, after day, after day, after day, it doesn't just bring in 10,000 people one day and then nothing the next. You can base a business on steady customer flow, not on sporadic and unpredictable customer flow.

This is why these architecture-based solutions to these problems never work, there is this whole other alternate universe that nobody ever considers, which is the actual business aspect of these things.

[thelakelander]

Instead of subsidizing affordable housing and tricking employers to relocate, we need to stop looking at DT as an isolated environment and market/build it up with the urban core in general.  With that in mind, the key to affordability is to reconnect the DT core with surrounding core neighborhoods.  For example, a Brooklyn, LaVilla or New Springfield can become districts where market rate affordable housing opportunities can exist with residents being connected to the rest of the city via reliable fixed mass transit (think DC's version of Columbia Heights).  Outside of that, focus should be giving to taking better advantage of what is already in DT, building around anchors that won't relocate (ex. medical, education) and bringing elements of the transportation and maritime related industries back within a compact setting.  If we can do these things, we'll find that many issues discussed here will take care of themselves.

Well, yeah, that's really the problem here. We demolished LaVilla, Brooklyn, Sugar Hill, etc., we basically got rid of all affordable housing within a couple miles of downtown. We also ran off most of the industrial and large commercial tenants, and all the smaller commerce pulled up their tents and left after there were no longer any people down there to serve. Naturally, the hardly-surprising result is that it's completely dead and all we have to show for it is some pretty looking empty buildings. The last thing we need is another one.

I don't see what a convention center is going to do to correct that problem. Why not a Uranium mine instead? I mean, if we're just going to build random business-related structures to serve industries that we can't compete in, then why stop at a convention center? Hell, maybe we can cluster the Uranium mine next to Dog Walker's snow-removal company.

You're putting a little too much thought into this.  No one (or at least I) has stated that a convention center is going to cure downtown's ills.  Neither is moving Amtrak back to the Prime Osborn or turning the Shipyards back into industrial use.  There is no one trick pony to rebuild what's been ripped to shreads over the last few decades.  However, what a relocated convention center (assuming its the courthouse site) will do is free up space to restore the terminal for transportation use and place complementing uses together (Hyatt, exhibition hall, Landing, Bay Street), allowing them to grow and feed off each other.

Wouldn't it be a better idea to take the same money and redevelop Brooklyn, LaVilla, Sugar Hill, etc., into affordable housing and connect downtown via streetcar with Riverside, Springfield, and San Marco? After watching the courthouse odyssey, we could probably do all that and have a couple hundred mil left over vs. what it would take for us to build a convention center.

Funding would/should come from different sources.  Thus, I don't buy the either/or argument.  The mobility fee along with other transportation funding mechanisms should give us the opportunity to move forward with fixed transit.  At the exact same time, we could be revising policy to allow for a less hostile environment for small business.  Perhaps a public (COJ providing the land)/private partnership will help faciliate movement on a "mixed-use" convention facility, if desired?  Anyway, all of these things can happen at the same time, imo.

[ChriswUfGator]

Instead of subsidizing affordable housing and tricking employers to relocate, we need to stop looking at DT as an isolated environment and market/build it up with the urban core in general.  With that in mind, the key to affordability is to reconnect the DT core with surrounding core neighborhoods.  For example, a Brooklyn, LaVilla or New Springfield can become districts where market rate affordable housing opportunities can exist with residents being connected to the rest of the city via reliable fixed mass transit (think DC's version of Columbia Heights).  Outside of that, focus should be giving to taking better advantage of what is already in DT, building around anchors that won't relocate (ex. medical, education) and bringing elements of the transportation and maritime related industries back within a compact setting.  If we can do these things, we'll find that many issues discussed here will take care of themselves.

Well, yeah, that's really the problem here. We demolished LaVilla, Brooklyn, Sugar Hill, etc., we basically got rid of all affordable housing within a couple miles of downtown. We also ran off most of the industrial and large commercial tenants, and all the smaller commerce pulled up their tents and left after there were no longer any people down there to serve. Naturally, the hardly-surprising result is that it's completely dead and all we have to show for it is some pretty looking empty buildings. The last thing we need is another one.

I don't see what a convention center is going to do to correct that problem. Why not a Uranium mine instead? I mean, if we're just going to build random business-related structures to serve industries that we can't compete in, then why stop at a convention center? Hell, maybe we can cluster the Uranium mine next to Dog Walker's snow-removal company.

You're putting a little too much thought into this.  No one (or at least I) has stated that a convention center is going to cure downtown's ills.  Neither is moving Amtrak back to the Prime Osborn or turning the Shipyards back into industrial use.  There is no one trick pony to rebuild what's been ripped to shreads over the last few decades.  However, what a relocated convention center (assuming its the courthouse site) will do is free up space to restore the terminal for transportation use and place complementing uses together (Hyatt, exhibition hall, Landing, Bay Street), allowing them to grow and feed off each other.

Wouldn't it be a better idea to take the same money and redevelop Brooklyn, LaVilla, Sugar Hill, etc., into affordable housing and connect downtown via streetcar with Riverside, Springfield, and San Marco? After watching the courthouse odyssey, we could probably do all that and have a couple hundred mil left over vs. what it would take for us to build a convention center.

Funding would/should come from different sources.  Thus, I don't buy the either/or argument.  The mobility fee along with other transportation funding mechanisms should give us the opportunity to move forward with fixed transit.  At the exact same time, we could be revising policy to allow for a less hostile environment for small business.  Perhaps a public (COJ providing the land)/private partnership will help faciliate movement on a convention facility, if desired?  Anyway, all of these things can happen at the same time, imo.
"mixed-use"

Well, if push came to shove, and the only way we could move the rail center back to the Terminal was by wasting money on a silly convention center, then I'd actually be in favor of the convention center. Don't get me wrong, it won't do a thing to generate growth downtown and it's still going to be a total flop with no more success than the present one, but if that's what it takes to kill this brewing Airport-cum-Railroad / Amtrak boondoggle and bring that activity back downtown, then I would be in favor of it and would view that as just the cost of doing business on the rail station.

That's how strongly I feel about the rail station. If you look at functional cities, they stand on 3 legs. Residential, Commericial, and Transportation. We knocked out two of the legs (Transportation and Residential) and then everyone ran around being consternated for 40 years trying to figure out why the last remaining leg (commercial) didn't hold the stool up and wound up disappearing as well.

Bringing the rail station and streetcar connections to the populated neighborhood back to downtown would partially restore one leg. The redevelopment of all the vacant affordable residential areas we demolished back into affordable residential areas will restore the second leg. The commercial leg will come back on its own, that just follows where the people are. It is that simple.

[jcjohnpaint]

yes we can dream.
I am a fan of some kind of connectivity.  I am afraid this will be a dead zone forever and we have way too many of those in the downtown.  I really wish the existing space could become something. 

[stjr]

Well, if push came to shove, and the only way we could move the rail center back to the Terminal was by wasting money on a silly convention center, then I'd actually be in favor of the convention center. Don't get me wrong, it won't do a thing to generate growth downtown and it's still going to be a total flop with no more success than the present one, but if that's what it takes to kill this brewing Airport-cum-Railroad / Amtrak boondoggle and bring that activity back downtown, then I would be in favor of it and would view that as just the cost of doing business on the rail station.

That's how strongly I feel about the rail station. If you look at functional cities, they stand on 3 legs. Residential, Commericial, and Transportation. We knocked out two of the legs (Transportation and Residential) and then everyone ran around being consternated for 40 years trying to figure out why the last remaining leg (commercial) didn't hold the stool up and wound up disappearing as well.

Bringing the rail station and streetcar connections to the populated neighborhood back to downtown would partially restore one leg. The redevelopment of all the vacant affordable residential areas we demolished back into affordable residential areas will restore the second leg. The commercial leg will come back on its own, that just follows where the people are. It is that simple.

Chris, I would likewise support a new convention center IF a PROPERLY DESIGNED AND FUNCTIONAL intermodal station moved into Osborne (not the nightmare fiasco JTA is currently planning) AND a new convention center was built likewise, WELL DESIGNED AND FUNCTIONAL.

Unfortunately, the City has given us no indications that they have the resources to do so (just see the Courthouse and Monroe Street threads).  As I have said before, these decisions should really be under the auspices of a downtown czar/authority that has long term durability and authority to see the vision adhered to and that is coherently executed.  JTA, Visit Jacksonville, JEDC, Downtown Vision, FDOT, CoJ Planning, etc. - all working independently and disjointedly aren't going to get the job done right.

At present, until downtown planning is unified and somewhat depoliticized, I find it hard to support either of these projects or any others that might be suggested.

[ChriswUfGator]

Yeah stjr you're right about JTA's brewing transit boondoggle plans. They're a whole new level of asinine...

It's just more crap that won't work. The main station is laughable actually, they're going to spend all that money just to have it be obsolete the day it opens because it doesn't have enough tracks and is poorly laid out. That's one main reason I'm in favor of the closing of the convention center and reopening it as a rail terminal, it was designed by people who knew a lot more about passenger rail than JTA and is already a successful design. It takes JTA's roomful of monkeys with typewriters (or plotter machines in this case) out of the equation, which is bound to massively increase the chances of success. I said to Ocklawaha at the time, they must really be working hard to screw it up that bad.

[thelakelander]

My ultimate fear is that the convention center stays (its either relocation or stays, I don't think closing is an option) where it is today and JTA is allowed to build the transportation center in the layout they designed.  If this happens, we will have invested hundreds of millions on two inadequate projects.