Downtown advocates call for new master plan and vision

[Timkin]

Any master plan along the general lines being discussed here would be another steaming bag of manure, designed to enrich a handful of people with pie-in-the-sky projects at taxpayer expense. There is no need for $20mm. You could make me (or most of the posters on this site, excepting a small handful) grand overlord czar supreme of downtown and give me the grand sum of $0.00 and downtown could be fixed. For free.

The problem is that wouldn't make the usual suspects any money. It's more profitable to continue the B.S.

Really, it's a short list:

1: Eliminate bullshit signage restrictions.
2: Eliminate bullshit zoning restrictions.
3: Eliminate paid parking and meters. (This would save money, parking enforcement costs more than the revenue it generates)
4: Open COJ-owned/run/financed garages to the public, for free, and stop subsidizing private garages. If garage and lot owners can't make it without having their hands in taxpayer pockets, too bad, they can go bust. That's how "business" is supposed to work. (This would also save money, there is very little garage revenue and the taxpayers subsidize these buffoons to the tune of millions annually, just buy them out or sue to terminate the contracts, knowing the parties involved they've all committed material breaches in one way or another by now anyway, shouldn't be hard).
5: Eliminate 1-way streets (except state and union).
6: Appoint a special office for downtown zoning and signage exceptions/business license applications/grant applications/etc., make it a one-stop shop for potential downtown businesses and institute a mandatory turnaround time for dealing with such requests.
7: Eliminate tax inequalities that make downtown unattractive compared to the suburbs, and create a limited-time (10 years) tax abatement program for any business wishing to relocate downtown. (Wouldn't cost any money, since everything is vacant already anyway).
8: Tell the police to stop directing traffic straight to I-95 during major events, or preferably at all. Let people spend time there, and let it develop its own flow.
9: Close the Prime-Osborne and reopen as a rail terminal. If JTA won't play ball, go around them directly to Amtrak.
10: The next time you have a med school, law school, etc. wanting to relocate there (if we're ever so lucky) don't try to gouge the hell out of them for a vacant piece of city-owned property that COJ got for free by demolishing a derelict building. Just play ball.
11: Demolition moratorium. Leave everything as-is. Doesn't matter how ugly it is. Vacant lots are worse.


There are a lot of other things that could be done, but this would be a start.

I like it !!!!  Perhaps you should have run for Mayor or City Council

[urbaknight]

I saw somewhere on another thread, that the Laura st Trio project is supposed to begin in July. Is that still the plan, or will Hogan kill it?

[KuroiKetsunoHana]

I honestly don't give a flip about the SJTC crowd, but I am a downtown supporter and this would restore my faith that we can make downtown a success.  Also, any time we can steal money from SJTC and give it to DT, I'm a fan. 

seconded.

[Dashing Dan]

What pains me is that so many of these ideas are common sense. Yet we spend so much money on having people travel to do studies of other cities and hiring outside consultants and here we are years later stuck with the same results.

Yes!  Exactly!  Why are they constantly spending money to learn things I could tell them as a periodic visitor from Virginia?  And then they have the audacity to pretend to be fiscal conservatives.

So " Ready, Fire, Aim! " once again?

If you all want Jacksonville to stick with that approach, then there's a big courthouse building downtown that I would like to sell to you.

[Timkin]

Id like to demolish that stupid Courthouse

[Garden guy]

You mean the Taj ma'payton? It looks hilarious from the highway...just seems a bit much for this small city...

[thelakelander]

Meh.  The flawed planning and the principles of development are themselves the issue.

Things work according to design.  If you don't like the way that the downtown is working out, make no mistake.  It is functioning perfectly to its design.  Unfortunately the flaws create unintended outcomes.  Those outcomes arent going to stop until you fix the flaws.

I believe that flawed design basically revolves around a complete lack of focus on the public realm and its integration with private land uses and the negative impact of public policies and regulations.  You address these things and downtown (and the urban core for that matter) will be just fine.

[peestandingup]

Id like to demolish that stupid Courthouse

Me too. I cringe every time I drive by that thing.

It just sitting out there begging to be noticed in the middle of what was once a thriving neighborhood that they tore to shreds over nothing. That $400 Million could have done so many things for the city. But we get...a new courthouse. Woo wee! Was there something wrong with the old one? No.

It's whole presence is just really insulting.

[ChriswUfGator]

Meh.  The flawed planning and the principles of development are themselves the issue.

Things work according to design.  If you don't like the way that the downtown is working out, make no mistake.  It is functioning perfectly to its design.  Unfortunately the flaws create unintended outcomes.  Those outcomes arent going to stop until you fix the flaws.

I believe that flawed design basically revolves around a complete lack of focus on the public realm and its integration with private land uses and the negative impact of public policies and regulations.  You address these things and downtown (and the urban core for that matter) will be just fine.

Well, hence my list. The problem is that most of the items on it are making the same small subset of well-connected people money, at all of our expense, and so they become hard to get rid of. Meanwhile, everyone clings to one pie-in-the-sky waste of money after another as the silver-bullet, because that's all you can get done. The political structure prevents anyone from addressing the actual problems, but they have no problem wasting money on things like a guaranteed-to-be-empty convention center, or a new $100mm headquarters for JTA in an area with a pre-existing glut of office vacancies, since the same group owns the land surrounding the site, supplies the cement and building materials, and/or will wind up with the construction contracts. Tammany Hall couldn't hold a candle to this place.

[buckethead]

I know this isn't the "complain about the courthouse thread, but ...

I agree with PJS. What a waste.

[wsansewjs]

You know there are lot of reality TV shows that featured some courtroom fights HERE in Jacksonville. I think the real reason why they want the bigger courthouse so we can have bigger courtroom fights to gain national publicity.

<sarcasm>Yeaaaa!! That's awesome!</sarcasm>

-Josh

[buckethead]

Meh.  The flawed planning and the principles of development are themselves the issue.

Things work according to design.  If you don't like the way that the downtown is working out, make no mistake.  It is functioning perfectly to its design.  Unfortunately the flaws create unintended outcomes.  Those outcomes arent going to stop until you fix the flaws.

I believe that flawed design basically revolves around a complete lack of focus on the public realm and its integration with private land uses and the negative impact of public policies and regulations.  You address these things and downtown (and the urban core for that matter) will be just fine.

Well, hence my list. The problem is that most of the items on it are making the same small subset of well-connected people money, at all of our expense, and so they become hard to get rid of. Meanwhile, everyone clings to one pie-in-the-sky waste of money after another as the silver-bullet, because that's all you can get done. The political structure prevents anyone from addressing the actual problems, but they have no problem wasting money on things like a guaranteed-to-be-empty convention center, or a new $100mm headquarters for JTA in an area with a pre-existing glut of office vacancies, since the same group owns the land, supplies the cement and materials, and/or will wind up with the construction contracts. Tammany Hall couldn't hold a candle to this place.

I think you're saying what the contributing members cannot. You're right on the money.

[Timkin]

You know there are lot of reality TV shows that featured some courtroom fights HERE in Jacksonville. I think the real reason why they want the bigger courthouse so we can have bigger courtroom fights to gain national publicity.

<sarcasm>Yeaaaa!! That's awesome!</sarcasm>

-Josh

In any event, its HUGE, insulting and a bit much for what we really could have gotten away with.. another Prime and expensive example of someone's vision who was suffering from visions of Grandeur  :/

[Garden guy]

This is what happens when little rich boys are allowed the purses of a city...should never have happened but knowing our city's voting record it probably will happen again very soon. The conservative leadership of this city has never really learned anything from it's past and the same families are doing the same thing as always so i  have very little hope of actual change in the way of away from what we've been getting.

[Timkin]

Well Garden Guy,, I hope purely for the good of the City and its people, that you are right on the first part, but wrong on the second..  I don't know either Brown or Hogan, but at this point, Since Audrey did not make it, I don't see that I have any choice but to vote for Alvin Brown, and hope ....H O P E  that he will run the city as it should be run, and not line he and his cronies pockets while the city continues to crumble.