Walkable Commercial Districts: Lake Shore

[peestandingup]

I drive through this area almost everyday. Good article, but could have mentioned a bit more. Like the fact that it ties into the Herschel district (then Avondale) & Ortega with such fluidity.

And also, if you look close, a lot of the homes on a stretch of San Juan (around Cassat) have businesses inside of them:

[letters and numbers]

hey i lived there for two years it was a nice place to live

[Jimmy]

hey i lived there for two years it was a nice place to live

Same here.  I enjoyed my time in Lake Shore, on Fremont Street.  It was convenient to Riverside/Avondale and not quite as pricey. 

[ChriswUfGator]

I like Lakeshore, nice 'hood...

[ricker]

LOVE the suggested improvements!
preaching to the proverbial choir.
please do not tease.
Glad to see these highly traveled corridors recieve the recognition as urban versus rural/county outpost.
As a longtime resident of the westside and Riverside, the rampant speeding, loss of control, crash data, diminished setbacks, number of cross streets between such busy thoroughfares as Cassat SR111, U.S. 17, Blanding SR21, Herschel Street SR211, San Juan Avenue SR128, LakeShore Blvd east of Blanding, Park Street, Wilson Boulevard, Birkenhead Road to Wabash Avenue coupled with the proximity to our other nearby historic areas
Hamilton to Murray Hill, LakeShore Bv to Herschel St., SanJuan to Ortega, St.Johns Ave through Fairfax and Avondale, Park Street to Riverside and downtown...
... Yes it is true the current condition of SanJuan and Blanding does in fact divide the neighborhood.
Also true that not all is permanently lost.
Since the roadwidth almost fully paved from curb to curb, with sidewalk transitions mostly in place, bulb-outs/curb extensions creating pedestrian refuge with partial restoration of lost parking, street trees and high visibility cross-walks in key areas will work wonders to bring the adjustments needed in order to finally bring a level of safety sorely lacking.
The blight and commercial vacancies delivered decades ago by the decimation of this old district due to such extreme previous widening to accomodate the passing automobile without regard for parking and pedestrians will be a great element to see reversed.
As usual, metjax - Thanks for the post!

[ricker]

Saturday, June 4, 2011 @ 8am
Lake Shore Boulevard @ Hamilton St.
across from Lamb's Yacht Center.

A large scale beautification project NEEDS volunteers.
THis is a result of a coordinated effort with Greenscapes of Jax, JEA Forestry, LakeShoremiddle school, JSO school resource officer, parks and recreation and LAPS initiative (www.lapsjax.org / www.lapsjax.blogspot.com) which is phase 1 of a recently launched long term reforestation of the ballpark in the Marina Mile district.

Please consider coming out to lend a hand!

LakeShore Bv east of Blanding, Bayview elementary.
Thanks in advance!

[Tacachale]

Very good ideas here. I hadn't thought of this area as being a commercial district before.

[ricker]

Thanks for the helping hands!

[ricker]

Anyone know if the project limits of the restripe will cover SanJuan from Hyde Park Rd, east to Railroad?
on Blanding, could the project limits range from Wilson to SaintJohnsAve?

[Ocklawaha]

Lake Shore and San Jose were the first 'bus suburbs' in Jacksonville. In both cases the developers worked with the city to establish a bus line directly into the neighborhood. The Lake Shore Bus was fairly average and the San Jose bordered on what we call BRT today.

OCKLAWAHA

[ricker]

Which section of LakeShore?
1,2,3,4,or5?
When? Before Cassat was so named?  When it was Fuller St.?

When speaking of the area south of what was the old Richardson estate ( west of what is now St.Matthews ) and south of Shirley Ave at Blanding,
north and east of the cedar "river"
Original plats and current public records and deeds  use the name Lakeside Park and Lakeside Park II.

The original streetcar line from Riverside to Ortega had a two block extension from Herschel Street south of SanJuan Ave
( then named Gulf St. ) to Appleton Ave where the arches were built, as 1907-9 maps show.

Indeed Blanding north of the Cedar Creek was still SAINT JOHNS AVENUE on 1918 maps.

That fact is not debatable as it predates the existence "dot name creation" of state road 211.
See the similarity - Blanding is state road 21.
ONCE upon a time, Cassat/SR 111/ Edgewood Ave. was the loop around town from North Shore to Lake Shore.
Hyde park to Panama park.
This is far before the blanding park street fly over at u s 17 existed.

So to call Lakeshore a bus suburb just because big business tore out our streetcar lines throughout the nation, does not negate the current lay of the land.

To help the entire southwest side of the river in Duval, Seems to make so much more sense to tie- in Cedar Hills and other high density Inner ring neighborhoods and areas like Hyde Park by properly utilizing what structures and tangible resources we have and improving infrastructure along the way.

As I also agree with not paralleling other modes of transit, If commuter rail may oneday exist along u s 17, Tell me why we could not use the existing fly over from f s c j kent campus to carry a streetcar line out from downtown to blanding at wilson?

Plenty of parking exists,  plenty of space for a garage to be built exists,  police substation is located there, clearly I could go on and on and on.
I don't see a problem with a speedy streetcar using the b r t  lanes on blanding to whiz right on out orange park mall , make a left on kingsley and come right back towards town

I'm prepared to argue that in fact LakeShore section number 5 was planned with the density for streetcar.