Mayor Questions Validity of JTA's Transportation Center

[hightowerlover]

dont we have enough empty office space downtown to warrant jta's offices dont need to be located on-site?  if they keep those two separate, maybe someone would ride the skyway.

[Coolyfett]

Convention needs to move, amtrak & greyhound need to be in the sam building. These project is too big, takes too much land. Get the Convention Center out of there.

[thelakelander]

Great link.  It pretty much validates why a redesign is necessary.

1. Arrington makes a claim that it follows the city's master plan.  What exactly is the city's master plan for these individual parcels in LaVilla?  You'll be hard pressed to find one because it doesn't exist to that level of detail.

2. Arrington speaks of TOD but where exactly would it be located and how will the JRTC as configured be set up to promote seamless integration between this TOD?  In addition to that, how would this "TOD" fit in with the hidden master plan?

3. Arrington claims this is a complex site.  Other than the convention center, its all dirt parking lots.  Yes, there is a railroad and an interstate nearby but that's pretty common within a downtown or urban area.  One can only imagine if actual buildings existed north of Bay Street.  Judging from some of the transportation centers shown above, I'd say the JRTC is one of the easiest to design for, given the moonscape.

4. It was mentioned that to redesign would make the center cost more than $180 million.  Only if you refuse to cut the duplication and extras in the plan.  Quite frankly, we don't "need" a new office building or garages with as much as 2,000 spaces.  This isn't NYC.  We already have more parking spaces available than people in DT.  No level of redesign on paper will cost more than the $100 million you'd chop out by losing the office building, parking garages and combining a bus terminal or two.

5. Also mentioned was that this was being designed under the guidance of FDOT and JTA.  Florida is a pretty pitiful state as far as transit, bicycle and pedestrian focused planning and implementation goes.  Are there any examples of successful transit centers in operation that JTA and the FDOT have put together in the past?  If not, even our authorities may be novices at this, which opens the doors for more questions to be raised about design before spending $180 million.

6. According to Arrington, this sound design should stay the way it is and that if the convention center leaves, a private development will come in and make the area even better.  Look that the development schemes proposed in DT for the last 40 years and things will begin to sound like a broken record.  The flip side of that is, you end up with a vacant blighted box in the middle of your center, which fails to be as popular as you believe it may be (someone once said the skyway would have tons of riders too 20 years ago...), due to it being too spread out.

Anyway, I love that debate is now taking place concerning this issue.  Hopefully, the result will be a project that ends up being more efficient, cheaper and integrated into the surrounding environment than what exists today.

[Fallen Buckeye]

Even if they were concerned about parking it would be much cheaper to build compactly and use the other parcels for surface parking in the near term until an actual need for a parking garage actually arises. If we leave those parcels open then we could encourage future private TOD include extra parking as a part of their designs, too.

I agree that we don't need to build a new office when office vacancies are so high.

[exnewsman]

As I recall, the offices we part of the Regional Traffic Management Center that would house the whole alphabet soup of transportation --- FDOT, COJ traffic engineers, FHP, TPO, JTA, etc.  Consolidating all these groups under one roof is not a bad thing. Putting it at that location make sense if that's where you're putting a multi-modal transit center. The TPO moving would also free up their building behind Prudential.

[Jumpinjack]

This seems like a good planning effort

Transit Oriented Development With Walk Score

Phoenix, Arizona is using Walk Score data to analyze the performance of existing light rail stations and to model the performance of proposed stations. The Phoenix planning department combined Walk Score, housing, and employment data to measure transit oriented development (TOD).

“Walk Score data helps us understand which corridors and station locations perform best from a land use perspectiveâ€"which is often a key missing input in transportation planning where the primary focus is on ‘node’ (stations) rather than ‘place’ considerations,” said Curt Upton, the Light Rail Planning Coordinator for The City of Phoenix Planning and Development Services Department.




http://blog.walkscore.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/WS-Phoenix-TOD-3.pdf

[Jaxson]

I agree with a previous poster who wonders aloud why the Greyhound and Amtrak cannot be housed in existing buildings at the Prime Osborn already.  It would be simple to make the most of what we already have instead of trying to waste time trying to build a Taj Mahal.  The problem, IMHO, is that we are procrastinating abd delaying because we are trying to spend money on a giant new facility instead of making smaller but more realistic steps now. 
I happened upon the multimodal train/bus station in St. Louis, Missouri - it is nowhere near the mess that we are trying to plan in our humble city...

http://donnajgamache.wordpress.com/2008/10/18/st-louis-gateway-station-new-multimodal-transporation-center-soon-to-open/
http://www.greatamericanstations.com/station-news/st-louis-opens-26-4-million-transportation-hub/?searchterm=passenger

[thelakelander]

As I recall, the offices we part of the Regional Traffic Management Center that would house the whole alphabet soup of transportation --- FDOT, COJ traffic engineers, FHP, TPO, JTA, etc.  Consolidating all these groups under one roof is not a bad thing. Putting it at that location make sense if that's where you're putting a multi-modal transit center. The TPO moving would also free up their building behind Prudential.

Consolidating these offices is one thing.  However, building a new structure for them in a downtown with 24% vacancy rates is another.  COJ's consolidation of offices around Hemming Plaza and Everbank's proposal to head to the AT&T Tower are good models to follow.  We have several buildings within close proximity to existing skyway stations that could accommodate this need.  In addition, to being cheaper, placing a couple of 100 more office employees in the heart of the Northbank would be a great economic shot in the arm for struggling small businesses in the area.

[thelakelander]

I agree with a previous poster who wonders aloud why the Greyhound and Amtrak cannot be housed in existing buildings at the Prime Osborn already.  It would be simple to make the most of what we already have instead of trying to waste time trying to build a Taj Mahal.  The problem, IMHO, is that we are procrastinating abd delaying because we are trying to spend money on a giant new facility instead of making smaller but more realistic steps now. 
I happened upon the multimodal train/bus station in St. Louis, Missouri - it is nowhere near the mess that we are trying to plan in our humble city...

http://donnajgamache.wordpress.com/2008/10/18/st-louis-gateway-station-new-multimodal-transporation-center-soon-to-open/
http://www.greatamericanstations.com/station-news/st-louis-opens-26-4-million-transportation-hub/?searchterm=passenger

Here is that St. Louis transportation center with the JRTC overlayed on the same graphic. 



This thing is actually partially constructed under an interstate and its ramps to reach the railroad.  Now that's what I'd consider a complex urban site.  Not one with blocks and blocks of open space that happens to be adjacent to an interstate.  Oh, and it cost a fraction ($30 million) of what the JRTC is estimated.

[danem]

Sooo, that all said, can this thing be stopped? Is that actually possible??

[Ocklawaha]

TUFSU1 REVISION

The only catch being with the nonsense that typically comes out of JTA they'll probably claim that if the little building at the end of the Skyway were taken down all of the roads in the city would magically revert to dirt.

OCKLAWAHA

[thelakelander]

Sooo, that all said, can this thing be stopped? Is that actually possible??

Yes. The fact that no one has $180 million keeps it on the drawing board for years.  There are a lot of variables out there that could take things in several directions.  The convention center situation is a key factor Brown's downtown redevelopment plan.  Its also cheaper than the transportation center at full build out, meaning it will probably happen sooner.  Also, the fact that Brown and the council didn't hand over all the desired property and the media finally paying attention to this issue, creates pressure on JTA to modify or at least attempt to sell what they have from a holistic perspective.   Looking back a few years ago, this is the exact same path that ended up with the $1 billion dedicated busway plan dying, JTA doing commuter rail/streetcar studies, rail-based solutions making it into the city's visioning plans and TPO's 2035 LRTP.  It's also the same path that ended up with Peyton restoring Friendship Fountain.  My advice would be to keep beating people over the head and eventually some type of change will happen.

[duvaldude08]

Sooo, that all said, can this thing be stopped? Is that actually possible??

If the city does not grant them the land, they can not build it. so essentially it can be stopped

[brainstormer]

Bringing Amtrak and Greyhound into the Prime location right now would still allow most of the Prime to function as a convention center until a new one is built.  After the new convention center opens, then the POCC can go back to being a real terminal with retail and JTA offices if need be.  Then complete the station by building bus/skyway/streetcar on the block between Forsyth and Bay and then you're done.  Doesn't this just make sense?  Sounds like everyone would be happy except JTA.  Like someone else said, then sell the rest of the land for TOD.

[heights unknown]

The present rendering/plan for the transportation center is too big for our britches. Not only do we not have the metro population to support or justify it being this big, but the core and/or urban population does not justify a transportation center of this size either. In addition, comparing to other cities close to our size or even bigger, we are spending too much money. 180 million dollars is way too much money; it's a waste for a city of our size. Something along the size and cost of 30 million, in comparison to the other cities listed (comparison) would be more justifiable. There are some cities a little larger than Jax that have transportation centers that cost in the 10 to 20 million dollar range. Mayor Brown did the right and honorable thing of putting the brakes on this money monster. We can use the extra money for something else to upgrade downtown and/or the urban core.

"HU"