Is Riverside/Avondale Ready For Mellow Mushroom?

[Gonzo]

...one of my favorite words, right up there with 'lugubrious' ---that one only gets to use every now and then.

Now that, my friend, is a word! Not the cheeriest word in the English language considering the meaning, but a great word, none-the-less.

This whole thread has devolved in a classic case of schadenfreude. 

Why, yes it has.

[thelakelander]

Application # E.12-20

That isn't a separate proposal.  That's the application for MM. 

Edit: Tonyinchicago is correct in that this was a different proposal than MM.  It was for a beer garden. However, it was withdrawn because the building was non-contributing and off-street parking at that site wasn't possible.  It appears that building my be sitting underutilized for a while.

[ben says]

god i love this thread

[RiversideLoki]

god i love this thread

This...


And this...


And mostly this...


I just can't understand how area residents couldn't be happy with more dining options. It's mind-boggling.

[ben says]

^ Best post I've seen in a LONG time.

Yeah, the whole thing is mind boggling to me, too. I've said it once but I think it's worth saying again: I don't care if every single spot in Avondale is a restaurant. Restaurants are a sign of vitality, of people enjoying life, going out, living a little. Let Avondale be a little bit of foodie heaven in Jacksonville. Fine by me. Furthermore, re: parking. I live right by there. I've lived in cities. I've lived in places where you literally need to put signs in your driveway that read, "No parking or I'll shoot you." I'm FINE with that, too. The fact people are cramming into your neighborhood is a GOOD THING people!!! Let them come in droves. So you park a few blocks away one day...let's not cry over spilt milk...you live in a neighborhood cool enough where parking is even an issue! Congrats. Worst case scenario: you walk a little more. God forbid.

[Bewler]

No neighborhood should be asked to absorb drunks peeing, passing out or throwing up in their yards or driving down their streets. Nor should they be expected to have the fabric of their neighborhoods torn apart. 

I’m sorry, I just read this and I can’t ignore it.

What world do you inhabit? I seriously want to know in what reality has this ever happened as a result of someone opening a Mellow Mushroom. What’s next? Someone tries to open a coffee shop and suddenly there’s drive by shootings?  Maybe a new sushi restaurant will cause a nuclear meltdown.

[mtraininjax]

No neighborhood should be asked to absorb drunks peeing, passing out or throwing up in their yards or driving down their streets.

Go back and find the threads on Mojo #4 coming to Avondale, the naysayers said the same thing then. We seem to have somehow survived.

My lawn could use some more fertilizer, come to think of it. I miss the burning of rubber at 3 AM. Bring back my Bestside!

[Non-RedNeck Westsider]

No neighborhood should be asked to absorb drunks peeing, passing out or throwing up in their yards or driving down their streets.

Go back and find the threads on Mojo #4 coming to Avondale, the naysayers said the same thing then. We seem to have somehow survived.

My lawn could use some more fertilizer, come to think of it. I miss the burning of rubber at 3 AM. Bring back my Bestside!

Not a bad idea. 

http://www.metrojacksonville.com/forum/index.php?topic=9556.0

Seems like the same arguments being made.  Was there a thread opened up when Biscottis expanded into the other storefront?

[fieldafm]

That's just fear talking and has nothing to do with the issue at hand.

BTW,
These are actual Mellow Mushroom customers.  These are the people coming to pee on lawns and throw beer cans everywhere(nevertheless you can't leave a restaurant in town with beer anyway)










Just look at those eyes... they have the look of evil in them.

[mtraininjax]

Just look at those eyes... they have the look of evil in them.

Yes, these folks will certainly stand out from the rest of the Avondale MM patrons, come one, come all.

[Ocklawaha]

Yeah, this thread proves that if your not intolerant, fanatical, and incredibly ignorant, your probably trying too hard to be accepted in Avondale. Being the ancient one here, I seem to recall that this is a long standing rite of passage in Jacksonville, what other American city would tell Walt Disney, "Jacksonville doesn't deal with carnival people!" If that wasn't bad enough, we repeated the performance when Anheuser Busch purchased extra real estate in the north side, sometime about a stupid "Gardens," concept...

[Tacachale]

Yeah, this thread proves that if your not intolerant, fanatical, and incredibly ignorant, your probably trying too hard to be accepted in Avondale. Being the ancient one here, I seem to recall that this is a long standing rite of passage in Jacksonville, what other American city would tell Walt Disney, "Jacksonville doesn't deal with carnival people!" If that wasn't bad enough, we repeated the performance when Anheuser Busch purchased extra real estate in the north side, sometime about a stupid "Gardens," concept...

Plenty of places have fended off Disney's "carnival people" out of fear of what they'd do to their locality - notable examples are Prince William County, VA; Mineral King, California; and Knot's Berry Farm. And those are examples where Disney was actually interested in building - there was fortunately never any danger of Disney World being built here.

[Ocklawaha]

Yeah, this thread proves that if your not intolerant, fanatical, and incredibly ignorant, your probably trying too hard to be accepted in Avondale. Being the ancient one here, I seem to recall that this is a long standing rite of passage in Jacksonville, what other American city would tell Walt Disney, "Jacksonville doesn't deal with carnival people!" If that wasn't bad enough, we repeated the performance when Anheuser Busch purchased extra real estate in the north side, sometime about a stupid "Gardens," concept...

Plenty of places have fended off Disney's "carnival people" out of fear of what they'd do to their locality - notable examples are Prince William County, VA; Mineral King, California; and Knot's Berry Farm. And those are examples where Disney was actually interested in building - there was fortunately never any danger of Disney World being built here.

There was a great deal of excitement when Disney hit Florida, and rumors were rife about dozens of locations. I don't think we'll ever really know what might have been. But I'm comfortably certain, had Ed Ball met with him on behalf of Jacksonville, Disney World would probably be somewhere south or west of town. At that time Baker, Clay, Nassau and St. Johns and huge swaths of Duval were barely populated. It would have been an easy sell, as Jacksonville had more transportation infrastructure then any other city in the state.

[Tacachale]

Yeah, this thread proves that if your not intolerant, fanatical, and incredibly ignorant, your probably trying too hard to be accepted in Avondale. Being the ancient one here, I seem to recall that this is a long standing rite of passage in Jacksonville, what other American city would tell Walt Disney, "Jacksonville doesn't deal with carnival people!" If that wasn't bad enough, we repeated the performance when Anheuser Busch purchased extra real estate in the north side, sometime about a stupid "Gardens," concept...

Plenty of places have fended off Disney's "carnival people" out of fear of what they'd do to their locality - notable examples are Prince William County, VA; Mineral King, California; and Knot's Berry Farm. And those are examples where Disney was actually interested in building - there was fortunately never any danger of Disney World being built here.

There was a great deal of excitement when Disney hit Florida, and rumors were rife about dozens of locations. I don't think we'll ever really know what might have been. But I'm comfortably certain, had Ed Ball met with him on behalf of Jacksonville, Disney World would probably be somewhere south or west of town. At that time Baker, Clay, Nassau and St. Johns and huge swaths of Duval were barely populated. It would have been an easy sell, as Jacksonville had more transportation infrastructure then any other city in the state.

Well, we should know better by the end of this year, when the Harrison Price archives at UCF become available for viewing, but there's just no way Disney would ever have chosen Jacksonville, if he ever even considered it (which I doubt). We had two major things that would have turned Disney off - a lot of people, and the coast. From early on he wanted to avoid the coast due to its limitations on development and probable competition from the beaches. And he wanted to avoid large cities because he wasn't just trying to build a park - he was trying to build an "Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow" of his own. It is known that Disney scouted Palm Beach County, but ultimately rejected it for those very reasons - too many people, too close to the coast. Orange County, on the other hand, was sparsely populated, centrally located, and well connected by burgeoning highways.

If Disney did ever try to meet with Ed Ball at St. Joe (which may or may not actually have happened), it would have been to discuss land in a rural area, presumably in the Panhandle. It seems unlikely that that would have come together either, due to the lack of road access.

Besides that, there are myriad reasons not to want Disney World in or near your city. Umberto Eco's "Travels in Hyperreality" contains many. Practically speaking, Disney World has totally dictated the way the Orlando area has developed since, such as it is, and due to the way it was allowed to dictate its own pattern of development, it's debatable whether it will ever make up for the titanic costs of its growth.

Sorry to get so off topic...

[tayana42]

The proposed Mellow Mushroom development does not meet current legal requirements for parking.  It was the developer's choice to design the project knowing that he would not meet the required parking; he could reduce the scope of the project and we wouldn't be having any further discussion.   

The historic district zoning is EXTREMELY GENEROUS to restaurants who wish to come to the neighborhood, requiring between 50% and up to 100% fewer required parking spaces. 

The neighborhood would welcome a streetcar but that's many, many years in the future as is any decent public transport, so the parking issue must be considered with the current reality.

This same issue was the cause of Kickback's problems; planning on development that does not meet legal requirements and expecting the neighborhood to solve the problem.    Plan it but do it legally.